Thursday was my host sister, Bage’s, last day here as she was headed for America (Wildwood, New Jersey, to be exact) to work for the summer. So, we spent the rest of the day hanging out with the host family, playing cards with my Ane (my other host sister) and Bage while friends and family came in and out, wishing Bage safe travels. It was a day full of tears as my host mother worried asked us tons of questions about America. Bage, however, stayed pretty calm, which was surprising. She’ll be working at an amusement park and is going with four other friends from her college. They got the job through an agency, but there are a lot of unknown factors, such as what their schedules will be like, where they’ll live, if someone will be waiting for them, etc. They’re expected to fly into Newark and somehow make their way to the bus station and get on a bus to take them to Wildwood, which is way down in southern New Jersey.

Families are valued much more here than in the States. Most kids go home almost every weekend in college and their parents take complete care of them, paying for everything. Very few teens and college students have jobs. Children live with their parents until they’re married, often never having to cook or clean for themselves. Then, when a couple gets married, the wife moves in with the husband at his parents’ house and they usually live above the parents in a separate, but connected apartment (most Macedonian houses are at least two, usually three floors because of this). So, needless to say, four months no your own, thousands of miles and six time zones away from your family in a foreign country is a very scary thing. There’s also the ever-present chance of someone staying past their given visa time and working illegally. Many Macedonians do this, which means that as long as they work in the States, they can’t go back home. Bage promises that she’s coming back so that she can finish college, and I believe her.

A van came to pick her up with the rest of her friends around 10:30 that night, and there were tears all around. She has all of my numbers, as well as Robb’s, and I told her to cal whenever she wanted, regardless of the time, and promised my host mother we’d take care of her, even though we’d be far away. I hope to get to visit her there some time before she heads back in September, and hopefully she’ll have some time to get out to Chicago as well.