ADIOS BEGOÑA y HOLA CONCHI

Now that I’m out of my old host family’s house, now is a good time to look back and laugh at all of the things that happened while I was there.  This isn’t meant to make anyone feel bad or anything, because I honestly look back now and LAUGH.  Also, I am now living with the sweetest and most caring woman in the world, and I already feel so much more at home.

Anyway, so Begoña and Paco were nice at first.  Everything was nice.  They had a big apartment, and I had a big room with my own bathroom, and internet too!  They gave me the key and told me that I was like their daughter while I’m in spain.  They told me that their family eats healthy and that they don’t eat sweets (I could deal with this).  Things seemed to be okay.  ON my first night, I feel asleep on their couch while watching a movie with them, and I was trying to get into the swing of things by doing what they were doing and following their rules and everything.   Things were good. 

But that didn’t last long.  A couple of days after I had been living with them, everything went downhill.  At the time, I was having a very difficult time distinguishing between a bad host family and culture shock: I thought that what I was feeling was culture shock, so I just went along with it and followed whatever they were telling me.  After comparing to my other friends’ experiences, I realized that they were just un poco loco.  The housing director called them “perfectionistas.”

There were a lot of things that were leading up to the day where things exploded.  They weren’t very warm to me.  I would come home, say hi, and go to my room without them really saying a word to me.  I dreaded them coming into my room, because it was them either telling me that I was doing something wrong or that it was time to eat, which meant that I would have to sit at the dinner table and listen to them talk while I at in silence.  Every once in a while, they would ask me a question, and if I didn’t understand the first or second time, they grew visibly impatient and dropped the question.  I was terrified to speak in Spanish because they would act like they could understand what I was saying unless I said it perfectly, instead of just correcting me.  If I would say something about how we do things in America, they would tell me why Spain was better instead of just accepting my culture and learning from it.  These were a bunch of the little things that happened while I was there, and all of this just seemed to be culture shock to me. That’s when a bunch of things happened—one after the other—that led me to believe that this was something more.

I was in my room taking a nap one day.  I had been out late the night before and was really tired.  My host mom came in my room and woke me up.  She looked at me and questioned to me as why I wasn’t doing my homework.  She told me that if I wanted to continue going to school I had to do my homework (I learned later that in Spain, academics are free, and then if you have good grades, the government gives you money for other expenses, such as food and living).  I told her I didn’t have any homework and she looked bothered by that.  Then, she told me to get out of bed because she had something to show me.  She brought me to the kitchen and showed me the dishes from the morning as well as the toaster still out (my host family gets up early and leaves out some pieces of bread and café con leche for me), and asked me why the kitchen was dirty.  I said that didn’t know.  She told me that in the morning, I was expected to clean all of the breakfast dishes, dry them, put them away, and clean off the counters.  This wouldn’t have bothered me that much had it been what was going on in all of my other friends’ houses: but my experience was different.

Then, after I cleaned the kitchen, it was time for lunch.  When I started to cut my food, they told me that I had bad manners, and I asked why.  They said that I did not cut in the correct manner, and that if I ever wanted to get a job or get married, it was necessary that I learn the right way.   They asked if my boyfriend or my family had ever mentioned anything about it and I said no.  At this point I was smiling and nodding politely.  When I didn’t change, my host mom got out of her chair and took my silverware out of my hands, and then put them back in my hands in the “correct” way.  I was very taken aback, but I didn’t want to be rude, so I tried to eat my food this way.  I couldn’t, and they were staring at me, so I told them I was full and didn’t want to eat anymore.  They gave me an orange and I started to peel it.  They told me to STOP because I was eating with poor manners again.  They made me peel my orange with a knife, and Begoña showed me how to separate all of the pieces and put them neatly on a plate to eat.  I felt like I was Rose from the Titanic at this point.  Now, I might have let all of this slide, but then they dropped the BOMB.  They told me that I had a 10:00 curfew, and that I had to be home by 10:00, Sundays through Wednesdays.

The next day, I went and talked the secretary at my school and explained this to her.  I told her that I wanted to switch.  She told me that she would talk to my host mom and that if things didn’t get better that I could switch.

When I went back that afternoon, Begoña told me that I didn’t have a curfew anymore (later, I realized she might have just said this because she didn’t want me to switch and lose money).  That day, everything was fine.  However, after that, things went downhill again. 

I have to add that I believe that they truly were treating me like one of their children.  They seem to be the controlling type of parents, who really need to control every part of their children’s lives.  When hearing them talk on the phone, I realized that they wont let their vet and doctor kids in training get anything less than A+++, in school, and with life. 

When I would get home from school at night, they would have a bocadillo for me, and tell me that I could take it to my room so that I could do homework while I eat.  I probably said about a paragraph’s worth of words to them the whole time that I was there.  She told me to clean my room—I don’t know if you’ve ever seen my room at school, but my room in my host family’s house was of a perfectionist’s standards.  All but a few papers were out on my desk.  They told me it was very dirty.  CARAMBA

The following are things that happened that made me believe that they were only having me for the money.  In 2 weeks, Begoña had done one load of my whites (she should have done 4 loads by that point).  I got a little bit of makeup on a towel on accident, and she scolded me saying that they were new towels and that I had ruined them.  In addition to that, they had my heater on a timer, and it was on for about 20 minutes a day.  It wasn’t getting hot at all in my room, so I turned up my heater so that it would get hot in the short amount of time.  They taped the control on the heater so that I couldn’t change it.  On a number of occasions, I would eat something cheap for dinner, like a bowl of pasta, and they would make something more expensive, like fish with mixed vegetable.  They would eat with me when they did this.  Also, one day when they were gone, I found DELICIOUS PASTRIES HIDDEN IN THE BACK OF THEIR FRIDGE!  It wasn't that they didn't eat sweets, it was just that they didn't want me to know that they ate sweets.

All of these things led me to want to switch families.  I told the secretary and she found that Conchi, Elise’s old host mom was available.  I talked to Violeta, the housing director, and I was able to move in the next day if I liked her.

The day before I knew I was going to leave my family, we were at lunch.  They told me that it was my responsibility to clean up after lunch.  At this point, I knew that I had made a good choice.  I wonder how far they would have gone with chores?  I don’t know.

Anyway, so the next day, I met Conchi and I LOVED her.  Her apartment is about ¼ of the size of the other one, but it has so much more love and happiness.  We’re always smiling and laughing, and she’s always telling me how happy she is that I’m here.  Violeta told my old host family that I was moving out 1 hour before I did, so I luckily didn’t need to deal with all of that awkwardness.  Violeta told me that Begoña wanted to say goodbye, and I really still don’t understand that, because it felt like they hated me.

When I first got here, Conchi gave me an orange and I peeled it with my hands and ate it off of a paper towel on the couch.  Last night, I scraped off my plate and brought it to the sink to watch: she told me to leave it.  Right now, she asked me if I wanted hot chocolate with madeleines (a pastry).  (funny side story: when I got here, she was showing me around and told me that she keeps the madeleines in the cupboard.  I must have had a horrified look on my face but then I realized what she meant and we both laughed together) I got up to get it myself and she told me to sit, because she was my mother and she was here to take care of me.  This is the way things are supposed to be, and I am very happy.