Upon arrival in a foreign country whose official language you have yet to master, you’re más o menos (more or less) equivalent to an infant. Stumbling through life. Re-learning a culture and all of it’s subtleties. Mumbling incoherent sentences and words that everyone around you thinks are adorable even though you have a bachelor’s degree. Slowly losing respect from colleagues when you try to say pero during a meeting but end up pronouncing pedo and you’re the last one in on the joke. Just trying desperately to be regarded as a real functioning adult again. Alone, your chances are slim to none of mastering the appropriate use of mae and learning how to make a tamale. So how can one go about learning to talk the talk and walk the walk like a proper tic@?

Cue, host families.

We were panting all the way up this hill

Host Fam party in Heredia. Pirate themed, naturally.

As a part of the Peace Corps experience, most volunteers live with host families during their initial three months of training and in their assigned sites. In Costa Rica, Peace Corps Trainees live with host families during the first three months of training and then with another host family for at least the first six months in their assigned sites.

Heredia host momma Flor

Host fams come in many different shapes and sizes, ranging from your classic single-abuelita home (all-inclusive with lessons on how to make her famous homemade tortillas, picadillos, and other recipes that would please “even your suegra” (mother-in-law)), to John and Kate Plus 8 style homes with tons of chiquillos running around from dawn until bedtime (realistically, way past bedtime).

Host sister Katy

Host Pop Franklin, with a large tree vegetable

One of the three global goals of Peace Corps is to integrate into our host country’s culture and learn the language so we can be successful in our service sites. Living with host families allows the opportunity to improve our language and cultural skills and get first-hand knowledge about our sites from natives (and usually leaders) of the communities. Host families provide a familiar family environment and a roof over your head during the rainy season. This is particularly nice, because in San Vito, it’s always the rainy season.

Without further adieu, I present to you my little home away from home; the place where I eat, sleep, talk all the hot town gossip with my momma Eudolia over tortillas and cafesito, and find refuge after being verbally abused by 8th graders who refuse to play charades to learn sports vocabulary.

This is La Urba. The name of my site is San Vito, but this is the smaller barrio that I actually live in within the larger town of San Vito.

Here’s the front of the house:

This is Bobby. He’s 14 years old and coughs like he’s been smoking a pack a day since the 70’s.

This is the pila and the plants….

This is the salon….

Soccer game viewing center

“La birica” (trouble-maker, lil’ sh*t), Lucy the cat. Currently perched on the wall of my bedroom, which is exactly where she is not supposed to be, probably judging you and me both.

This is the bathroom…. There is running water in the house, however, because we’re up in the mountains, it tends to be a little chilly, so we heat water up in a kettle and shower out of a bucket.

This is the kitchen…. Where tortillas and good times are had by all.

My host mom has ten kids (jaw dropped), is one of sixteen siblings (still dropping), and has over forty grandchildren (jaw reported M.I.A. floating somewhere in the mantle of the earth). I know. On Sundays after everyone finishes working, this area of the house is found brimming with children running around, friendly sports rivalry (our house hosts both Saprissa and Liga soccer fans. *conflict*), too many games of UNO, and an air thick with the smell of olla de carne.

Fun note about the ceilings: there aren’t really any.

The walls in my room have a few feet of space before reaching the techo (roof), which allows for conversation at all times from all areas of the house and failed attempts at muffling whatever sounds may be coming out of the bathroom on any given day. There’s a small area above the walls before reaching the roof as well, which acts as a portal for a variety of lizards, spiders, mosquitoes, bat-sized moths, and, my personal favourite, abejones, which are giant demon beetles from hell.   

I got 99 problems and all of them are these sky goblins flying into my face at night

Finally, my room (cleaned it just for y’all)…

Miniature Boruca mask that my counterpart gifted me during my first couple of days in site. I may or may not have cried.

And that’s my home. It’s a casa bastante humilde, and as full of bulla (noise) as it is love and cariño. Though sometimes challenging to find quiet time alone between the grandkids yelling at one another over Caleb cheating at UNO again and my host mom hitting the walls with the broom to get the cat down, I’ve come to appreciate the movement in the house. There’s always something going on, someone new passing through, and fresh bread somewhere close by.