“Hogar Dulce Hogar:” Home Sweet Home

There is a lot to be said about the cultural authenticity to be experienced during a home stay living with a native family in a country abroad. With Travis and my desire to put down roots in the places we visit this year rather than just travel through them, the home stay option sounded like an intriguing opportunity to take part in Central American culture. With the allure of practicing our Spanish by sharing in conversations with family members, tasting the typical homemade local cuisine, and a private bedroom all for a very economic price, we determined to make the most of each of our four stays over these last few months.

Although we have shared with you some of the true highlights our unique family life in these countries, there is also a lot we have left unmentioned. Being that none of our “families” have our blog address, I guess it will be safe to tell you a little more about some of the amazing courtesies we experienced, as well as some of the difficulties. I propose to do this through a 1-5 rating scale, with a 5 being: “Let’s move in with this family,” and a 1 being: “When is the week going to be over?” The categories of overall warmth and family life, our quarters, and food are all rated below.

Granada, Nicaragua: One month with Javiera and family

Warmth and family life: 3
+ Without a doubt, this was the closest family among those we observed, as their customs and routines proved to be an excellent demonstration of many families across Latin America. With three adult children living with their parents in one house, this home was at all times the gathering place of many friends, family members and animals. Although at the time we found our meal time conversations to lack luster, looking back we have to give Javiera and her sister a lot of credit for sitting with us during meals and answering our questions asked in our meagerly Spanish.
- We definitely could have gone without a few of the long, never-ending one-sided conversations with the “papa” of the family, especially during fiestas over the holidays. The “mama” was an excellent smiling host in the presence of her friends, but behind closed doors she truly never made an effort of saying a word to Travis and me. Finally, it would have been so much less painful had Javiera at times just served us our food without sitting there and watching us eat it too. Being that she never ate with us (none of the family ate together), there were many meals when she didn’t ask one question to add to conversation, and once Travis and I had emptied our own stock of conversation topics (much more limited in Spanish), we’d all just sit there in awkward silence.

Our Quarters: 4
+ A private bedroom and shower separate from the center of the house, our own cable television and a purified water dispenser located right outside of our door, we didn’t have much to complain about. Add to this the fact that every 3-4 days they’d come in to clean and mop, also changing out the sheets and towels.
- The bathroom was a little trickier as it was shared and bordering the kitchen with an open-air ceiling lending to no privacy. Having an adequate supply of toilet paper was also a bit trying, but it was easy enough to buy our own. And finally, although clean on the surface, I don’t even want to get into the types and amounts of ants, insects and mosquitoes we experienced in this habitation. Oh, the size of those cockroaches!

Food: 3
+ Well, we lasted a month without having to supplement our diets too often by heading to local restaurants, so we must have been getting enough food and nutrition. Actually, Javiera did a wonderful job preparing and serving us a variety of Nicaraguan cuisine, as she took much pride in introducing us to different dishes, and serving us the staples in different forms. Sure, we had A LOT of rice and beans and plantains, but this is of course a cultural thing and we became accustomed to it.
- The main problem was the lack of vegetables and Javiera just “not getting it” when it came to some of our dining preferences. For example, I don’t like rice (a bit of a problem in this neck of the woods). I told her this on the first day of our stay, but at every single meal she gave me a full portion of rice. Sometimes I’d dump it on to Travis’s plate (or hide it in my napkin when she wasn’t looking!), but most days I just had to leave it behind. I hated to waste it, but she just did not get the clue. It was the same with Travis and the cheese he hated. I started to bring tomatoes or other veggies to dinner as a subtle hint that I needed more food as an alternative to this rice, but nothing changed. Therefore, I continued to follow this routine. If you think that price was the issue- about 20 tomatoes cost $1.00, and Travis and I were paying a lot more than that for our stay!

Matagalpa, Nicaragua: One week with Marlena and family

Warmth and family life: 5
+ This is definitely the home we could have lived in the longest. We were actually sad it was only for a week! With Marelena’s friendly smile and sense of humor, she opened her home and her arms and made it her mission to make us the most comfortable and happy during our stay.
- The family itself was a bit scattered and curious to us, with the rooms in the house holding adult daughters, grandkids and another language student from Switzerland, but all were friendly nonetheless. The hardest thing here was comprehending Marlena’s thick Nica accent and her conversation. However, we must have done a somewhat decent job… we built enough of a friendship that later allowed for us to have her over in our own home a few times.

