How quickly can people become important to you?

Before my exchange to Canada, I was always a little bit anxious about how quickly people would get close to me and how quickly would it be for me to make friends or if I would get along well with my host family. Most of the people have never been in a situation like this. No matter where we are going we basically always know somebody there. I didn’t know anybody when I went to Canada. Well I got the information about my host family, but what does that include? No more than names and an address where you are going to live for five months. It was the first time in my life that I actually felt lonely when I left my parents at the airport of Frankfurt behind to live my dream of an exchange in Canada. After an eight hour flight to Ottawa, a six hour lonely stay there and another two hour flight to Winnipeg, the time arrived to meet my host family. The moment came earlier than I expected since the airports are built different in Canada and everybody can be in the area where you are picking up your suitcase. So I went down the escalator and saw ten eyes looking at me with joy in their brown eyes (Yes, all of them are brown!) I don’t know why but it felt as if I met them before and the situation wasn’t awkward at all. After a 26 hours journey, we were on the way to little Transcona, where your mood shouldn’t be too good, I was already able to joke around with the boys but just because they were so lovely from the first second on.

I never expected that it would be so hard to say good bye to a family which I got to know five months earlier. But it was. I never had a harder good bye than the one today. In only five months I got to know Carlos, Amie and their three amazing boys Mikhail, Kenyan and Treyton so well. I lived with them everyday. After Porridge every morning, Kenny and I waved to Carlos when he had to leave for work. And first thing when the boys got home was looking if I’m home and calling “Hanna, are you there?” and I simply replied with “Bonjour, mes amis!” and they knew that everything is alright. Even now, when I’m sitting in the plane, I can still feel the tears in my eyes when I think about this morning. Those three little boys who I get to call my three little brothers were calling my name for the last time and I got hugs and kisses for the last time. I will miss those little guys so much just because they mean the world to me and I can’t see them being in pain like today. Some of you might not be able to understand, but if you meet the right people, they can become close and important to you in a very short period of time and that’s what happened with the Walcotts and me.