Friday, June 5, 2015

Sepia Saturday: The Summer Games

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.



This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt of a man concentrating on a game of chess reminds me how games once helped bridge the conversation gap between our family and a summer visitor.

In the summer of 1993, our family joined 31 other families in Chesapeake and Portsmouth to host 32 foreign exchange students from Spain. Even though my daughters were much younger than the 15-17 year-olds who would be visiting Virginia, I thought this would be an educational addition to our summer plans. Besides, my girls were just starting to study Spanish in school, so the opportunity to practice the language would surely be a bonus.

Weeks before the students arrived, we exchanged letters. I was encouraged by our student’s beautiful handwriting and strong writing skills. Granted, hers wasn’t “perfect English,” but it was clear enough to boost my confidence that six weeks with a Spanish teen would go fairly easily. After all, she had been studying English for over three years. 

June 1993 Wendy and girls greeting foreign exchange students  http://jollettetc.blogspot.com
Zoe, Wendy, Jordan waiting for Iratxe
On the day of arrival, all the families waited in the parking lot for the bus that was transporting our guests from Dulles to Hampton Roads. It was a festive sight as everyone came with flowers and balloons of welcome. We all cheered as 32 backpack-laden teens bounded down the steps, thrilled by the reception. With clip-board and pen in hand, the coordinator quickly matched student to family.

As soon as we saw Iratxe, we were struck by her clothes and exotic look. She had maroon hair – fairly common today – but in 1993, that seemed so unusual and very European.

Iratxe Iturbe  http://jollettetc.blogspot.com
Iratxe from Guernica, Spain

Iratxe was struck by the heat.  It was a hot and humid day, very typical for Hampton Roads. A nice ride in an air conditioned car would solve that problem while giving us time to get acquainted. But that’s when all of us had a reality check. We could not understand a word Iratxe said. It was not a problem of accent. It was the pitch of her voice. It was her pronunciation. What was worse was that she did not understand us either.

Suddenly I could not get enough air as panic set in. How would we manage six long weeks of THIS?

from Flickr

Fortunately, kids are kids, and they discovered a way to BE together. Cards. The game of UNO was the perfect first step in breaking the language barrier. In fact, the game is even marketed as a game that works across cultures and languages. The rules of play were easy to say in just a word or two or by demonstration. It seemed that a day did not go by that Iratxe was not roped into a game of UNO.

As communication problems lessened, they graduated to other card games like Rummy. 

Girls playing cards http://jollettetc.blogspot.com
Zoe, Jordan, Iratxe playing Rummy

Of course, our summer with Iratxe was more than just card games. We showed her the local attractions, like Jamestown.  

Jordan challenged the blacksmith to a game
resembling horseshoes while Iratxe observed (far right)

We had already planned a trip to Canada as well, so we were glad to take her along. What an exceptional opportunity for Iratxe to see so much of America and Canada. We drove from Virginia to Pennsylvania, to New York, and on to Toronto. What did Iratxe see? The inside of her eyelids. The girl slept every time we got in the car.

When we stopped for meals or a break, we rejuvenated with a game of Frisbee.

Frisbee in Toronto  http://jollettetc.blogspot.com
Iratxe, Jordan, Zoe, Barry playing with a soft Frisbee
in a park in a Chinese neighborhood in Toronto

Shuffleboard table in our lake house
Our final stop in Ontario was Gananoque to tour the 1000 Islands. It was at our hotel there that we were introduced to the game of table shuffleboard. Off the restaurant was a pub with bar, pool tables, darts, and shuffleboard. There was never a question about what to do at night – we were at that shuffleboard table.

By the end of Iratxe’s visit, her English had improved dramatically. On her last day with us, she confessed that she was mortified at how bad her English was just a few weeks before. In Spain her grades in English were good, and she thought she was speaking well. She even revealed that she would sit in her bedroom, planning what she would say to us and then practicing before coming downstairs to be with us. How sad is that!

I can’t help thinking that the games we played in those early days made it easy for Iratxe to “fit in” when she felt so terribly alone and apart.

Memories of the fun we had as a family plus one prompted us to purchase a shuffleboard table for our vacation home.  When our girls come to spend time at Smith Mountain Lake, Iratxe will not be there to show off her skills at knocking her opponent’s puck into the sawdust, but I am sure we will recall how much fun we had with Iratxe in the summer of ’93.

If you’re game, please visit Sepia Saturday to see what my friends are playing today.
 

