NationStates Jolt Archive

I have my doubts about this story. In my experience, AFS thoroughly vets both the host families and the kids in the program. The whole thing is unlikely.

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/exchange-student-starved-while-in-egypt/20080227152009990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001

Sounds plausible to me too, although I personally would rather deal with a dangerous neighborhood than starvation.

Sounds plausible to me too, although I personally would rather deal with a dangerous neighborhood than starvation.

Sounds plausible to me.

The family's claim that he was eating enough for 6 people is patently absurd. It doesn't matter what you are eating, there is no way you could look like that after eating enough of it for 6 people - unless they were 6 people eating a crumb of bread a day.

The family's claim that he was eating enough for 6 people is patently absurd. It doesn't matter what you are eating, there is no way you could look like that after eating enough of it for 6 people - unless they were 6 people eating a crumb of bread a day.

It kinda sounds like that's what they're doing.

I can't really fathom why he didn't have a credit card or traveler's checks or some other form of personal resources to rely on. It just doesn't make sense to me..

I've run accross stories of similarly nutty host families. I remember a friend who did a stay with a Japanese family that appearantly never changed their bath water. As in the bath was full of ten year old water, pond scum, and all sorts of nasty... He bathed at school in the gym.

How typical. Puts up with it until there's full media exposure potential...

Whether the story is true or false, this guy is certainly lying.


"The truth is, the boy we hosted for nearly six months was eating for an hour and a half at every meal. The amount of food he ate at each meal was equal to six people," Hanna said. He added that the boy was active, constantly exercising and playing sports.

Nobody can work off the equivalent of 18 meals per day, assuming nominal protein intake, everyday, for a year, and lose 30% of their body mass without dying of exhaustion. You'd have to fit extra hours into the day just to not be bloated like a Goodyear blimp.

How typical. Puts up with it until there's full media exposure potential...

Two words. Stockholm syndrome.

Also, the article mentions that ASF discourages contact with their real families while with the host families.

I have my doubts about this story. In my experience, AFS thoroughly vets both the host families and the kids in the program. The whole thing is unlikely.

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/exchange-student-starved-while-in-egypt/20080227152009990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001


Since it only has been reported once, out of lord knows how many exchange student placings, it is certainly unlikely. Whether it is true or a hoax is a very different issue. Unlikely things happen every day.

"The weight loss concerned me, but I wanted to stick out the whole year,"

Simply put, the kid is an idiot. And so was his host family.

Two words. Stockholm syndrome.

Also, the article mentions that ASF discourages contact with their real families while with the host families.

This is something people definitely do not have a great enough understanding of or appreciation for. This boy is halfway around the world, totally cut off from his family in a foreign country whose languages he doesn't speak, and the only people he can rely on are his hosts. It effectively becomes a cult. Also, whoever mentioned credit cards---the boy was over there for six months. He's a student, he probably doesn't have a lot of (or any) savings, and I'm sure he didn't want to empty his parents' account (if he had a credit card) buying food.

The fact that he went from a healthy BMI of 22.9 to an emaciated 14.3 in such a short time is shocking and dangerous. Unless he was bulimic and purging everything he was given, there's no way he ate even CLOSE to enough for anyone to survive.

I have my doubts about this story. In my experience, AFS thoroughly vets both the host families and the kids in the program. The whole thing is unlikely.

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/exchange-student-starved-while-in-egypt/20080227152009990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001

Unlikely yes. Impossible, no. No matter how well people are vetted, one or two always fall through the cracks.

I wouldn't necessarily say it was Stockholm Syndrome but certainly similar underlying processes remain. He's young, he was isolated in an unknown country totally reliant on his host family. Furthermore there was probably a certain level of implicit pressure to remain, if he had backed out it would have been a 'failure', it's possible that his family/friends all saw this trip as an amazing opportunity and he didn't want to disappoint them. Yes, it's ridiculous when you think about it objectively, but people in these situations don't. It's how people get sucked into cults or abusive relationships, the longer you stay, the further in you go, the more difficult it is to back out. He may not have found it too bad an issue at first, or may have thought the fast period would soon be over, or he could 'brave it out'.

I have my doubts about this story. In my experience, AFS thoroughly vets both the host families and the kids in the program. The whole thing is unlikely.

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/exchange-student-starved-while-in-egypt/20080227152009990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001

Unlikely, yeah. But that's like saying that a child being mistreated by their foster parents is "unlikely".

And the kid isn't an idiot... he's a kid. When you're removed from your family like that in a culture that's so different and staying with a family that is so extremely different, sometimes you feel like saying "Something here isn't right" could be horribly offensive. And you probably want to cause as little trouble as possible since you really don't have the sort of support your family would provide.

And while I don't believe this happened because the family was Coptic, I do think it'd be smart to inform the families about the fasting and other dietary differences that the Coptic Christian host families observe so the student can learn about the family and prepare.

