Hit The Road Joy Uyeno

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Living abroad with host family can be rewarding

Staying with a host family while studying abroad can be a terrifying experience. If you get stuck with an undesirable clan, it's worse than having bad roommates, because the power is so strongly in their hands: It's their house, their country and their food.

On the other hand, a host family can enrich your experience of a foreign country by showing you traditions and customs that you would never witness while living in a dorm or at the local Y.

The University of Hawaii Study Abroad Program did an excellent job of warning my group about what our living situations might be like before we left for London. They warned us about closet-sized bedrooms, shoebox bathrooms and the fact that we might need to survive on Nutella sandwiches for the semester if we didn't like what was being served in the kitchen.

I went to London prepared for the worst, but I lucked out with a wonderful host family consisting of my publisher host-mom, photographer host-dad and their four cuddly cats. I was equally in love with the bedroom they offered. It was a huge, cheerful room with yellow walls, a reading chair, a desk and an armoire straight out of "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" overlooking their gorgeous garden, complete with rose bushes and a small pond. I immediately wrote home about it.

Others, however, were not so lucky. One of my friends ended up in a house where the shower she had to use was built into a porch with no heating. By the middle of October, she was seriously considering taking showers at the school gym instead of at home.

Another student's host family owned two enormous dogs, and the family expected her to look after them when they were gone. The dogs ransacked her room, made enormous messes, and needed to be walked every couple of hours. "Am I paying rent to be a dog walker?" she asked one day, when she ended up spending the night in my room just to get away from the dogs for an evening.

ANYONE PREPARING to stay with a host family should prepare for whatever situation they end up in. As a guest, it's important to be polite and courteous, and to remember that you are a representative of your school.

On the other hand, if the family takes things too far, you do have the right to get yourself out of a bad situation by talking to the program's housing department. Before things go that far, it's important to remember that your relationship with your host family, like any other relationship, will work only if you at least make several attempts to communicate your feelings. If a situation is really bad, it is essential to report the family to the program to prevent them from taking on more students in the future.

Your experience with your host family can really shape your experience of a country. To this day, I regularly e-mail my host parents and even house-sit for them when they go on their summer vacation.

Despite inevitable cultural differences, give yourself and your host family time to get acquainted, and you may find that you have a connection. I know lots of people who have stayed with families in Japan, Germany, Italy and France who feel strong connections to those countries because they feel like they truly have family there.

Recommended reading: "The Host Family Survival Ki" by Nancy King and Ken Huff, available at www.interculturalpress.com.