© 2015, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

36 comments:

  1. Uno is a PERFECT multi-lingual game -- we even played in sign language, which was great for introducing numbers...

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    1. It's just a GOOD game, period. All ages can play and you don't have to think really hard. That's a plus.

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  2. As I continued to read I kept hoping you'd let us know how to pronounce Iratxe's name. How do you pronounce it? It sounds like you all had a wonderful summer. Have you remained in touch with Iratxe at all? And yes, games are great ice breakers as well as tutorials!

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    1. Oh Gail, we said her name wrong the whole summer. She kept trying to teach us, but we couldn't figure out what she was saying, so she just let us say what we thought which was Ear-ROT-Zee. But I believe it should be pronounced EEE Rah TAY.

      We kept up for a short while. I've looked for her recently on Facebook and I think I've found her but her face is turned in the photo. Even turned, she looks exactly as she did in 1993 although she should now be 39.

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  3. In my experience, teenage girls NEVER look at the scenery when travelling long distances by car. Our girls just weren't interested, even if they were awake. Great ideas for icebreakers, those games were.

    Did you ask her if her family lived in Guernica during the Spanish Civil War? I went to the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid in 2013 specifically to see Picasso's painting "Guernika."

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    1. Good point, Brett, about never looking at scenery.
      Iratxe's family has lived in the Basque region for a long time, so I'm sure someone was there during the Spanish Civil War. She was surprised that I was familiar with the painting -- I remember my art history professor's lecture on it. I would love to see it some day.

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  4. It sounds as though you all had fun during the six weeks. I’m sure Iratxe has lots of fond memories of her time with you.

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  5. Every Blogpost I am reading today is reminding me of games I have so enjoyed but forgotten about and Uno fits perfectly into this category. What better way to build friendships than games such as this.

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    1. I hear you! It's always fun to see how a simple prompt will generate such great stories and memories.

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  6. It sounds like you communicated very well by the end of Iratze's stay with you, despite the language problems, and playing those games was a great icebreaker!

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    1. Night and day difference in those few weeks.

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  7. Sounds like a fun time was had by all. One of my granddaughter's used to fall asleep as soon as she got in the car. The rest seem to be on their electronic devices most of the time. I don't get it as I always loved to watch the scenery as we rode along.

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    1. As a kid, we had nothing but scenery to look at. I think there might have been a few car games available even back then but I remember more clearly buying car games for my girls.

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  8. I've never played Uno, but I have spent time as a teenager (okay 20 year old) as an exchange student in a foreign country and know what it's like not being able to speak the language. I almost wish my host family were as much fun as your were to Iratxe (but they at least spoke fluent English, which was a godsend!)

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    1. I can't imagine trying to spend the day speaking a foreign language. In Italy, my daughter was speaking Italian to the taxi driver who knew a little English and he couldn't understand anything she said even though she was reading the words from an English-Italian dictionary.

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  9. Uno is a great game, we've played it with babies on our knees. Hope you contact your Spanish visitor again.

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  10. Poor you! Poor Iratxe! But it all turned out in the end. You were all very brave :)

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  11. Your children would have benefited from contact with someone from a different culture.

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  12. Fun and games. What a great experience for all of you having Iratxe for a visit. I'm still trying to get used to maroon hair!!

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    1. Maroon seems calm compared to the hot pink and baby blue.

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  13. We had an 'exchange' student from New Zealand twice (same boy) for a week each time. It was so good to learn about different cultures and especially good for my girls to have a young man in the house. We still keep up with him today and it, too, was in the early 90's.

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    1. That's wonderful that you have kept in touch with your exchange student. I feel bad losing contact with mine.

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  14. What a wonderful experience! That was neat how the gap in language was bridged by "simple" games! Did you keep in touch with Iratxe over the years?

    betty

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    1. For awhile, yes, but then we just drifted. I'm sure the girls were just too young and I was too old. I don't know.

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  15. Oh! That must have been very uncomfortable for your family and Iratxe at first because of the lack of communication issues. Sounds like things went quite well as time went by though.

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    1. At first yes, but we felt like a family within a few weeks.

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  16. Great story of a visit and the games you played which helped smooth social gaps. They do that don't they?

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  17. My grandkids like nothing better than to play games. They do have a way of crossing age and language barriers. Great story.

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    1. I'm glad that kids still enjoy games. If nothing else, it brings people together and TALKING will ensue.

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  18. I hope you kept in touch with her.

    I had forgotten about UNO. I know I had the game, but now I will go nuts until I can find it.

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    1. UNO is easily replaced. I'm saying that after throwing ours out because so many cards were missing.

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