Sarah Cooper: 'Swapping Children'
Posted by Franz Huber on Nov 26, 2016
... no, this is not some new TV Reality Show (which mostly are highly edited and highly tedious and nothing like reality). This is Real Life! Last week's Guest Speaker, Sarah Cooper (Photo on left, with our 'on loan' Exchange Student Kaho Koizumi from Japan), is the mum of Felicity, one of our most recent outbound Youth Exchange Students to Finland. Sarah is 'an old hand' at this game. In her presentation, an opening photo (in Black & White) showed her as a 14 year old, the age at which she herself went on an exchange to France. "I had an absolute ball!" she enthused... [name me one 14 year old kid who wouldn't... Ed.]Since then, Sarah and her husband Mark have hosted lots and lots of International Exchange Students, some organized via schools and some via Rotary. And it wasn't always an easy ride: recalling a girl who came from Japan: "It almost turned out to be a disaster. She was shy, she couldn't speak English. We tried all sorts of things, including getting Japanese food..." On the other hand, Sarah gave us recollections of several others, from France, Osaka (Japan), Emma from Toronto (Canada). Emma had never been to the beach in her life before! Emmie, another Japanese girl. "Emmie was always very quiet, appeared worried... Then, upon her return home, we received a handwritten letter from her: 'I had the time of my life!' she wrote." Just goes to say...
Of course, we all recall our very own Laura Burtscher from Austria (see photo right, cooking Goulash at Sarah's), whom the Coopers hosted whilst their daughter Felicity was in Finland. "It's like having another family in another country. Everything in life is a circle - I have now 'daughters' all over the world".
Sarah has agreed to return again in the new year to talk about the psychological aspects of Youth Exchange, both from the student's as well as from the host parents' point of view. With herself and two of her daughters having done exchanges in foreign language countries and having hosted students from all corners of the world, who would be better qualified? Looking forward to it!