Dear Host family,
First of all I want to thank-you for giving me a home for about 11 month and chance to learn about Paraguay and your culture.
Now I want to indroduce myself.
My name is Tamara Scheffner and I was born at 31th march 1993, so I will be 17 when my exchange year starts. I live with my parents and my sister, Patricia, in Walldorf, a little village near Heidelberg, in the south of Germany.
I like laughing, spontaneity and I am flexible. Many people, who don’t know me, think about me that I’m a shy person, but as soon as they talk to me for longer they are confused about me because I’m talking a lot. I asked some good friends of mine how they would describe me and nearly all of them said: clever, creative, kind, helpful, spontaneously, humorous and a very good friend.
My mum, Monika Scheffner, works in the cantine for SAP ( a big company). My dad, Karlheinz Scheffner, is a technician.
I’m very glad that my parents want to give me the chance to do an exchange year. I am open-minded and interested in new things.
I have a very good relationship to my sister. Sometimes we’ve got a little fight, but I think that’s normal. I would never change her. Also with my parents I have a good relationship.
I see my grandparents regularly, because they don’t live far away. My dad’s mum died when I was 7. So I only have one grandmother. My two grandfather are still alive.
The rest of my kinship lives in Bavaria, so I see them one or two times a year.
To my family also belong my sister’s rabbit, two guinea pigs and my hamster.
Our family life is a regular one, at least during the schooldays. My mother wakes up my sister and me early, so that I get to the bus on time and my sister leaves the house on time. When I come home from school, mummy has already cooked lunch. Lunch is very important at my family. Everybody eats together and nobody is alone. After the lunch we do our homework or learn for the next classroom test. In the early evening Patricia goes to her handball training and I go to the flute lessons. On holiday everything goes a little bit differently because everybody is at home.
I’ve played the flute for about 5 years now. In February 2005 I started to play the flute in a band.
It gives a pleasure to me to make music with other people. I think music is more than only a few tones. My flute teacher has said the other day that music connects people. It doesn’t matter which language they speak or what’s their skin color. And I think that’s right.
I hope I can bring my flute with me and give you a pleasure with it.
In spring, 2008 I discovered my second passion, beside making music: dancing.
I dance state kind and Latin, but I like the Latin-American dances better. Latin-American dances are an expression of pure joy of life, of emotions and feelings which European cannot understand at all.
I am also active in an honourary capacity in the DLRG. The DLRG is a club where you can swim. It’s one of the oldest clubs in Germany. Here I have an own child group which I teach life saving.
Why I do spend one school year abroad? So far away from my friends, my family and my hobbies? I think, it is due to the fact that I like to experience something, to get to know new cultures and people, and that new surroundings fascinate me. Already as a small child I went in vacation with my family, by our caravan, without knowing certainly where we will spend our holidays. In 2007 I was, on a stundent exchange organised by school, in England for 10 days. Even if I had rather less luck with my host family, I decided , in 2008,to do a new stay in a host family. This time I went to South France and got to know during two weeks the French culture. Then it was clear for me: I want once more away, to an absolute foreign country, in a country it’s culture I am not familiar with. I would like to understand a new culture and become more independent. When the wife of my mom’s cousin told me that she was a year in England with AFS and called it "the thing that could ever happend“, was clear for me: I would like to do an exchange year. With AFS.
I have decided for Latin America what above all is due to the fact that I find the Latin-American culture very impressive. I admire this joy of life of the Latinos . One of my friends is a Brazilian. He told me a lot about Latin America, what encouraged me to apply for Latin America. Moreover, my aunt Susanne has studied Spanish and share with me the joy of the Latin-American culture and the Spanish language. My other aunt Ulrike has a godchild in Peru. So she has already been to Peru and told me that it was amazing.
I think in a world which grows together more and more , it is important to understand other cultures and to show them tolerance. I would really like to get to know your country and people , not only a two-week vacation and come back with a heap more nicely, but useless memories of something that happend in the past.
I would like to learn how to manage in a foreign culture, I would like to become a part of this foreign world, I want to understand and take with me so many impressions for my later life . In one year it happens a lot. One year in Latin America would bring me beside new linguistic proficiency and numerous great experiences and new friends. Good friendships which will hold maybe lifelong. It would bring me to the second native country in the world and into understanding for other cultures. It will be the first big step for me to understanding different nations and independence.
I am young, but now I would like to start, seeing and learning.
I hope, this letter will give you an impression of about me and my life.
I’m looking forward to meeting you
Lots of love from Germany,
Tamara
kann sich bitte jemand, den durchlesen und ggf verbessern?
Danke schon mal vorraus