That's pretty insane. And has basically nothing to do with the family being Copts. As the kid himself confirms in the article: But he does not view the experience as a culture clash. Rather, he said, it reflected mean and stingy treatment by his host family, whose broken English made it difficult to communicate.

According to several sites I found: The Copts have more seasons of fasting than Christians from any other tradition. Out of the 365 days of the year, Copts fast for over 210 days. During fasting, no animal products (meat, poultry, fish, milk, eggs, butter, etc.) are allowed. On a more strict level, no food or drink whatsoever may be taken between sunrise and sunset as they should only break their fast after communion.

The article, however, details that the family ate several times during the day, doesn't even mention eating at night, and the kid said that the only time there was no meat was in the last seven weeks when the family fasted - i.e. during the first 9 weeks of his stay they weren't even fasting.

Basically, that family is a bunch of disgustingly stingy assholes who should not ever have been allowed into an exchange program to begin with.

Three more things:

- I don't know if that exchange service pays the host families, although I think most of them do. If so, they weren't just stingy, they were plain greedy.

- I find the agency's thing about limiting contact to home ridiculous. Most kids are not gonna want to be in touch with home all that often to begin with, duh, and does it really seem like a smart idea to make it harder for the ones who do because maybe they're insanely homesick or unhappy?

- I don't get how the kid didn't have any money on him to buy his own food. Surely he got some pocket money either from the agency or his parents?

Simply put, the kid is an idiot. And so was his host family.
that's the main impression i got too. he also complained the host family didn't speak good english. wtf? he's a student for a year in a foreign country, he should fucking know their language. arrogant fuckwittery.

that's the main impression i got too. he also complained the host family didn't speak good english. wtf? he's a student for a year in a foreign country, he should fucking know their language. arrogant fuckwittery.

Did you even read the article?

But when he returned home to Maine just four months later, the 5-foot-9 teenager...

So in four months he's supposed to be great at ARABIC? Bud, if you didn't notice... Arabic isn't as similar to English as Spanish, French, German... you know, those languages most commonly taught as electives in US high schools. And...

Friends and teachers at his English-speaking school in Egypt urged him to change his host family, but he stayed put after being told the other home was in a dangerous neighborhood of Alexandria.

I have a friend who is Egyptian (on parent is from Egypt, but she was born and lived most of her life in the states), and when she moved with family to Egypt for a while she had a hard time picking up Arabic, and she lived there for a while longer than just four months.

shit happens, though it not that hard for a student to make money especially in Egypt

So in four months he's supposed to be great at ARABIC? Bud, if you didn't notice... Arabic isn't as similar to English as Spanish, French, German... you know, those languages most commonly taught as electives in US high schools. And...

its not actually that hard to learn a language (and Arabic is not too far of really) at least in simple phrases

bitching that the family doesn't speak English is just sad

Here's a little wiki on the subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_abstinence

Edit: Why do they call it a 'fast'? I bet they go by terribly slowly. :(

I've been abroad with AFS and have ever since worked with them, and I'm pretty sure that this -very sad- story will probably turn out to have less to do with AFS and its structure than the boy and his choices.

I realize that he's been around 16 years old and recently placed in a foreign environment, which might not be a person's brightest moment in life. yet still he could and should have

- talked about his situation with his teachers, local AFS counsellor, home country AFS counsellor and/or his parents

- demand and accept a change of host family (if we cannot find a suitable host family on the spot [like when he didn't want to go to one in a certain housing district], we will place the students in a local employee/volunteer/counsellor's home. It is part of what you pay for with your program fees that we will pull any student out of any family immediately and guarantee their safe stay if they so desire).


AFS has a very through and reliable structure and very good preparation camps and programs. Every student is run through extensive information about the "worldwide AFS web" and provided with several numbers and addresses from people whom they can always contact, plus every student gets assigned a local counsellor and a so-called liaison family, i.e. a family that lives close by and acts as a sort of "emergency" or "back-up family", which in reality and "normal" circumstances ends up being like your aunt and uncle.

As I've said, the kid neglected to call attention to his situation when he's had a lot of places to go to, and a support net that would have given him every option ranging from going home to going to another family in the country to using the counsellor as a mediator etc.

The only thing that bothers me is that his counsellor, who should have met with the boy regularly, apparently ha snot investigated in the matter earlier if he did indeed get so thin so quickly. However, if the boy stuck to his story of "I want to stick it out here no matter what" with him, too, I guess that makes it all somewhat relative again, too.


- I don't know if that exchange service pays the host families, although I think most of them do. If so, they weren't just stingy, they were plain greedy.
We don't.

I find the agency's thing about limiting contact to home ridiculous.
Baseless allegations. AFS gives their students guidelines about home contact that they may or may not choose to follow, and these guidelines discourage the student to "spend more than half an hour daily maintaining contact to his or her home country".