Familia anfitriona

After orientation my next step was to move into my host family's house where I will be staying until September 9th. Deadline for finding an apartment: firmly established.

I received an email about a week before I left the US outlining some vague details about where I was placed for my home stay. I knew I was placed with a 68 year old woman named Aurora and I had an address, but knew nothing else. On the last day of orientation seventy something names were slowly called and each CIEE participant was handed a packet with instructions about when were were being picked up. It was a very Opera moment: "You get a family! And you get a family! Everybody gets a family!" I was told to be packed and ready to go at 10 AM the next morning and to wear a tag Aurora's name on it. I also found out that I would be rooming with my roommate from the hotel, Savannah.

A little nervous, I dragged all my worldly possessions down to the hotel lobby and stood awkwardly like a kid waiting to be picked for a kickball team in gym class. But someone picked me! Or more realistically, Savannah and me.

The first thing I noticed about Aurora is just how small she is. High averages obviously vary depending on what country you are in, but Aurora definitely lives the stereotype that Spanish women are small. Despite her size she gives off an air of authority which initially made me assume she had practiced her mom voice for many years. Yet he came alone, so the three of us (and more suitcases than I want to admit) pilled into a taxi after short introductions in Spanish.

One of the presentations during orientation gave us some insight into what to expect in a typical Spanish home in Madrid. We were told that rooms are usually very small, everyone lives in flats instead of stand alone homes, and the places rarely had conditioning. We were also warned that it is unusual for Spanish people to walk around barefoot at home, that we should spend our time in the living room instead of our bedrooms so not to seem antisocial, beds should always be made so it doesn't seem like you are a slob, and that the kitchen was the domain of the lady of the house.

Some of these generalizations turned out to apply in my home stay but not all.

Savannah and I's room

We arrived at her home which turned out to be a fourth floor apartment in a quiet building right next to a large shopping center. Our metro stop, Nuevos Ministerios, is only a five minute walk away and is connected well enough that our train ride to school is just five minutes long and takes us directly into Sol (the center of the city). The neighborhood is more commercial that residential but all of the shops seem to have apartment buildings above them. The apartment itself was much bigger than I had expected. Savannah and I share a large bedroom and there is another room reserved for other students in addition to the master bedroom. The large living room and dining area are one room which doubles as Aurora's home office. A smaller dining area sits just off the kitchen where the students eat breakfast and if they are home, lunch. Air conditioning is a luxury that is only used in the living room. Needless to say, I quickly gathered from the location and amount of space in the apartment that my Señora had done well for herself over her lifetime.

Over our first meal together Savannah and I realized that Aurora knew significantly more English than we knew Spanish. Though we did our best to attempt, she would often tell us something in Spanish and then repeat it again in English after seeing the clueless looks on our faces. Over a lovely meal that she and her housekeeper had prepared for us, we discovered that she has traveled extensively and doesn't have children, so hosts young people from around the world through programs like the one I enrolled in. Apparently this is a common practice, and many of our group were housed in the home of a Señora.

Over the next couple days we slowly learned the rules and procedures of the house, some of which were not initially told to us, causing mild confusion. In summation:

1. We are to ¨take breakfast¨ on our one in the room next to the kitchen at any time before 2 PM.
2. Dinner is severed every night at 8:30, during which we will eat while Aurora chats with us but does not eat. Apparently this is much too early and she eats dinner around 10 each night.
3. Electricity is expensive so conserve it whenever possible. Use natural light during the day and turn off the fan when you leave.
4. A housekeeper comes every day except Sunday to clean, cook, and help Aurora shop. She does all of the dishes so we should never wash our own. Instead, leave a pile next to the sink.
5. The only chore we are aloud to do is our own laundry. One load a week for each of us between Friday and Sunday. There is no dryer so hang your clothing up on the cloths line but don't leave them too long or "they get too dry."
6. Don't shower or run laundry between 10 PM and 5 AM because it is too loud for the neighbors. (I was confused by this one).
7. Aurora works in the living room so, despite what we were told about cultural norms, she prefers we study and hangout in our room.
8. We can put food in the fridge, but absolutely no cooking. Cutting up lettuce for a salad counts a cooking. I found that one out the hard way.

Though some of these things are still odd to me culturally, but overall my time here so far has been comfortable. Aurora has been very accommodating and has dealt with the very limited skills that Savannah and I have in Spanish with patience. Each night she explains what she made for dinner in both English and Spanish so we can understand and taste some Spanish cooking. I will have to write more about that in detail later, but the food here has been very good. Other than that, she works in the living room for most of the day (from what I can tell) doing online work that I still haven't exactly figured out what is. I wouldn't exactly call this home yet and look forward to having my own space again, but I've been happy to have a home base.

August 13th 2016