Saumur 2022 was an amazing success!
In addition to seeing and doing all the various activities, such as our community engagement events with the mayor of Saint-Florent-Saint-Hilaire, and our adventures visiting the castles, seeing Normandy, and touring Paris, this program was made a success not because of what we did or saw, but because the twenty-four incredible, diverse, and dynamic students rose to the challenge presented to them and exceeded far beyond our wildest imagination.
While linguistic progress is a primary goal of the program, and our students blew us away by it, the instructor team especially noted that the personal growth we witnessed in them was, at various times, admirable, humbling, inspiring, and quite profound.
The personal growth we witnessed in [the students] was … admirable, humbling, inspiring, and quite profound.
The seventeen families who welcomed students, and the three families who welcomed the instructors all felt that this year was a great success after several years without the IUHPFL presence in Saumur.
Of course, there were new, challenging, and at times, frustrating hurdles to overcome with the day-to-day changes that COVID-19 brought and the subtle ways in which it has affected the wider culture, however, we were undaunted by it and triumphed in a way that only these students could. Six weeks passed us by in the blink of an eye, and while the end of the program brought a bittersweet sadness, we can all count the 2022 Saumur program as a wild success!
