It's her turn for an adventure

“She’s where?”

“You say your wife is where?”

Those are some of the comments I expect to hear over the next couple of weeks.

As I write this, the answer is that she’s in the other room, watching the last of the PBS Newshour and knitting a birthday sweater for our youngest grandchild.

But by the time this is printed, the answer will be one word: Madagascar.

That, obviously, is going to take some explaining.

When Connie and I met in college, one of the things we had in common was that our families had both hosted foreign exchange students through the American Field Service, a pioneering organization when it came to international student exchanges.

In my family’s case, that meant that we hosted Susanna, a delightful and somewhat glamorous student from Uruguay in the 1960-61 school year when my older sister Linda was a senior at Portland High School.

In Connie’s case, it meant that her family hosted Yari, an equally delightful — and probably equally glamorous — student from Madagascar the year that Connie was a senior in high school in Jacksonville, Illinois.

Any family who has taken the plunge to host a foreign student will tell you the experience is simultaneously life-changing, challenging, fun, and a bit of a roller coaster. To say it is a “growing experience” doesn’t do it justice.

Bonds are forged, sometimes for a lifetime.

And it’s especially cool when contact is maintained over the years.

My parents were able to travel to Uruguay at one point, and Susanna’s family visited us in Jay County when they traveled to the U.S.

Connie’s parents surpassed that.

Not only did they host another student — Yul from The Philippines — but they also visited Yul and his family a few years later. Both of Connie’s parents also made the trek to visit Yari and her family in Madagascar.

All of that is a way of saying there is precedent for this latest adventure.

I’m not sure when the idea was first proposed. But at some point, the idea of a visit to see Yari surfaced.

Connie’s sister is an art history professor and an expert on African art. She may have been the one to suggest that she and Connie and our niece Myra make the journey to Madagascar.

Another factor may be that Connie’s sister is turning 60 this month and wants to mark the occasion.

At any rate, the idea was soon on the table: An all-girl adventure to an island nation off the coast of continental Africa in the Indian Ocean.

Who could argue with that?

With Yari and her family playing host, the trip was within the range of affordable.

And there was something charming about the thought of these two who had been high school seniors together reuniting nearly 50 years later when they are now grandmothers.

Before anyone could ask if I felt left behind, I did some counting.

How many times, I asked myself, have I gone off gallivanting to the other side of the world and left Connie behind to keep the home fires burning?

The numbers added up quickly. By my count, it’s 17.

So I kept my mouth shut.

Now I find myself doing what she did those 17 other times: Keeping busy, looking for projects around the house, counting the days, counting the hours and wondering what adventures have come her way.

She left on Monday, the day after Christmas. And she’ll be home Jan. 11.

What a way to start the new year.