Its my third time in the Netherlands- I love this country! I love the food, the houses, the people, the bicycles.. It was hard leaving belgium and saying goodbye to my host-family there, I loved them so much! I always think that theres no way I ll have a better family next time, but Im always surprised cause they end up to be just as nice. I loved all my host-families so far, but I have a few that were very special.
This is one of them, Renee and Gerry, she is dutch and he is from Australia and they have 6 kids. 2 of them live at home, 2 very gorgeous and intelligent boys, 10 and 12 (third week i have a crush on my host-brothers, too bad they are more than 10 years younger). These boys are very cool. they speak perfect english and we play UNO every day (i love UNO). It was funny cause the first time we played we all had different rules and we almost had a fight over it! My roommate is Susan from New Zealand (shes a bad loser like me), and they play it completely different there.
Ok enough about UNO. I had an amazing experience this week that made me think a lot. On Wednesday a group of us went to a homeless shelter and it was the first time that I actually spent a lot of time and got to know homeless people. It was amazing.. A group of people didnt like it and they wanted to get out of there immediately, but for some reason, I felt that if I ever had a hard time in life and lost everything, I could stay in a place like that until I was able to get back on my feet. It was like a community, people respected each other and had duties and depended on each other. 23 men and 1 woman lived there. I got to know some of the men and the woman, and she gave me a t-shirt and a hat and shared some of her life with me. And 1 of the men was from Somalia, he was 28 but he looked 40.. His story was very interesting, he was in the somalian army when he was just 14.. I always knew it, but now I really realize it, there are horrible things going on in this world.. In the afternoon we met with the whole group and had a debate about the social welfare in holland in comparison with the US. Homeless people here in Holland get a lot of money, and some people argued that getting so much money doesnt give you any motivation to get out of it. They obviously spend all that money in drugs and alcohol, and its a vicious circle. In America apparently you get more counceling and help to get out of this life...
I wish I could write more but I spend too much time on the computer this week, and not enough time with my host family, I feel bad for that! I ll try to write more soon, I hope you are all doing great and enjoying every minute! Eleni mou epiasa to email sou, tha sou apantisw sintoma, se agapw kai mou leipeis!
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