20. Making The Grade And The Green Card
My family hosted a number of exchange students while we were growing up. We hosted about seven high school students over the course of my childhood; each stayed for a year in our house, attended high school in our town etc.
One girl, Irina, from Russia, came to us no differently than any of the other students had—through the AFS program. To be a student through AFS meant you had to fill out an application, be 17-18 years old, be attending high school in your home country, whatever. So Irina arrives as our exchange student. She goes to high school in our small hometown on Cape Cod Massachusetts. But at Christmas time she says she has to go home to Russia because her mother was extremely sick.
Going home during the exchange year is really unusual, really rare. So OK fine she’s going to Russia for the Christmas break, no big deal, she’ll be back in January. Except she never comes back. AFS can’t find her, we don’t know where she is, if she made it to Russia, if she’s hurt, nothing. And we’re terrified because we’re her host family during this year and we always took the students in like family.
Anyways she’s gone. Maybe three months later my mom is driving through our tiny town (again, middle of nowhere Cape Cod) and she sees Irina, with what looks like her mom, and some other kids. Turns out Irina has graduated high school in Russia already, was like 25 with children and had posed as an exchange student so she could “case” the place before bringing the rest of her family.