Our quarters: 5
+ Fantastic! Private warm and cozy room, equipped with shower and bath, and cable television again. This one with more channels that what we have at home! We felt very spoiled.
- We had to walk up a hill the size of Everest every time we returned home, but the view at the top was worth it. Also, Travis and I had to get even better acquainted, as our private bath was really just an extension of our bedroom, with no wall or door separating the toilet from our living quarters. Rather random and awkward at times, but hey, at least it was only for our use! It would have been a little odd if this were the family bath.

Food: 5
+ Now here’s a cook who wants her guests content and satisfied. Marlena was not only a skilled and creative chef of Nicaraguan cuisine, but she paid close attention to what we liked and didn’t like, therefore modifying her menu daily to our needs. For example, she observed my love of veggies and Trav’s love of bread, so by our 2nd meal she had arranged our plates to meet our appetites. The flavors were wonderful too! Why else would we later have her over to teach us her techniques? We do wonder how we’ll replicate some of her dishes though back in the states without some of the ingredients they produce there.
- No complaints here… my coffee cup was always filled with Matagalpan brewed coffee and we were even served dessert at times in this house.

Antigua, Guatemala: One week with John Carlos, Johanna, Jonathan and Charlie

Warmth and family life: 4
+ Although by far our strangest welcoming, this week turned out to be relatively comfortable. We were dropped and left at these strangers’ door by a driver from the airport, and greeted by two little kids and no parents. The elder looked to be no older than 7, but later we found out he was 12. They were kind though and obviously accustomed to guests as Charlie introduced himself and showed us our little room. This was our most unique home stay week as we lived among just a single young family in a quaint and tiny house. We highly appreciated this family’s values, as the parents were very devoted to their children’s education and made spending quality time with them a priority. They were also very involved in their Catholic faith. Since we were there at the start of Easter season, they shared with us many of the city’s celebrations and we saw them robed in their lent attire to take part in the city’s Sunday processionals (huge religious parades held every Sunday, for 12 hours, during the time of lent).
- As far as the family’s friendliness to us, it started out strong as we ate several meals together, especially talking a lot about Central American soccer and their former students. But after a few days, we learned that Juan Carlos really preferred to sit on the couch and watch TV during the times we ate rather than making conversation. Therefore, we were left to converse with Johanna, who also didn’t eat at our meal times (they ate together earlier or later with the kids), so instead hung out in the kitchen to answer questions if we asked, but never really asking us anything in return. Sometimes she’d just stand next to the table watching us eat. I guess she was just waiting for us to strike up a topic. Believe me, after a couple of meals like this it was difficult to think of more new things to say! The silence at times killed me with awkwardness. Overall, Juan Carlos and Johanna were a lovely couple, but also very young (mid-20’s). With all the busyness of a household of two children, Travis and I often felt like we were getting in the way of their family structure.

Our quarters: 3
+ We were warm and comfortable, but the smallness in this house was quite difficult for a tall couple like us.
- For example, to use the toilet, Travis had to maneuver his body sideways or his knees would hit the wall. The mirror was about a foot below Travis’s head and he had to duck to go through every doorway. We also had to share the one tiny bathroom with the whole family… which made timing a bit trying. Not to mention that again this was an open-air ceiling connected directly to the kitchen. So when in the bathroom, you could literally hear the family swallowing their food in the next room. We’re convinced there’s no such thing as “bathroom privacy” in Central America. You wouldn’t believe some of the strange places where I used bathrooms (like in a family’s dining room which was attached to the back of an internet café where we frequented)… with people directly outside the door. The other unique thing about this home was the water situation. To conserve water in Antigua, the water was shut off every night from 10pm-4am. We wish our hosts would have told us this our first night! It was a bit surprising when trying to brush our teeth that night. It didn’t help that their purified water supply was also empty for 4 days (waiting for the delivery of a new bottle), so we had to purchase all of our surplus water.

