It's a Match!

We heard from the Fresh Air lady at last! We have a match! Our boy, we will call him C, will be arriving on July 10th on the bus to Ocean County. We'll have to go down to Toms River to get him and then return him to the same, I believe on the 21st. I think his visit will be from a Thursday through a Monday (ten days). The Monday is the day that Brian starts his baseball camp, so depending on how it all goes, I may or may not have him skip the first few hours to come and wave goodbye to the bus. I guess it will be up to him.

Unfortunately, C will not be able to attend the camp with Brian. I don't know if he was offered it and declined, or if the Fresh Air people just decided it was too much trouble. But if all goes well and we get along, he can certainly do it next year, if Brian is still signing up and the weeks correspond. The woman told me he had "accepted the invitation", so he was shown our application and knows all the things that we said we like to do: baseball, water parks, beach, and swimming.

So now I am all sorts of nervous. C is from the Bronx, and his 'guardian' is a man! I expected to be calling a mom with my introduction, so I have to take a little time to think about what I should say. He is 11, but he will turn 12 on the 11th of July, so the day after he gets here! We'll have to plan something special for him that day.

All of this dwelling on the school and their answers about the exchange student have somewhat lessened the anxiety of awaiting the word from Fresh Air. I was thinking of calling the woman this week, just to make sure our offer to take in a child for the camp wasn't causing too much confusion.

So that is the news of the night. There is, of course, not an iota of news on the exchange student front - not so much as an email responding to my emails last night to the agency reps about the emails I received from the assistant superintendent. I know that the school district is not being responsive; but I can't help but wonder if part of the delay is the agency rep herself. It may not be at all, for sure this woman at the schools is awfully rude; but perhaps someone with a lot of school experience would have known the right thing to say to break down the barriers. This rep is very nice, and she isn't at all annoying; but she comes across as a little inexperienced, like the time that she sent the wrong file to the Principal when we thought we were getting J2 from Sweden, and before that she had attached the same profile twice when she thought she had sent me two. On the other hand, they're not getting back to ME either, so I can only hope this neglectful woman is doing a more thorough job in the other aspects of her position.