ah, the joys of homestay
I have determined that my homestay 'family' are in it for the money, because no other explanation makes sense, and because it's the simplest (occam's razor).
My sister suggested that they probably think "He's the best homestay dude we've ever had." That's probably true, because I'm sure to never be there, and I've gotten up everyday before them so they've never had to make me breakfast (which is one of the 2 meals a day I'm supposed to be getting for my U$130 aweek).
The other night, I think it was Wednesday, the mom (Liliana) got home kind of late. I don't know what the hell she does, I think nothing (kind of like you, Anne-Marie), and this supports the "in it for the money" theory. She banged around the kitchen for maybe 30 minutes and then told me dinner was ready. In this particular case dinner consisted of two hamburger patties and a CRAPLOAD of powdered potatoes. I understand that maybe she's got stuff to do (that's not true, I don't think she does anything), but powdered potatoes? What is this, the army? Jesus, lady, try to at least fake an effort.
I also heard that Argentinians won't touch ground beef because they're such connosieurs with all the beef. I have no idea if that's true or not but it sort of added insult to the whole thing.
She made up for it the next day with a huge steak, which I ate all of because in Brazil it's pretty bad to leave food on your plate. Afterwards I felt like a fat pig, which is what I was.
And then today I woke up late (9am) and when I was about to leave someone buzzed the front door. I waited for someone else to answer it but no one came, so I waited for whomever was buzzing to leave. But after about 15 minutes of persistent buzzing every 2 minutes or so,with me talking to myself in the mirror repeating the phrase "I can't believe I'm going to have to deal with this bullshit," I was thinking maybe someone forgot their keys, so I answered it and it was two peasants (you know what I mean). I explained to them that I was a student and I didn't speak Spanish, and that nobody else was home. So what did they do? They freaking went off in Spanish as if I was a freaking Spanish literature scholar. I actually understood a lot of what they said (but I didn't want them to know that) which was that the kid (I think he was with his mom) was there to do yard and housework, and that Liliana said she'd be home, which she wasn't. I gave them Liliana's daughter's cell phone and I left them there, like 2 turds.
So then I come home around 4pm, to take a shower and crash, and I hear both women are home. The daughter, Valeria (yeah, she's hot) locks herself in her room whenever she's home, so whenever the mom wants to talk to her she has to knock over the sound of punk rock and whatever other quasi-rebellious music coming from the room. This time Valeria was asleep or something, because I heard Liliana knock for about 15 minutes at 2 minute intervals (yes, again), and I was like, these people are trying to drive me nuts with the knocking and the buzzing. I wanted to run out there and just be like "JUST BUST IT OPEN" but I didn't have the balls, and they wouldn't have understood me anyway. But I bet Valeria would have opened the door then :).
So later on I came out of my room to ask Liliana if she'd gotten in touch with the peasants, and as I was like "Hello", I saw behind her through the window to the garden that the kid was working there. So then I tried to explain that he and his mom were there earlier and I wanted to make sure they'd gotten in touch with her, which they obviously had but I'd already started talking and I didn't know how to back up. I tried to bail with an "ok no problem" but she was like"what, what?" so I tried to explain again and she said, "You mean, what do you do if someone comes to the door and there's nobody here?"So in a continued effort to bail I was like, "Yeah" and she said don't let anybody in, which is obvious. So it's confirmed that the American is a moron.
I should add that I originally signed up for a shared apartment with other students, minus the family, but apparently 3 weeks is too short a time for the school placement service I went through to get their shit together, so I had to start with the homestay. It seemed OK after the first day or two, because they were nice, but then they just freaking disappeared and started doing weird things like feeding me powdered potatoes. The people at the school were like, if you want to change, you can do it any time and it's no problem. No problem for them, maybe, but I'm the one who has to drag out my massive bag of luggage while the two women stand by the door spitefully, arms crossed and not helping. Because of my fear of that scene, and because of the chance, however minute, that the girl's boyfriend might dump her between now and next Sunday, I'm going to try to hang in there.
