Suzanne Harrington: No empty nest for me, it keeps filling up with offspring and exchange students

Suzanne Harrington.

You know that poem on the Statue of Liberty – give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses? Someone seems to have stuck a copy of that over my front door. Except my one reads give me your untidy, your fridge-emptying, your hungover. (Although admittedly these are my own children, who are here because I made them). But also - give me your irregular-verb learning, your English conversation-practicing, your cultural differences. Come one and all, and bring your dietary requirements, your emotional baggage, your giant suitcases.

Not for me the distant fantasy of the empty nest – I’m too busy making sure nobody from the first category inadvertently offends anyone from the second category, like by offering the observant Middle Eastern students pepperoni pizza and Stella. Or comforting the homesick Brazilian student missing her dog and boyfriend back in Sao Paulo, while reassuring the new Singaporean student that our German Shepherds won’t eat him, that they are family members who prefer watching Bake Off with us to savaging foreigners.

At a time when others my age are sobbing over empty nests, mine continues to fill up. What began purely for economic reasons – the first category can’t afford to move out, and the second category have been bussed in to keep the wolf from tap-dancing down the garden path – has turned into something of a cultural exchange. Having never met anyone from Saudi Arabia in our entire lives, we now have invitations to Riyadh Season, the winter festival being promoted as a non-religious alternative to the Hajj. Who knew?

Another young Saudi student, in between trying to get his head around our toaster - he has never used one before - tells us all about The Line, the futuristic carless city in the desert being built by the Crown Prince (the one who dislikes journalists). A lively discussion ensues, with the help of phone screens and charades.

I say lively. There’s a lot of frantic gesticulation, Google Translate, and quizzical expressions. Mine, mostly.

But hosting people from all over the world means that every day is UN Day – you get to hone your diplomatic skills, and even better, so do your kids. You get to ask about places you know nothing about, and get answers unfiltered by media. Also unfiltered by coherent verbs and grammar, but as a former teacher of English as a foreign language, I mostly get the gist. We even venture into some phrasal verbs. You chop a tree down, whereas Mohammad bin Salman has journalists chopped up.

Kidding. Rule number one of hosting language students is to never say anything critical about their home country. Which might sound obvious, until I hear Daughter with one of the toaster-averse Saudis demanding how many female members of his family have driving licenses, as she rattles her car-keys. He’s looking a bit nervous. I make throat-cutting gestures to her as I try to find some chopsticks for the incoming Chinese student. It’s all about the soft power. Céad míle fáilte. Here are my bank details.