I arrived in Chile on January 19th, but at that point I didn’t yet have a place to live. Luckily, I have a gracious Chilean friend named Sofía, whom I met in graduate school, whose family invited me to stay with them for a couple weeks while I looked for an apartment. Staying with them provided great support as I adjusted to living and working in Spanish and looked for an apartment. Being with them reminded me of times in the past when I’ve stayed with host families.
Have you ever gone to a friend’s house and stayed overnight? Or gone on a trip with a friend and their family? It can be difficult to adjust to their way of doing things or to figure out how to be polite but also be yourself and ask for what you need in the new environment. That’s a little what it’s to move to another country and stay with a host family, except you must also adjust to different cultural norms, foods, manners and maybe even a new language. Luckily, host families are kind and understanding of the stress from being far from home, so they usually do their best to make you feel welcome and comfortable. That was certainly my impression when I stayed with Sofía's family.
During these first couple weeks in Chile, I learned how her family lived.