My sister suggested that they probably think "He's the best homestay dude we've ever had." That's probably true, because I'm sure to never be there, and I've gotten up everyday before them so they've never had to make me breakfast (which is one of the 2 meals a day I'm supposed to be getting for my U$130 aweek).
The other night, I think it was Wednesday, the mom (Liliana) got home kind of late. I don't know what the hell she does, I think nothing (kind of like you, Anne-Marie), and this supports the "in it for the money" theory. She banged around the kitchen for maybe 30 minutes and then told me dinner was ready. In this particular case dinner consisted of two hamburger patties and a CRAPLOAD of powdered potatoes. I understand that maybe she's got stuff to do (that's not true, I don't think she does anything), but powdered potatoes? What is this, the army? Jesus, lady, try to at least fake an effort.
I also heard that Argentinians won't touch ground beef because they're such connosieurs with all the beef. I have no idea if that's true or not but it sort of added insult to the whole thing.
She made up for it the next day with a huge steak, which I ate all of because in Brazil it's pretty bad to leave food on your plate. Afterwards I felt like a fat pig, which is what I was.
And then today I woke up late (9am) and when I was about to leave someone buzzed the front door. I waited for someone else to answer it but no one came, so I waited for whomever was buzzing to leave. But after about 15 minutes of persistent buzzing every 2 minutes or so,with me talking to myself in the mirror repeating the phrase "I can't believe I'm going to have to deal with this bullshit," I was thinking maybe someone forgot their keys, so I answered it and it was two peasants (you know what I mean). I explained to them that I was a student and I didn't speak Spanish, and that nobody else was home. So what did they do? They freaking went off in Spanish as if I was a freaking Spanish literature scholar. I actually understood a lot of what they said (but I didn't want them to know that) which was that the kid (I think he was with his mom) was there to do yard and housework, and that Liliana said she'd be home, which she wasn't. I gave them Liliana's daughter's cell phone and I left them there, like 2 turds.
So then I come home around 4pm, to take a shower and crash, and I hear both women are home. The daughter, Valeria (yeah, she's hot) locks herself in her room whenever she's home, so whenever the mom wants to talk to her she has to knock over the sound of punk rock and whatever other quasi-rebellious music coming from the room. This time Valeria was asleep or something, because I heard Liliana knock for about 15 minutes at 2 minute intervals (yes, again), and I was like, these people are trying to drive me nuts with the knocking and the buzzing. I wanted to run out there and just be like "JUST BUST IT OPEN" but I didn't have the balls, and they wouldn't have understood me anyway. But I bet Valeria would have opened the door then :).
So later on I came out of my room to ask Liliana if she'd gotten in touch with the peasants, and as I was like "Hello", I saw behind her through the window to the garden that the kid was working there. So then I tried to explain that he and his mom were there earlier and I wanted to make sure they'd gotten in touch with her, which they obviously had but I'd already started talking and I didn't know how to back up. I tried to bail with an "ok no problem" but she was like"what, what?" so I tried to explain again and she said, "You mean, what do you do if someone comes to the door and there's nobody here?"So in a continued effort to bail I was like, "Yeah" and she said don't let anybody in, which is obvious. So it's confirmed that the American is a moron.
I should add that I originally signed up for a shared apartment with other students, minus the family, but apparently 3 weeks is too short a time for the school placement service I went through to get their shit together, so I had to start with the homestay. It seemed OK after the first day or two, because they were nice, but then they just freaking disappeared and started doing weird things like feeding me powdered potatoes. The people at the school were like, if you want to change, you can do it any time and it's no problem. No problem for them, maybe, but I'm the one who has to drag out my massive bag of luggage while the two women stand by the door spitefully, arms crossed and not helping. Because of my fear of that scene, and because of the chance, however minute, that the girl's boyfriend might dump her between now and next Sunday, I'm going to try to hang in there.
posted by n10471 at 5:50 PM
1 Comments:
Classic stuff, Newt.
Hope all is well down South and hopefully we'll connect at some point in '06.
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