This fall I decided to get outside my comfort zone and travel alone in Mexico through the state of Quintana Roo. I have always had a love for Mexico with its beautiful beaches, tasty food, deep rooted culture and kind-hearted people. However, my past trips usually entailed high-end hotels and being horizontal on the beach while sucking down large amounts of alcoholic beverages.  Now, vacations like these are great but I craved something new. I needed something to enrich my soul and satisfy my hunger for adventure. Since I was experiencing some new transitions in my personal life, I felt this was the perfect time to lose myself in a different culture and “really” use my not-so-great Spanish. This is when I decided to participate in a Spanish immersion program and actually live with a host family that only spoke Spanish.

So off I went to study Spanish in a town named Carrillo Puerto. This town was inland and couple hours south of Playa Del Carmen. I was going to really jump in, head first and without my safety net of staying in a familiar tourist beach town. So I arrived on a Sunday by bus and was greeted by Simon, the student relations coordinator. From there, Simon took me to meet my family, the Pachecos.

I was given a little information about my family before I took off to Mexico. I arrived to my family’s home in the evening and was introduced to a married couple and their three daughters ages 21, 18, and 8. My Spanish was super broken and my comprehension of what they were saying to me was limited. However, I managed to understand the important topic of when the family eats and they asked what I like to eat and showed me my room and their bathroom. Once Simon left the home, the daughters asked me questions regarding if I was married or had any children. They asked about my home and the weather. I felt very comfortable using my broken Spanish and animated sign language to describe words I could not recall in Spanish. After an hour of conversation, I turned in to get ready for my first day of school.

Every morning that I got up to start my day of school, I was greeted by my host mom who was getting breakfast ready. She would ask me if I like the food that they were going to prepare. Every dish was wonderful. The family would buy fresh tortillas at meal time from the men selling them on their three wheeled bikes. Let’s just say that hunger was never an issue while I lived with my host family. Breakfast consisted of eggs, sausage, tortillas and fresh juice from the fruit of the day. After school, I would arrive home for a lunch which was also very enjoyable. My afternoons were spent talking to the daughters on topics of make-up, music, and different movies we enjoyed. I got to learn a lot about their family history and also got to meet the family’s friends whom lived nearby. I shared a lot of common interests with the family. One evening the oldest daughter and I took the youngest sibling to a park to go roller skating. We took bikes into town and hung out in the park as the youngest daughter skated.

However, there was a lot of differences from my way of living. Staying in a homestay makes you realize the different priories that we have here in the United States. For example, my family’s home had minimal furniture and the family had hammocks to sleep in. I did have a bed in my room and a hammock. I choose to use the bed for sleep as I wanted to have a great night’s rest to be refreshed in the mornings for school. The family also cooked most of their meals outside, where they have a wood burning stove and a sink. We ate most of our meals in the outdoor kitchen. I also had to share a bathroom with the family. Believe it or not, this was not an issue for me. The shower in the home was not working at the time, so I bathed with a five-gallon bucket and a giant Big Gulp cup. (My host family did have indoor plumbing but the shower head was broken.) This experience really humbled me and made me look at how this was not considered a big issue for my host family. I feel that some of my friends in the US would have a meltdown if there plumbing was not up to par.

Overall, my time in a homestay was completely enriched with culture and family. I had a sense of actually being one of the family members throughout my stay. If I was asked to give advice to anyone who was interested in staying in a homestay it would be to understand that you get what you put in. So in other words, if you want to improve your Spanish you have to hang out with the family and put yourself out into the community, accept that you are going to make mistakes when speaking a foreign language, and realize that there are other people in this world that live way different than yourself. You also need to be able to laugh at yourself when you make mistakes in speaking. Besides my family, everyone I dealt with - from people who tended the stores to taxi drivers - was willing to help me out.

My last day with my family was a little sad for me. As I was really enjoying my role with my host family and how they made me feel like I was one of them. The parents of the home told me I was welcome to return at any time. I am also “friends” with the oldest daughters on social media. I truly believe that living in a homestay takes your Spanish to a different level and even if you cannot “speak” what you need to communicate, somehow you are understood.

To learn more about studying Spanish or Maya with us by following along with the Na'atik Chapters Blog!

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The best way to experience the Mexican lifestyle is in person, with a Na’atik Immersion experience. Not only do you live with a local Mexican-Maya family, sharing home-cooked meals and free time, but also receive expert instruction in your chosen language at our school. Best of all, every immersion experience helps fund our subsidized and free local education program, helping local students to access opportunities and make their own futures.