As frost begins to warm and the sun shines, there is no better time than now to hear a heartwarming story from one of our Aspect students, Sofie from the Czech Republic! Sofie is spending her 2023/24 school year in Nebraska with the Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) program sponsored by the Department of State. She was approached by another student who shared a touching story about a lost family rhyme that was once sung by her Czech grandmother before her passing. Read below to find out how Sofie was able to make a new friend in this encounter!
I was walking during lunch, just like every day, with one of my friends when another girl stopped us. She greeted my friend, who went to her class right after, and I stayed with the unknown girl. She asked me if it is true that I am a foreign exchange student from the Czech Republic and seemed very interested since she has Czech family roots.
We exchanged a few words, and as I was about to leave, she urgently asked me whether I knew a “Czech old saying for kids” while gesturing in a circular motion with her finger on her palm. She said she doesn’t remember any of the words, only that it was some sort of finger play. She told me that her Czech grandma used to say this poem to her and her younger brother all the time when they were younger and that she promised to teach her.
However, she sadly never got to learn, since her grandma passed away from cancer when she was too young to understand or remember the words. I said I recognized it as the “Vařila myšička kašičku” finger play, and started showing her. She got really excited and said that is what she was looking for, and that she was also going to text her mom immediately since apparently, this has been somewhat of a family mystery to them for years. After school ended, I added her on Snapchat and sent her a video and the translated text of the saying. In the end, I made a new friend who I now know as Kristin, and I was very happy and excited to help!
Are you interested in making a student like Sofie a part of your family? We are looking for American host families to welcome a student for the upcoming 2024-25 school year! Check out the profiles of our wonderful students! New profiles go online every Thursday!
