First, I had an underlying expectation that I would live with more people than just my host mother.  Even when I got here and she showed me a picture of her husband, I had this deep hope that in the evening her husband would come home.  Apparently she was telling me that her husband had died, but seeing as I barely understood Spanish/her accent, I definitely didn’t get that point.  With just me and her, sometimes I wish there were someone else there at dinner for me to interact with.  That being said, I have learned to carry on a lively conversation with her and completely appreciate her presence.

Along these lines, in general it’s been a little hard for me to feel like I’m “family.”  I think that one of the biggest things that contributes to this is the fact that most of her time is spent in her room.  It’s amazing what that communicates.  Somehow, I always feel like she shouldn’t be disturbed and find it a little hard to have time getting to know her more outside of dinner.

In general, it’s really weird to mix business and family.  For her, she needs me to stay here so IES will pay her and so, in many ways, I am a business investment.  The first two months or so, she wouldn’t stop asking me if I was happy in her home and what I was going to tell IES about her. It’s also weird that, even if I’m in my house for dinner, she doesn’t need to feed me.  Our meals provided by our home stay are breakfast and dinner during the week and breakfast during the weekend.  For the most part, that works out very well, as I’m normally busy during the other times.  But if for some reason I happen to be here and make a meal for myself, it’s strange to not be eating dinner with “family” that is in the same house at the same time.

All in all, I am content in my homestay.  My host mother is incredibly nice and does everything she can to accommodate me.  It’s just a very different situation than I had imagined.  This being said, I know every situation is completely different.  I have a couple friends in a different program who absolutely loved their host family and became very close friends with their host sister.  If I were to do it again, one thing I would seriously consider would be to say that I wanted to live with another study abroad student.  At the time I had to decide, I thought it was the easy way out, and was convinced I would make it through just fine on my own.  But now I see it would have been kind of nice to have someone else help me navigate through living in a city.

In other realms, this will probably be my last blog post while in Buenos AIres.  Tomorrow, my boyfriend flies into Buenos Aires to join me for my last week here.  I’m excited to show someone else the city I’ve been living in for the past four months.  By the time I get home, I will have been a tour guide around this city, had a layover in the southernmost city in the world, and trekked on a glacier in Patagonia.  I guess the next time I post, I’ll have to give a reflection on my whole trip!