24: The Chester Experience

Approximately 42 hours ago, I was situated inside The Old Farmhouse somewhere in an old American town called Chester. While eagerly listening to Dr. Brown and patiently waiting with Ridhwan for a man who was supposed to host us for the next 24 hours, I thought to myself how it would be like to carry out a life inside an American home with an American family while living the so-called American dream. The next few hours became a blur since all I could vividly remember were images of being fetched by a white SUV, long roads that lead to all corners and Popeye statues of Chester, unbelievably vast fields of corn and soybeans, and of course, the two warm faces of two people named Stan and Barb Eggemeyer.

The night of the 11th allowed us to open up to each other in a very inquisitive manner. Mr. and Mrs. Eggemeyer mostly shot the questions to us and we both happily answered them while we were all placed inside the comforts of their downstairs living room. Upon concluding the conversation with a short good night and choosing not to explore the cornfields at the backyard, my two eyelids finally decided to put my own self to sleep.

The following morning with our American family wasn’t about sitting in front of the television for the whole day and become an irresponsible couch potato in the process. Rather, I can say that Ridhwan and I were both fortunate enough to have them as our host family since they were more than willing to take us around Chester in order to appreciate the place even more. After eating our hearts out in a buffet restaurant, driving around the quiet roadways of Chester, taking happy snapshots of each famous Popeye statues, learning more about European history from a Lutheran pastor, glancing shortly at the infamous Chester correctional center, and opening up more conversations and answering questions for our dear host family, the 24-hour period was unfortunately about to end as we all, along with the other participants and host families, concluded the event with good old games, awesome food, and sad goodbyes.

At this point, I guess it’s only right to say that, in spite of the short time, I’ve learned a lot from our own share of American family life. From the bright sunlight which woke me up at 6:00 in the morning to the last strokes of our journey at that one-room school which means a lot for the Eggemeyer family, everything was more than fine. Instead of going over through the whole thing again, I would just like to say thank you very much for allowing us to impart our own share of the world into your own home.


PS
The Popeye shirt was awesome, by the way.