Of hugs, happiness and human connections

So the Brazilians are gone.

After 12 days with us, Paula and Luiz flew back to Washington, D.C., today with their fellow Youth Ambassadors. There they'll meet up with other young Brazilians who spent time in Seattle, Tulsa, Charlotte, and Bozeman, Montana. The full group of 45 will fly back to Sao Paulo on Saturday.

We saw them off with a potluck dinner -- such an American event! -- at the home of the Fortkamps, one of the other host families, on Sunday night. There was plenty of food, a lot of laughter, and more than a few tears.

The tears you can understand from the Brazilians. They're a very open, emotional people to begin with, and when you combine that particular national trait with the fact that they're 15- through 18-year-olds, the waterworks were to be expected.

This was, after all, an intense experience for each of them. They were visiting the United States for the very first time, staying with families whom they had never met, speaking a foreign language and trying something new every day for almost two solid weeks. Seen through teenage eyes, the words "life changing" and "profound" come readily to mind.

But there were also a lot of red-eyed suburban Americans gathered in that basement, which is maybe a bit more surprising. As the Brazilians stood at the front of the room and one at a time expressed their gratitude to the families that had taken them in, there was a lot of sniffling among the natives.

Why is that? It's not like this was a true exchange program in which the students spent an entire school year here. They were here for 12 days. People get less attached to their own relatives in that time.

Well, I was one of those who were teary-eyed as the young Brazilians spoke, especially a very emotional Paula and the normally boisterous but clearly speaking-from-the-heart Luiz. And I have a theory as to why that was.

It stems from the very human need for connection, and specifically connection to people worth connecting to. These Brazilian teens were the cream of the crop. They were 45 selected from a group of more than 7,500 applicants. Each was picked for their character, community service, and (I'm guessing here) the intangible quality that just tells you someone is headed for great things. The "it" factor, if you want to give it a name.

I know I'm better off for having gotten to know Paula and Luiz. God puts certain people onto the earth, I'm convinced, so that the rest of us can benefit from interacting with them. Paula and Luiz are two of those people.

Does that sound melodramatic? Does it seem strange for a 42-year-old man to be gushing over a pair of Brazilian teenagers with whom he didn't even spend half a month? Yeah, probably. But to say that is to miss the value of human connection. And especially those connections that occur when people from different cultures and different circumstances are thrown together unexpectedly.

The thing is, I've lived my entire life in the same city. I've done this by choice, of course, but there are obvious limitations to spending four decades in the same place: Your opinions and attitudes can become static, and you in turn become fairly set in your ways.

When you're forced to confront the "other" -- different places, different people, different perspectives -- you benefit in unforseen ways. This is especially true for Americans, a people conditioned from birth to believe that we are the best and that everyone else wants to be like us.

I've mentioned before that the Brazilians are huggers. They don't always get the concept of "personal space," and that's a good thing. I'm not a natural hugger, but even when I met the other Brazilian kids besides Paula and Luiz, they leaned in for a "hello" hug. It was wonderful way to connect, and it forced me to drop my puritan inhibitions on physical contact between strangers.

Because that's just it: they weren't "strangers." Or at least they didn't think of themselves as being strangers to me. I was a host parent, and therefore I was someone who, to them, was worth meeting. And people worth meeting get hugs from Brazilians. That's just the way it is, and I think it's wonderful. It changed my view of them and their country immediately, and for the better.

There were a lot of examples of these moments when the Brazilian kids caught me off guard. They constantly made me think, made me laugh and -- on Sunday night in that basement -- made me cry a little. And now that they're gone, I'm forced to rely on myself a little more to create those moments where I suddenly realize, "Hey, I think I just learned something." As I get older, I find those moments are the most worth living for, and therefore I chase them all the harder.

I guess it's difficult to convey all this in a rambling blog post, but I have a feeling you know exactly what I'm talking about and have experienced it yourself. They say that life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. I say life is what happens when you're standing in your living room watching your kids line dance with two crazy Brazilians.

I guess that's sort of the same thing.

South Americans in the snow!

We're three days into The Great Brazilian Invasion. Let me throw some photos at you:

This is the first significant snow they've ever seen. I have a feeling they're already getting sick of it. It's like they're native Northeast Ohioans!

