Host Family

Today we learned who our host families are going to be!

I will be rooming with another girl from the program named Gloria, and we will be living with a retired couple, named Cesar and Rosa, near Casa Herrera in Antigua. The e-mail says they are very nice and patient and love to talk and share with students.

I have done two home stays in the past; one in Paris my Junior year of High School, and for one night in Guatemala when I went earlier this year. So far I have not had any issues with home stays and I have found them very enjoyable, though both my previous experiences have been vastly different and for a much shorter period of time. In Paris, my best friend and I stayed with a single older woman who had half of her apartment blocked off from us so that we could only go to the bedroom she had set up for us (which was very nice), a bathroom, and the kitchen. We were fine with the setup particularly because we were not there very much and even when we were the host herself wasn't there. We only ended up having two dinners with her the whole trip and they were quite a lot of fun. Our hostess would have a fresh breakfast and a note every morning for us, and she loved to talk to us to practice her English.

When I stayed with a host family in Guatemala it was for only one night and I was there with my classmate Erica. We had a wonderful experience with this large host family; an older couple, their two older daughters and their husbands, their two younger children, girl and boy, and their two grandchildren. We had dinner together and tried communicating in Spanish, English, and Mayan. We looked at photos of previous guests, helped cook and clean, and we took a lot of pictures of the family and ourselves in tradition Maya dress. The family also had a book in which they had all their guests write a note to them to go back to and read. Though we stayed for only one night, we felt like part of the family.

The two experiences are very different and both very wonderful in their own ways. I am excited to have a new experience with a long term home stay, that maybe takes the best parts of my two previous experiences and builds on it.