Introductions

 After a parents' meeting at school with our teacher, Herr Bergren, we began by selling Haribo gummi bears. Those were still somewhat obscure back in 1981-82. They sold pretty well to students who arrived at class and dreaded the prospect of 50 minutes without candy. We also sold German chocolate advent calendars in November. I can't imagine we raised a whole lot of money, although I do recall the dollar was much stronger against the German Mark back then. 

One afternoon in German class that year, we got letters from our soon-to-be exchange partners. We opened them and read about the students to whom we had been matched by our teacher. My exchange partner, Rudiger Besch, is in the striped sweatshirt above. Not exactly a smiley family, judging from the photo.

Although it was a pleasant surprise to see I had some things in common with Rudiger, I wouldn't be telling the truth if I claimed that his letter was the I one I was most interested in. The profile that intrigued me most was that of Ann Buller's exchange match, Funda Ince. 

Between the early 60s and early 70s, Germany welcomed a lot of Turkish guest workers. Ten years after the official end of the program, Germany's population of Turkish residents and citizens had made a substantial impact across the country. Funda's father, who I understood was some type of bureaucrat connected to cultural diplomacy raised their family in Mainz. There was a space for religion on our exchange student form and she listed "Mohammadan." I had never heard of that. Altogether, there were two Turkish students among the class of fifteen and sixteen year-olds. 

Anyway, the students from Germany were to arrive at the beginning of April, while we sold candy and calendars. At home, we figured out where students would stay and, eventually, we were given a calendar of events for the month outlining potlucks, day trips and dances. To prepare all of this, nobody worked harder than our teacher, Dennis Bergren. Here's a photo to end the post:

And one of the first potluck in April of 1982:

Left to Right: Michael (German student), Peter Reinhardt, Clint Miller and Chris Bradle in the foreground.