Saying Goodbye to Family Number One

I have officially switched host families. About a month back, I was talking with Alfredo who is the director of the program here. We were just chatting so that I could practice my spanish more. In the conversation, we began talking about my family here. I explained how I was not comfortble in my home. He told me that I could switch if I wanted. I was not too sure if I really wanted to switch or not. Things were not terrible in my house, so I thought the evil I didn´t know could be worse than the evil I know.

I honestly think, Marta (my first host mom) had the best intentions, but she spoke a lot of english with me. My brother Edzui was very cool, but he spoke english with me a lot too.

I am definately going to miss watching movies and cable tv with Edzui. I loved our conversations about sports and yelling at the tv when the soccer players screwed up. I will miss studying in the sun in the back yard. I enjoyed the location with many kioskos nearby and my school within 15 minutes walking. I also got to know the other exchange students that lived near me. I will miss Marta´s laugh when and her smile when she was relaxed. HOWEVER....

I will not miss feeling completely uncomfortble all the time, feeling like a thief if I drink or eat something from the refridgerator. I will not miss being yelled at for turning the water faucet off too hard, slamming the car door too hard, or being yelled at to make chocolate milk when I don´t like milk, and then being yelled at about how I mixed the chocolate. I will not miss being told how to hold a fork and a knife. Most of all I will not miss explanations in english. It seemed like everytime I did not understand something completely the first time, I would get told in english, instead of another way of saying the same thing or the same sentence slower. I will not miss being told to be careful with the keys, or to unplug the tv.

The point of all of this, is that in general I was not comfortable in my home. I felt like I was always doing everything incorrectly, and I felt I was never given a chance to understand spanish. I had been hearing from my friends how they always have asados with other family members and always drink mates, but I realized I had only met my host sister once and had gone to one asado. The ironic thing about all this is that my last day with this family, we had an asado and I was invited to my host sisters house for dinner.

I hope this gives everybody an idea of why I wanted to move. I felt like I was not getting the culture or language aspect of Argentina in my house. That combined with me feeling uncomfortable led to me switching families. Stay tuned to hear about the new family... That is if you care.