Meant to be?

(typed August 24, 2010)

Today we found out what the language we will be learning. We were given a piece of paper with an animal written on it and we had to make the sound of the animal to match up with our other group and our trainer. I was a snake which meant that I will be learning Afrikaans. My first thought on language was that I would like to learn a Bantu language, but I think Afrikaans will be very beneficial for traveling along the country. A lot of people have a better idea of where their permanent site will be now based on their language, but with Afrikaans, it only narrows it down that it will be central or south, which is still very broad.

Tonight we met with a member of our host family (we move in tomorrow night). We played another matching game to find out family. My piece of the puzzle was the upper part of what looked to me like a longhorn. I don’t remember now the name of the animal, but to me, it was a longhorn. My host mom is Tine (pronounced Tina) and she seems very nice. We were sitting on the same row very close to each other, so it was easy to find the match. I will be the third trainee that she has hosted. She lives with her husband and grandson who is 17. I’ll know more about the actual residence once I move in tomorrow night. After our time of meeting was over, she gave me a candy “Tex”. How appropriate – the girl from Texas has the longhorn to match with the host family and gets a candy named “Tex”. It made me think – this is really meant to be.