Essay Exchanging homes By John Gathright	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
ホームエクスチェンジ 公開中の映画『ホリディ』（小紙3月30日号で紹介）は、インターネットを介して家の交換をする2人の女性の物語。 筆者も『ホリディ』よろしく、たまたま見付けたサイトを通じてオーストラリアの家族と家の交換をする約束をしたのはいいが、 後からいろいろなことが気になり出した…

We've moved to Perth in Australia! We've left the tree house for a house down under, and we're loving it!

To explain: We're on a Home Exchange with the Carters, a young family from Perth. For a couple of weeks we're living in their home, driving their car, hanging out with their friends, and I'm even writing this article on their computer. Meanwhile, they're doing the same thing in our home. Talk about changing your life; I'm actually answering the phone with "Hi, this is the Carter residence."Some of you might have seen the ads for the movie "Holiday." Our story is similar, although admittedly it's not very romantic.

It was pure luck that I found out about Home Exchange. About a year ago, I was on the Net when my browser accidentally pulled up "home exchange." Curious, I clicked on the link and found a site devoted to worldwide home exchange: Trade your home, travel the world, meet new people, experience new lives, and live like locals anywhere in the world. On a whim, I signed up, posting photos and descriptions of our village, our family, our house and where we would like to go.

It wasn't long before we were inundated with offers from around the world, from families living in converted churches, castles and ancient farm houses. It was all very exciting, but then reality started hitting home (if you'd excuse the pun): We had never met these people; we didn't know if they were honest, kind or trustworthy. What if they wrecked our home, stole our things, and made off with our car? What if the picture they sent us wasn't really of their home? It's hard to judge character over the Internet.

Then the Carter family contacted us. Dr. Carter has a wife and two kids, and his work is in psychology and making anti-smoking campaigns for the Australian government. After a few conversations and an in-depth look into the family's background, we agreed to swap homes with them, although we were still not entirely confident about the idea.

We also became extremely self-conscious about our own home. Suddenly, our bed wasn't good enough for other people to sleep in, our living room needed painting, we needed to buy a new rug, new lights and a new table. My office was too messy and our deck needed fixing. Windows needed to be washed and the floor needed to be waxed.

That said, my biggest shock came while washing the windows. I was wiping the glass with a cloth when I suddenly became aware that the cloth in my hand was in fact my recycled underwear. My lovely wife had decided that just in case the Carters looked in my underwear drawer she would turn all my old underwear into cleaning rags. In the same way, our old bedding became towels to wash the car and our old socks became dusters.

Life was changing and we hadn't even moved yet.

We then told our neighbors of our plans, and they, in turn, told us we were crazy. No one could believe that we were actually going to trade homes and that a completely different non-Japanese family would be living in the tree house like the Gathright family. Neither could we, but we still decided to go ahead with it. You'll have to wait until my next essay to find out how it went.

Shukan ST: April 13, 2007

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