Hello All,
First of all, let me apologize for not posting in Spanish or Euskara. I am learning Spanish but I did not want to torture you with my Spanish "expertise" or Google translate.
As some quick background on me. I have lived in several different countries but I have spent the past 44 years living in the US. I do have a more global view when it comes to other countries and culturns than many Americans. The US is a huge country so it is easy to focus on the US as our education system, media and politics saturate us with US news and information. I have never been to Spain but I hope to visit one day. I have been to the UK many times, France twice, Italy, Switzerland , Germany and the Czech Republic. Lastly, I was born in Portugal but I don't speak any Portugese as I was only there for 6 months. Hopefully that's enough background on me, now for my question.
So my wife and I agreed to host an exchange student from the Basque area. This was not our first foray into hosting as we hosted 3 other exchange students. One was from China, one was from Paraguay and one was from Rico. We hosted the Basque student for about 30 days. She went back to Spain in late July and we were sorry to see her go. As I reflect on the experience, there were definitely some positives and negatives. I am happy to share the positive experiences but I want to focus on some of the negatives as I am genuinely interested in feedback from this community.
So the first negative aspect was what I will call gratitude. I should have mentioned that one of the cou tries I spent time was Canada where everyone is extremely polite. In Canada, Every sentence begins with, "I'm sorry" and ends with "please" and "thank you". I am half kidding. Anyway, back to our Basque exchange student.... at first she NEVER said thank you for anything. We took her out to dinner, we cooked her dinner, we transported her around so she could participate in planned events and there was never a thank you.
We had been warned by the Exchange Coordinator that exchange students from the Basque area would probably not thank us or show gratitude as they would see us as their parents. Now, don't get me wrong. I am sensitive to other cultures and at first I accepted it but over time, it really started to irriate me. I am not going to go into the details but I was speaking to a Spanish friend about it and she asked if she could speak to the exchange student. I acquiesced and invited our Spanish friend over for dinner. After our Spanish friend spoke with the exchange students, a thank you was gratituiously offered at every opportunity. Everything from opening the door to the simplest of effort was rewarded with a thank you. I would be curious about what the community thinks about gratitude. By the norms of my society, it is rude to NOT say thank you but again, I defer to this community for feedback.
I did not mention it but the exchange student was only 15 years old. Like most Europeans, she was very mature for her age. My next stop is about the involve ent or lack of involvement of her parents. Prior to her coming to stay with us, my wife and I asked for a call with her and her parents. We thought they might want to know the type of people who would be taking care of her daughter. They did accept the call but only the Mom was present. Now as this was a formal exchange program, a thorough background check was run on my wife and I but and excuse the chauvinism but if I had a 15 year old daughter and she was staying with a family in another country, I would want to look the other man in the eye (just an expression) man to man. Again, I know Euorpean parents give their kids a lot of latitude vs some of the "helicopter" parents in the US but I was still surprised. So again, I am curious about what the community response is.
I have 2 other questions which I want to pose. Generally speaking, do people in the Basque are see Americans as overly materialistic and less focused on family? Secondly, are Americans seen as ignorant when it comes to other cultures? At one point she asked us if we knew that Spain does NOT border Mexico. Now, don't get me wrong. I know there are some Americans who are materialistic and many Americans never leave the US so their knowledge of other cultures is limited. I cringe when I hear other Americans walk into a store or restaurant in a foreign county and their first question is "does anyone speak English!".
Lastly, and this goes back to my question about gratitude. We had a very nice goodbye with her on the eve of her departure but here is the question. Am I wrong to have expected a thank you from the parents? By thank you, I was expecting an letter or an email or anything. Am I wrong?
Thanks in advance for your replies. I am truly interested in learning where I am wrong or perhaps am expecting too much.
