My Visiting Family

I haven't talked about my visiting family a lot, have I? Well that's a bummer because they are some of the most amazing people I have met. To break it down there is Hanne and Jacob, the parents, and they have three children: Karen, 12, Emil, 10, and Johannes, 8. They live south of Copenhagen in a neighborhood with lots of kids and young families and there are always kids playing at the house. I share my family with Katherine, a junior at Trinity College in Connecticut, who is studying child development and wants to be a speech therapist!

What makes my family so wonderful is how close they are. Hanne and Jacob are both teachers, and they met when Hanne noticed Jacob at a party and worked up the courage to call him! I was very impressed by this because I have never done that. The kids are all really close in age, and the other families in the neighborhood also have kids that old, so everyone plays together at each others houses and in the street. But what makes the family unique is their youngest son, Johannes. Johannes makes me smile every time I see him. Although he has Downs Syndrome and is nonverbal, he says so much! My favorite day was when he played outside with paper towels to see them blow in the wind. He is very particular about textures and love to crawl in your lap.

Learning about how their family works with having a child with disabilities has been eye-opening. I learn a lot through my medical classes about the disorders and how they happen, but there is also the community aspect to health, and the ability to understand families and how they function. To be able to see this through my visiting family has given me an experience I could never even have imagined. I am so sad to be leaving them on the 19th, they have been fabulous.

My advice to someone thinking about signing up for a visiting family is to go for it! You get paired based on interests and they do a great job. Katherine and I both love kids, and this has been a wonderful experience. And beyond just having a family, you get to go places you probably wouldn't go otherwise. I went to Dyrehaven for a picnic (read about it here), Tivoli for Halloween, the DIS Christmas Lunch, as well as many dinners at their house and a trip to the ice cream shop! It was so much fun to get a break from my student life and enjoy being with other people. I will miss my family so much, but thankfully they are driving me to the airport, so I'll get to say a proper goodbye! I know my experience at DIS is unique because of them, and I am so grateful!

This is the one picture I have of my family! I took it on our trip to Dyrehaven, they were searching for geckos!

- Devon