Home Sweet Home

Living with a host family has always been my biggest concern. I knew before coming here that this was going to be one of the greater challenges I was going to have to face. During my training I stayed with a host family, in which I’ll say….wasn’t the best. Then I moved out to my actual village.  I was always promised my own place, but the house wasn’t built yet so I had to stay with another host family during the meantime.  My second host family ended up being amazing, and I have grown pretty close with them. I feel extremely close with this family, which is a good thing considering what it could have been. Nevertheless, I still wanted my own place. I have lived on my own for the past four years and have grown accustomed to the freedom. Living with a host family however gives you zero independence. Week after week, and month after month I have been patiently waiting for the village to start building my house, but nothing. Finally, four months later the wheels started turning. My house was being built. However, then an unusual circumstance came into play and the house that was being built for me was no longer the house I was going to be living in. My housing situation as of right now is nothing less than bitter sweet. On the sweet side I have this amazing house right on the water. I also will have a roommate, another Peace Corps Volunteer who is a year ahead of me. Peace Corps Volunteers living together is almost unheard of, but like I said, unusual circumstances. The bitter side is that the original house being built for me was on my family’s compound, which was going to allow me more independence, but still a connection with the family. Now moving into this new house I will no longer have that connection. This is rough because being connected to a Samoan family is a great way of integrating into the village. Breaking the news to my host family that I was no longer going to be living with them was extremely hard, and they did not take it well. So as of right now I have a lot of mixed emotions. I’m excited for moving into my own house, but sad that I will not be living with my family anymore.  I guess what this means is that I’m going to have to make extra more of an effort of spending time with the family, and integrating into the village.