In other Brazilian-related news:

* We're taking Paula and Luiz ice skating today. It will be the first time on skates for both. Ought to be fun! It's going to be interesting getting the correct skate sizes for them, since the Brazilian system of shoe sizing is a lot different than ours. Luiz, for example, wears a size 43 shoe at home. We were at Kohl's the other night and figured out that's roughly a size 11 here in the U.S. Interestingly, Paula (who stands roughly 6-foot-1) has the same-sized foot as my 11-year-old daughter Melanie. Melanie has big feet.

* Paula and Luiz have different accents when they speak...not that I can tell most of the time, but there are certain Portuguese words where it becomes more obvious. In particular, if it's a word that ends in "s," Paula will say it the same way we do: with a "ssssss" sound. But Luiz makes it more of a "sh" sound. Apparently it's similar to hearing someone from, say, Georgia and someone from New England speak American English.

* Chloe and Chris Dorazio took the Brazilians to a high school basketball game last night. Though the home team Wickliffe Blue Devils lost, they had a great time. Paula even brought home one of the small inflatable basketballs that get thrown into the crowd during timeouts. Luiz, Jared, Melanie and Jack put the ball to good use last night, playing interesting living room adaptations of baseball, soccer, football and volleyball.

More to come this week...

HEY, FOREIGNERS!

Next week, two Brazilian high school students will arrive in Cleveland and spend 12 days living with my family.

Cool, huh? It's part of a cultural exchange program coordinated by the Cleveland Council on World Affairs and the U.S. State Department. In all, eight students (four girls, four boys) and a teacher will be living with host families around Wickliffe for almost two weeks. The organizers had trouble finding hosts for all of the boys, so while we were already slated to take in a girl, we told them to send us a guy, too.

We're crazy that way.

Actually, we're quite used to having foreign visitors. Every year since 2006, we've housed two young British soccer coaches for a week in June. It's in conjunction with Challenger Sports and the British Soccer Camp, which I coordinate for the Wickliffe Soccer Club. Each year we get a different pair of coaches, but they're always Brits in their early 20's and always very nice guys.

Importantly, they're also always native English speakers. Our two young Brazilian friends will, of course, be Portuguese speakers, though we've been assured that all of the kids are fluent in English, as well.

That's good, because there are certain concepts I would be hard pressed to convey to houseguests who had trouble with English.

"THIS IS THE DOWNSTAIRS TOILET! SOMETIMES IT MAKES A FUNNY NOISE AFTER YOU FLUSH IT, AND YOU HAVE TO JIGGLE THE HANDLE TO GET IT TO STOP!"

I put that in all caps because I'm sure I would talk very loudly to them. It's very much an American thing to raise your voice when trying to make yourself understood by someone who struggles with English. As Howie Mandel once asked, how does this help? If someone came up to you on the street and said, "Ooza macuza boogadooga lambada," and you replied with a look of total incomprehension, would it help in the least bit if they said the same thing over again in a louder voice? ("OOZA MACUZA BOOGADOOGA LAMBADA!!!")

Anyway, I'm glad the language thing won't be a barrier. Not sure about food, though. The soccer coaches are generally not picky and will eat whatever American slop you put in front of them. Will the same be true of teenage Brazilian kids? We'll find out. Luckily, Terry is an excellent cook, and everything she makes is good. Seriously, everything. I would weigh about 112 pounds if I were married to anyone else.

Our female Brazilian guest is named Paula (she's 18), and the boy is Luiz (16). They each have something like 28 last names, because that's what Brazilians do. It's one of about 100 things that make Brazilians cool, in my estimation. Another thing is that they're very touchy-feely people. They have no problem sitting right next to someone they've just met, or talking to you with their face 4 inches from yours. I like that (in the most legal and ethical sense, of course).

In addition to having already hosted foreigners, we also have the advantage of living in a state of constant chaos anyway. Throwing two more people into our seven-person house will make almost no real difference in our daily "routine." I use the quotes there because we have no routine. Life is a constant adventure. Paula and Luiz will probably be here for three days before I even notice them.

While the Brazilians will spend their evenings and weekends with us, the rest of the time they'll be running around Cleveland experiencing all sorts of educational, volunteer and entertainment activities. They're going to do more in this town in 12 days than I've done in a lifetime. Frankly, I'm jealous.

I'll let you know how the whole thing goes. In the meantime, how much do you want to bet I'll end up yelling some incomprehensible English phrase to them at least once while they're here? ("THAT'S JACK. SOMETIMES HE RUNS AROUND THE HOUSE WITH NO PANTS ON. PLEASE IGNORE HIM.")