Good morning everyone! Like I promised, here's yesterday's rundown. We arrived at the Seoul USA offices around 5 and immediately met all of the students. In case you were wondering, our ability to communicate with each other is sort of reduced to smiling and waving, but we all managed pretty well. We devoured some pizza (sweet potato pizza is quite wonderful) and then were all handed paper to write 3 obscure facts about ourselves... Then we crumpled up our papers and tried to annihilate each other in a "snowball" fight... perhaps I took it too seriously. Anyway, then we went around and tried to guess whose paper each one was so as to get to know each other better. Then a horde of translators showed up. I think I'd been told this before, but I'd forgotten that each homestay got a translator who would stay overnight with us. Thank goodness. Then we had an interview time where we got into groups of 2 or 3 plus a translator and talked. The wonderful defector I talked to, Esther, was an actress and comedian!!! I was not expecting that to say the least. We then introduced our new friends to everyone.

Chaos ensued as we all prepared to go to the homestay. Gabe and I met our translator Olivier and followed our host to his apartment where he lives with his absolutely delightful mother. All I have to say is that Olivier is the greatest (all the translators are) because he so willingly gave his time to come be the voice for complete strangers. He is a very French (he misses his cheeses dearly) student and intern at an NGO for North Korean human rights. Through him (though he is not quite fluent in english he was nicely proficient) Gabe and I learned all about our hosts' amazing lives. The mother told us much of the story and it was really incredible. When you meet people who have a daughter stuck in a prison camp or maybe dead, yet still serve God and others with such a beautiful smile on her face it really puts things into perspective. I imagine every person's homestay will reveal similar experiences... it is such a blessing that we get to meet these people.

Anyway, this is far too long. I might not update till much later because today will mostly just be Gabe, Olivier ( who has a wonderful karaoke talent), our host and me going sightseeing. This should be a lot of fun. Bye!