Thanks For Memories, Lena

Sat., May 6, 2000

Paul Landsverk Special To Opinion

The foreign exchange student needed a place to stay a few short weeks during the spring semester. My daughter Melissa assured her German teacher that our family would be more than happy to have her at our house.

“What!?” I asked. “Oh, well,” my wife Sue assured me, “It’s only for a few weeks.”

We went to Mike Miller’s German class at Shadle Park High School and listened to him explain that Shadle had a long-standing exchange arrangement with a school in the village of Neukirchen in the state of Hesse, Germany.

Lena Geisel, our young charge, was a quiet, country girl. She didn’t ask much from us and cheerfully accepted her shared room with Melissa. At first, we communicated with show and tell, but her English improved dramatically toward the end of her stay.

Melissa had just gotten her driver’s license and did her best to show Lena around. We found that with teenagers everywhere, certain things are universal, such as going to the mall and knowing popular music groups. No explanation was needed when she saw a Britney Spears poster on my son Josh’s wall.

We did things that we haven’t done as a family for a long time, such as looking at the Spokane falls in Riverfront Park and riding the gondola. We also took a day trip to Haugan, Mont. The Silver Dollar Bar was unique, as was stopping by the Cataldo Mission on our way back. We may think life in Spokane is ordinary, but for someone from nine time zones away, it was matchless.

When someone unknown plops in on you, it forces you - in a good way - to examine your cultural beliefs and surroundings. International relations start on a one-to-one basis, not on foreign policy declarations. Lena will go back to her country and tell her family and peers how it was here. She will no doubt express her disbelief in the way Americans eat, like going back for seconds and thirds at a restaurant buffet. She will hopefully express to them that Americans in general are a generous people.

Once she’s back home and sweeping generalizations about Americans surface, she and the others in her group will know that they aren’t necessarily true.

The time went by too fast. The airport goodbye was predictably sad. Thank you, Lena for being part of our family for a while.

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