Hanna Fernando-Pacua (PHILIPPINES) temporarily leaves her comfort zone to travel, serve, and perform around the world in five months. She hopes to share with you this very meaningful experience.

Up with People provides students with an extraordinary semester of traveling the world. As a student your perspectives on the world will never be the same. UWP is for that certain student who's looking for an intense, hands-on, involved global educational experience. The program addresses the very real need for young adults and leaders who have global perspectives, intercultural understanding, knowledge of worldwide social issues, leadership skills and a dedication to community service. For more information, visit www.upwithpeople.org.

HANNA's SATTELITE SITE and GALLERY (+ photos, videos, calendar) http://www.bananaspinuwp.multiply.com/

Monday, July 9, 2007

My First Host Family

UWP gives us a host family code and we’re supposed to find that item so we can meet our host families. Mine was “volleyball” , since the theme for this leg of the tour was “all things related to summer”

It was fun looking at the rows of happy faces carrying all sorts of things – ranging from lemonade, picnic basket, beach ball, sand box – and even swim trunks! I found out that I had a roommate staying with the same host family – Lesley from Tucson, Arizona. She’s also 25 years old, and a dance teacher.

From afar, we already saw Laurie and Bill throwing a volleyball up and down “They look kinda cool” Lesley whispered.

And indeed they were – married for 14 years , they were not able to have any kids. They said they compensated for this by doing all sorts of volunteer work. Like being host family to a lot of youth programs and being involved in the Little Brothers Little Sisters program of America, where they take care of kids from time to time. Bill is a military brat and Laurie used to be in the army as a spy (how cool is that!). Both of them are really the outdoorsy type of people!

They have a darling home with a terrace and natural airconditioning which really fascinated me. It was a contraption which extracts cold air from outside and blows it inside the home! Para talagang aircon. Summer in Colorado is really hot.

Tired as we were… they took us and their friend Gina to the Cherry Arts Festival – which is an annual music and arts festival in an uppity (“hoidy toity” – their version of “wursh-wursh” hehe) part of Denver. There was live music and a lot of artists booths selling sculpture, jewelry, photographs and paintings. Really nice!

Photo shows Lesley, Gina (the Zempels' good friend), me, Laurie and Bill at the Cherry Arts Festival

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