Meeting my new family?

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Individual Reflection:

Going into this week, I was feeling very nervous. The idea of staying with a family I didn't know in a foreign country was very intimidating to me. When we first arrived and met our host mom (Silvia), she seemed very nice and I was relieved that she spoke a little bit of English. Once we arrived at her house and met her family, she showed us our rooms and shut the door that separated our rooms from the rest of the house. I felt that she wanted to give us privacy, but it made me feel like she did not want us to be there, and that made it difficult to feel comfortable in her home. However, understanding the customs of people outside of country is crucial, and I’m glad that we have been given this opportunity. As it says in the Cultural Intelligence book, “True cultural intelligence stems from within and transforms the way we lead at home and across the globe”(Leading with Cultural Intelligence, 40).

Relational Reflection:

Something that I was surprised by in my host family’s house was that they did not eat together. At my house back home, we all pitch in to make lunch or dinner, and then sit down to eat as a family. When we spoke about Spanish families prior to this trip, we talked about how food is a very important part of life in countries like Spain, so I was expecting meals to be a time of getting to know each other and sitting down as a whole unit. However, for every meal that we ate at our home, our host would yell down the hallway “Chicas! La cena/la almuerza!”, and then she would have us all sit at the table but would never eat with us. This was very different for me, and I wish that I could’ve been able to help out with meals or cleaning up. I wish that I had been able to talk to my host family more than I did and get to know them better.

Social Reflection:

One thing I noticed while staying with my host family was the issue of sexism in traditional household roles. Our host family consisted of a mom, dad, and two children (a boy and a girl). Our host mom stayed home and cleaned the house, did dishes, made food, and took care of the children. Her husband went to work all day, and then came home and watched tv or played video games until he went to bed. Although there are many families that work like this, it surprised me to see a younger couple that still sticks so strongly to these gender roles. In America, there has been a strong surge of female empowerment and breaking gender stereotypes, and it feels that Spain still has a long way to go in that area. This makes sense, especially as we spoke about in Dr. Reyes lecture, due to the long-standing catholic traditions that were weaved into Spanish culture. And, as it states in our culture smart book, “Some men do help in the house or even share the work more or less, but women still do the lion’s share” (Spain, 89).

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Photos

Roommates
My roommates for our home stay in Granada!