@font-face { font-family: “ＭＳ 明朝”; }@font-face { font-family: “Cambria Math”; }@font-face { font-family: “Cambria”; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Cambria; }.MsoChpDefault { font-size: 10pt; font-family: Cambria; }.MsoPapDefault { margin-bottom: 10pt; }div.WordSection1 { page: WordSection1; }

The first weekend in October, I spent two days and a night with a local family. My new home was located on a sugar cane farm where many other crops were grown as well. The brothers and sisters of my host mom all had houses on the farm. Her father, 88, also lived on the farm and still processed the sugar cane and made candy to sell at the market. I also had a brother and a sister, Luis and Camila. We played hours of Uno and Wii tennis and watched Hong Kong in Spanish.

This experience made me realize that my study abroad experience is somewhat sheltered from the traditional culture here. Although we are up at 6 a.m. doing farm chores and do not finish classes until 6 p.m., we are removed from the local community. If I could study abroad again, I would do a homestay for a semester.

Three things really struck me about my homestay experience. First, the incredible hospitality of my host mom who called me her new daughter from the moment I met her. The openness of the infrastructure on the farm also captured my attention. Everyone’s one-story houses had one common room and bedrooms and the windows and doors were left open during the day. The view from any point on the farm was a vast sea of green trees.  What one might call simplicity added up to a complex and beautiful relationship of my family’s home and the natural environment. Another aspect of the homestay that I really enjoyed was the closeness of the family. Whenever a brother or sister needed one another, they could yell from inside their house to the other house. They also had afternoon coffee and snack with the entire family where they just conversed for an hour. These qualities of the family life in Costa Rica were admirable to me.

Location: Atenas, Costa Rica