Journal Rudiments (3): The Clapp Family

Home is where the heart is, a statement thus far true to the bone. We can build houses, and invite guests, share smiles, yet it will either be one of two things for them, a home or a house. Five weeks have past, and I miss home, my second home, home of Priscilla Clapp.

In the words of Dempers’, my brother from another mother, “it was a privilege”, one could have not asked for a better host mom. The greatest thing about the fundamentals of humanity is that, a smile opens a door faster than a key does. Our host mom was proof of this in more ways than one, the first day was proof. One could swear me and Dempers were adopted brothers who just got shipped from the “mother land” as most African American’s would say, to an American home. The beauty about this all was that this was a home.

Families have their far share of discussions at the dinner table. The question you may ask, what did we discuss at supper? The answer to that is simple, my brother Dempers (alias “Demokratis”) can attest to this, we talked about everything that is and was. The main meal sometimes would be the greatest rice, and some mind blowing vegetarian sides, and for the carnivore as we called Dempers in the house, were lovely pieces of meat (be it chicken or steak), and to top it, some politics, economics, leadership, and the likes.

The greatest tragedy would be me not sharing what happened on day one of getting home. In a nutshell this is how events turn themselves out. We get home the first day all smiles and excitement, you could even smell it in the air, or was that the smell of not bathing for more than twelve hours? The first thing that would ideally happen after travelling for a day, would be to rest, relax digest the new environment, and enjoy the moment. The reality of that skipped our minds, we had a “conference”, the Who Gets The Best Room imbizo”, which took more than half an hour, where our host mom took five minutes explaining where everything is, and then we took to the tables to discuss a room. In the end I won the room downstairs, which looked like a James bond hide out, it had a hidden entrance, how nifty was that, and Dempers finally got the room three flowers from me. I only realize now that he got a lot from each leadership session, but got more from having to go three floors up every night.

One never thought much on what impact the host family can have on you till now. The people we stayed with were like our journals to some of us who did not have personal journals at first. Trust is not an over night session like blackberry messenger (BBM), but with progress that is were the waters get deep and better for both intern and host family, mom in our case. The impact that our host mom had might have not been a fire that got ignited from day one, but with time it become and has become a furnace furled flame. To have someone listen to you after a day from work that jut might have rubbed you of the wrong way, helps in the longest run of this journey, having someone to motivate you for future endeavours, someone to induce a fire of passion into your belly to want to know and influence things in your country, that is something of value to me. The added bonus was Dempers and my half siblings, Mini-mouse, Batman, and Mini-man, the cats that ruled the house. The one thing my father always taught me was that, your attitude determines the people who will contribute greatly to your life, and how they will choose to stay in it. Dempers “Demokratis” Meyer has and will always be a legend. Where do you have a guy give you his 100% self for nothing in return, even after a day of work, jam-packed sessions, and a walk from Du Point circle? A guy who will sing R’n B songs at 23h45 at night? I do not think one can ever find such a person, personally this was my SAWIP-DC highlight amongst an array of many others.

The value of a host family is one you create, sustain, and nurture throughout your entire SAWIP experience. The connections we made are somewhat equivalent to those we have on our biological families, and at times much higher. Here I stand, and well, proud to say I stayed not in a house, but in a home, that of Priscilla Clapp. It gives me great pleasure to have stayed in a home that will always have a place in my heart, thank you Ms Clapp.