My Name is Kevin Mike Senkel. I’m 22 years old and I was born and raised in Germany. Getting to know me better here are some of my personal interests that I do spending my free time with: playing soccer or go to the gym , catch up with my friends or just hang out is what i like to do the most. Besides that I love sports like playing tennis, swimming, inline skating or ride my bicycle. Furthermore I like being doing creative things (doing arts, crafts and painting) but I also like hanging out with my friends like going to the cinema, bowling, barbecues, just having a good and fun time together.
Traveling around and seeing new places in the world also belong to the things I love doing most. On rainy days I rather listen to music or read books or play some video games. I absolutely love watching horror movies, I also like comedy and and action movies. If my friends had to describe my personality they’d say the following things about me: that I am creative, humorous, funny, punctual, organized, athletic, a little “clumsy. ” I come from a very small village from the southern part of Germany near Nurnberg which is located in the north of bavaria.
There I live together with my dad and my older brother and Grandma. My brother Sven, he’s 24, he’s very interested in sports and techniques things. Some activity interests of him are playing soccer or go to the gym. Michelle, 13 is my sister, she loves doing sports like athletics and tennis. She’s also very creative. Although she is still in school she already know what she wants to do later. Its her dream to become an Doctor for animals. My dad Werner is 47 years old and works as an warehouse manager, he likes play soccer and riding his mountain bike.
Birgit, my mom is 45 years old, works as an Nurse, she loves to read good books. My parents are both very busy because they work all day at their offices. But on the weekends I try to spend some time with my mum or dad. Sometimes we go out for dinner. Our sixth housemate is our first pet, he’s a cat called Sammy. We have him now since about six years he’s very cute and very lazy. Where we live is called like a paradise for cats, there are no very busy streets and no big building lots or something like that good for all the younger kids who live in our neighborhood that the surrounding is very quiet and relaxing.
In our backyard there are lots of trees and large fields of farmers where Sammy can climb onto. Because we live in a little village with only about 800 inhabitants we have no big stores around and not even a big grocery store. We only have to drive a couple of minutes to town for shopping. This little place is called Oberstdorf and resides in franconia, near Nurnberg. I really love the area where I live, because it’s so green and because of the beautiful nature.
Even the bigger cities like Bamberg, Nuernberg or Erlangen still have many green areas, so they’re not grey and dull comparing them to Berlin. The “center” of the Bavarian forest is only a 30-min drive away from our house, walking through the national park on another weekend and breathing the fresh air is a really good balance to the stress at school or work. People come especially just because they need a time out from their busy works, so they spend weekend trips in the Black Forest. For that reason many tourists come to visit this place. It gets more and more popular.
There are so many things to adventure, in the South we have many lakes and some cathedrals surrounding Bamberg to visit. Our area is also famous for the delicious foods, like the “Spätzle,” or the “Sauerbraten” and also for the good wines and beers. I think that America shows the largest diversity of people, cultures and lifestyles in the entire world. That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to become an Au Pair in America. In the year 2000, when I was about six years old, my family got divorced and my mum moved to a town close to where i live with my dad.
But the most important issue becoming an Au Pair in America is that I love to spend my time with kids at any kind of age, because in my family I have many younger cousins, all at the age between six and 15 years. Before I came to America I was an athletic coach working with kids at the age of first graders. I also watched some of the kids in our neighborhood and soon I recognized I’d love to do a work that has to do with kids, even better, somewhere else in the world where I can improve speaking in a different language.
Becoming an insight of another family’s life with their children and helping the busy parents by taking care of their kids and supporting them however and wherever I can. It’s great being a part of their life and seeing how the kids grow up. I am really happy being in my current host family, I’m here since the 19th of August 2012. This family is very similar to mine in Germany. Except that the boy are much younger. The parents Kaveh and Christine Naficy work hard and long every day. I am taking care of one kid, his name is Khia. The little sweetheart is 4 years old and loves to swim, play tennis and does gymnastics.
He goes to two schools every day. One in the morning and the other on in the afternoon. He loves going to school and meeting his friends there. The family also has a pet, a male dog named Harry. He is trained several commands, so he behaves very well. A really cute dog. Kiah and I have a very busy week. He has practice in tennis and gymnastics every week. Usually, on Mondays, he participates in gymnastics. The place where he participates is close by. Its only a 5 minute ride by car. Sometimes it gets kind of crazy when a little kid is very tired and starts fooling around, so I’m happy for that when my host mum tries to support me.
A normal day is like they get home from school, he is eating lunch, then he might have a short time doing or playing something on his own and then he need to get ready for his afternoon school. That means for me that I have to be super organized and make sure, he gets to his practices on time. Usually this works very well, but sometimes Kiah is very tired some things like getting dressed take a longer time. In general I have a lot of fun feeling responsible and just doing this great kind of job with Kiah. I can say, that this is one of the best decisions I ever could’ve made.
Driving the car is my most important tool challenging my schedule. Here I live in the borough of Morristown, in Madison in the Garden State New Jersey. I soon recognized why it’s called like that, because in our town there are a lot of green places, we even have woods in our backyard. This place is so nice and I really enjoy living here. Our house is very close to town, it only takes about five minutes to get everywhere, the train station, Stop & Shop, the gas station, library, the gym Madison seems to be famous for the Drew University, the Fairleigh Dickinson University and the beautiful downtown of Madison.
It takes me only 50 min by train to get to New York City. Other cities like Boston or Washington D. C. are about a two hour drive away. Also great is that there are so many other Au Pairs who live in my town, especially the Germans take up the majority. Of course there are also a lot of Au Pairs from other countries, like Sweden or Finland. We have set up a Starbucks meeting every Tuesday where we meet and talk about how things are going in the family, with the kids and other things like planning the weekends or even some travels together. So we have our own little community.
Here we have so many options making new experiences and getting new impressions of the “American way of life. ” I’ve never been to New York City before, so it was an awesome and at the same time a kind of unreal feeling standing on top of the rock and enjoying the view over the Empire State Building, the Central Park and all the other famous sights of the City that never seems to sleep. I want to go to Florida for another time; one of my biggest dreams ever is swimming with dolphins. I saw them at sea World and was totally impressed by these beautiful creatures.
Of course I also like to travel to the other coast of America and visit places like the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, LA, Las Vegas, in my 13th month I’ll do a tour at the West coast. Besides my lovely work with the kids I’d also like to spend some of my free time traveling around, because there is so much to discover and learn about. A lot of Au Pairs do Bus tours to Boston, Philadelphia or Washington D. C. After my year as an Au Pair I’m going back to Germany for doing physical therapy, that also has to do with my year in America, because I love learning and talking in different languages.
I know German and english. But I mostly like English. Parts of studying physical therapy are about the anatomy and the recovering after a surgery. During my year in America I can collect a lot of information and useful impressions for my studies. In a couple of years I’d like to be done with my studying and live in my own little flat in Bamberg, becoming independent but still I can visit my family on the weekends. I’d like to have my own car and start working. Besides traveling through my work I’d like to come back to the US and visit my host family to see how the kids are doing and how they’ve changed.
I am pretty sure that I will miss them and they will always welcome me for a visit or stay. A lot of other young people who were Au Pairs a few years ago come back to visit their host families even after several years. Staying in touch with the family after my year is very important for me because they now give me a place that I can call as my second home and that I’m always welcomed. It’s a great experience that I’ll never forget. Live your life and enjoy the day.
