When reading the Carletonian in past terms, I have been satisfied with the coverage of the Carleton experience. I have laughed, cried and sneezed thanks to the various viewpoints and corners of campus that this publication has brought front and center. However, I have always found one perspective to be lacking: the Carleton experience of someone not currently at Carleton, a student on OCS. While wallowing in despair over this fact last week, I had a revelation. I, Ben, am currently off campus, and thus I must pick up my pen and fill this gaping cavity in our campus’s favorite news source.
On the Spanish Studies in Madrid program, students live with local families. As the Bald Spot’s first ever in-depth look at student life abroad, we investigate these families and how our fellow students are finding life at home.
One junior student says, “my host dad is really sweet. He’s a little old, but we all make mistakes. He just hobbles around on his cane and asks me questions about my day. It’s a perfectly comfortable situation.”
Another student has a similar situation: “I’m with this nice older couple and their golden retriever Archie. Things are pretty quiet around the house except for when Archie needs an oil change, which is about once a week, and more if he has a good hunt. Then his joints start to creak so loudly I can hardly sleep.”
Some students have run into conflict with their host families. Senior Harold Haroldson attests, “She won’t shut up about some concert tour she’s on. I mean, it’s cool, but after a certain point I don’t care how many records it breaks. You need to stop telling me about your 149 shows and the ongoing controversy involving your use of Ticketmaster. Who cares if you’re about to start the final leg of the tour? If you ask me, you’re in your ‘time to stop talking’ era.”
Another student says, “Yeah, I’ve had some conflicts too. I’m pretty tolerant politically, something of a libertarian, but my host dad keeps talking about the destruction of the Rebel Alliance and threatening to blow up planets. I know politics are different in Europe, but this seems extreme.”
Some students express unease for other reasons. One junior says, “My host mom is a very nice lady. A little young, but we all make mistakes. And I’m so proud of her for getting potty trained. I think we’re almost ready to get her a big girl bed.”
Some students’ families are fish. One senior says, “Yep. They’re fish.”
Students praise the capability of their families to connect with others. One junior reports, “With the click of a button I can send messages around the world instantaneously. This truly is the next generation of tech. Apple: ready to take on the new millennium.”
One sophomore has a different experience with an electronic family. “I don’t mind, since I can cook for myself,” they say, “but I wish OCS had at least warned me before putting me with a family of Roombas. I don’t mean to be prejudiced, it’s just that it caught me off guard. And my host brother gets really antsy when there isn’t any dirt or grime to clean up. Once he woke me up in the middle of the night and said something like “feed me, child, for I hunger,” but I couldn’t understand him very well. It was early in the program and the Spanish immersion part was still really hard.”
Some students’ situations are downright inconvenient. One student shares, “they’re pickle collectors. And not just any pickles—Spanish Wild Pickles. They get up to six feet long. I can’t walk down the hall to get to my room. Even if I could, it would be no use—there’s a pickle in my bed. I don’t know what to do.”
Through all of their homestay-related trials and tribulations, the students look out for each other. One student tells me she likes to “keep Harold company when his host mom is away playing to packed stadiums as part of her five-continent concert tour which to date has grossed almost 2 billion dollars. It’s tough for him to be all alone. She only really talks to him when she wants advice on how to format her upcoming coffee table book about her tour, featuring never before seen photos and personal reflections, which you can preorder from Target now.”
Finally, some students have experiences that seem eerily familiar. One student says, “I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve seen my host mom before. You can see her bangs from a mile away, and she always wears a cardigan and a calf-length skirt. Once I asked her to pass the wild pickles, and she slammed her hand onto the table and said, ‘We are NOT divesting from General Electric!’ I don’t know. Must be déjà vu.”
Another student adds, “Yeah, I get that too. In my family, all they eat is tater-tot hotdish. It’s like I never left Minnesota.”
In the spirit of staying connected with our compatriots overseas, we at the Bald Spot hope this snapshot of student life abroad has inspired you, moved you, and reminded you to send your friends abroad a text. WhatsApp is a safe bet if you’re not sure how to reach them.
