Hello! Another week finished and edging on another month finished too! It is hard to believe that the halfway point is behind me and steadily moving away. Despite my excitement to return to everything I love about home, I feel so grateful for having this semester and know that the last month will be one I never forget. I may wish to be reunited with people and things from home, but I would never wish to have not done a semester abroad. There’s my little weekly thought about time passing and homesickness even though it is always basically the same, and now onto my blog topic. Here in Spain, I live in a homestay. This means that a family local to Alicante hosts me for the duration of my program and is responsible for my laundry, meals, and place to sleep. In my case, and for most of the people here in the Spanish Studies Abroad program, the host family is a single woman with grown children that live on their own. Some are widowed, some divorced, but many of the host mothers live on their own when not hosting international students. Hosting international students is a form of income on the side for them as well as an opportunity to meet new people, learn about where they are from, and help them learn as much as possible about Spain. My host mother is divorced with two grown sons, one that lives in the same building as her and the other lives in Barcelona. She works in a juvenile court center, always having some stories about wild kids that come through her office’s doors. She has hosted many international students throughout the years, both for semesters and summers. She has told us about how no abroad student is the same and every experience is different for her. She has had students practically fluent in Spanish and some that didn’t speak a word of Spanish, the latter of which made a long few weeks one summer. She even once had a Muslim student that came abroad coincidentally during the 30 days of Ramadan, and the student could not eat any of the meals she would prepare! It’s safe to say she has seen a lot and learned a lot through her experiences of being a host mother, but she seems to love it. In my homestay, I have another Susquehanna student here living with me, Haley Muth. Since we found out at the beginning of last summer that we both would be in Alicante, Haley and I had been texting and planning flights together. Only then to find out mid-August, about 2 weeks before we came to Spain, that we would be living together! I have been really glad to have Haley to live with because it eliminated the majority of the awkwardness and loneliness homesteads can bring sometimes. We can talk about Susquehanna together plus our lives together here, and we have each other to bounce off of during dinner conversations with our host mom. It is also exciting to know that we will be on the same campus together in the spring, able to hang out and reminisce and make new memories together, unlike the other American friends we have made here who will scatter across the country in a few weeks. Of course living in a homestay as the only international student is not impossible, and is sometimes preferable for people, so don’t let me scare you off. Having Haley living with me just ended up being the best possible scenario for me personally; it combines the college dorm fun of living with friends and the excitement of living abroad. Living in a homestay always will come with pros and cons. It has been difficult to lose the freedom of food choice for our meals and the chance to cook for ourselves, but these are small negatives compared to all the benefits. We always have a warm meal, don’t need to spend money on groceries, and have our bathroom and laundry cleaned for us each week. Most of all, we have been given a new friend, tour guide, and maternal figure all wrapped up in one in our host mother. The homestay has been a central part of shaping our experience here in Alicante and I am so glad it has all worked out so well. I hope that any GO student reading this is getting excited for their own homestay!
1 Comment
Keli Emmons
10/22/2021 07:40:49 pm
Hannah,
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
December 2021
Categories |