Welcoming the World: Sarah's Blue Marble Bash Speech
Our annual Blue Marble Bash event always features three speeches from students and community members who share their FIUTS stories with guests. Since we cannot gather in person this year, we’ve recorded our three speakers to be a part of our Virtual Bash!
Our second speaker is Sarah Rutherford-Bundy. Sarah and her family, including her husband and two elementary school-age children, have volunteered with FIUTS as short-term homestay hosts since 2012. Sarah tells the story of how being a host has brought the world into her home, allowing her and her family to make meaningful personal connections with places that they otherwise only would have learned about through the media.
The FIUTS Homestay Program has connected students with caring, welcoming hosts like Sarah for over 70 years, creating lifelong cross-cultural connections that span generations and continents. Watch Sarah’s speech (or read the full text below) and support the next generation of hosts and students at www.fiuts.org/bash.
Sarah and her family have hosted international students for years. She shares her thoughts on what makes FIUTS homestay so impactful.
Full Text of Sarah’s Speech
Hello! My name is Sarah Rutherford-Bundy and my family and I have been hosting students through FIUTS since 2012. For me, being a host family feels like familiar territory. In 1989, when I was 14, I traveled to the former Soviet Union with an exchange program through the Seattle Public Schools. This was my first time away from home and my first international trip. In Tashkent, Uzbekistan, I stayed with an Uzbek family in their home in a neighborhood in the city. They had three daughters and the oldest one, Kamilla was my age. I spoke almost no Uzbek and only a little bit of Russian and she spoke almost no English but we bonded. We would go into the street in the evening and play games with the neighbors as the sun went down. We played music on the walkman that I brought, usually Madonna, and danced to the Uzbek music that I loved in their living room. There was always lots of laughing and for me, so much awe at experiencing life in another part of the world where everything was different: the smells, the homes, the food, the schools, and the blankets that I slept under at night.
I fell in love, with Tashkent, the people I met there, and travel. My best Facebook moment was when Kamilla found me, 20 years later. We have resumed our friendship and I know now that having me stay with them also had a big impact on their lives.
Sarah with hosts student and SUSI program participant Lelo from Zimbabwe
When I found FIUTS through a friend’s post on Facebook, I realized that my home could be the place that others could have experiences like I did in Uzbekistan. My husband, our kids and I could provide family for students from around the world; we could nurture them with homemade food, a comfortable home and companionship. And, we would benefit from getting to know these great young adults. We were excited to host but I had no idea it would be so fun to work with FIUTS and the young people chosen to participate in the exchanges. And, so, we have hosted yearly for several different programs and we have had many amazing experiences with our FIUTS guests. Because we have hosted students from Bosnia and Herzegovina four times, we have learned so much about that country and the impact of war on the people. It definitely brought us a new understanding of what it was like to live through that, an event that we remember reading about in the newspaper from the safety of our homes in the US. Last spring, Soulema from Tunisia brought us bsisa, a staple food of that part of the world that we didn’t even know existed. She also brought canned stew and meatballs made by her mother, and bread from the market in Tunis. My husband and I were blown away by the feast that she produced from her suitcase! I love the times that our students have spent with us at the dinner table talking for hours about their lives and asking questions about life in Seattle. I love it when a student finds something here that they think is so cool and surprising, like when Thea, from Trinidad noticed the Free Little Libraries on her walk home from UW, or when they come home from a day with FIUTS, energized from something they learned about.
Meanwhile, my kids are learning about the world from our guests while experiencing the joy of having an older sibling to play with. When a student arrives in our home, it is usually the kids that take them around the house and inevitably, they sit down and play games or draw together. My daughter saw her first movie in a theatre with Manuel from Angola. We saw the movie Sing, she sat on my lap and he sang his way through that movie with popcorn and so much joy. Mari and I will never forget it. My son can’t wait to travel to China because he loves the dumplings that Jundi made for us during his stay. Our kids are currently in elementary school but before we know it they will be teenagers and they will have grown up with FIUTS students coming and going. And, I am excited for the day when we host students the age of my kids because I know that some important connections will be made.
Hosting allows us to experience the joy and excitement of traveling, from our own home. By hosting students who have traveled to Seattle, we take part in their experience; both by helping them have an amazing time in Seattle and while hearing about it over dinner. And, we get to expand our world while getting to know these enthusiastic travelers, their home country and the life they lead there. Spending quality time with someone from another part of the world is illuminating! You learn about another place, but you always learn more about yourself, where you come from, and humanity.