Food: 4
+ Johanna was an excellent cook, and she definitely provided us with the most fresh produce and variety when comparing all of our home stays. We especially enjoyed her creativity with the avocados, which were huge and in season… her avocado soup was delicious. I was a happy camper. The fruit was amazing too- some days she’d have a whole papaya nicely sliced up for us for breakfast.
- Only problem was, on four of the days this “was” breakfast. Just the papaya. Although that’s fine with me, that’s of course not enough sustenance to begin a day and Travis’s least favorite fruit of all is papaya. Poor guy. The rest of our tasty meals were also all about the size of the palms of our hands, so we had to make the walk into the city to go out afterwards and eat again to fill up. We had to view this home stay as providing us with our appetizers, not the main courses.

Quetzeltanango, Guatemala: One week with Esther, her daughters & a bunch of other strangers

Warmth and family life: 0
+ Our first conversation with this family was deceiving… they were so friendly in our first introductions and on the walk over to their home from the language school where we met. We were impressed by the two daughters’ (16 & 19 years) conversation skills, and thought we’d have a fun week ahead with them.
- We were wrong. The warmth all but disappeared as soon as we walked into their frigid, open-air family home. It was originally owned by Esther’s parents who are no longer living, and now is filled with all the various family members and their children. Turns out Ester and her daughters lived in one corner of this “house,” which felt more like a dormitory in the way all the inhabitants lived in their own rooms, sharing the one central downstairs bathroom and using one of the two kitchens. The middle of the house was an open patio, so all the bedroom doors faced inward. In the week we stayed, we were always bumping into new family members of whom we had not yet met. We only saw them in the common areas, like near the bathroom or the sink, and they all kept to their own lives and routines. We felt like forgotten guests staying in a hostel or something. As far as meal times, we ate in Ester’s kitchen where she served us, her daughters and a few other random people… but many times the others weren’t present so it was just the two of us and Ester. After the first day of making conversations with us, she seemed to lose interest and it was like pulling teeth to stimulate mealtime chatter.

Our quarters: 1
+ Our bedroom was on the first floor of this house, and because it was a nice private room away from the others it receives a 1 rating.
- However, it was freezing! With the concrete floors and chilly mountain breezes coming through the cracks, it was impossible to warm the place up. When we first arrived there were no sheets on the bed and we had to ask for towels. The shared bathroom worked okay and after 2 days I figured out how to use the hot water in the shower. But, it had a very “stark” feel. I guess because all the family members shared it, they kept it that way. But there was no hand towel, soap, shampoo, or even toilet paper that was shared! The room was empty and everyone brought with them what they needed. So, one more thing to buy- toilet paper. It just had such a weird, cold feel to it.

Food: 1
+ Food gets a 1 because of the mangoes. The mangoes in Guatemala were to die for and Esther gave us one each day. That was a definite plus.
- But, the rest of the meals were pretty much the meager leftovers of the good stuff that she fed her family. Our portions were half the size and one day the only thing she gave me for lunch was one chicken leg! This is not a joke. We didn’t see a vegetable all week, but saw the same tamales everyday served in a different format with each meal. They were good the first 4 times, but not the 10th time. We would have been a little more appreciative of the food had it been the same food as what her family was served… but she was obviously not using the money we paid the school for her to provide “our” meals, she was using it for “her” meals. Worse yet, she lied to us about her pure water supply because, well, who knows why? To be cheap or to be just plain mean, we’re not sure. She kept telling us the delivery guy hadn’t brought a new water, but when Travis finally cornered her on it and asked her straight out (as a language school host family you are obligated to always have pure water for your students to drink) about this, we came to discover she had a big jug of water sitting there the whole time… she was just too lazy or too cruel to put it on the water bottle for us. We ended up buying a lot of water that week- we were careful in all of our home stays never to take too much food or too much water, always being very conscious of their monetary situations. But with this stay, the lying really put us through the roof, and it was her use of the money and lack of hospitality that got to us. Thus, we cut our stay short and left Xela the minute class was over on Friday. We couldn’t wait to move out of that house!

So, even with these various ups and downs, Travis and I aren’t “home-stayed out” yet! We have at least 3 more solid months booked in strangers’ houses. I’m sure the stories will keep flowing.