Aero: Ashley Hager – Costa Rica 2014 – Family Life
Aero: Ashley Hager – Costa Rica 2014 – Family Life
Aero: Ashley Hager – Costa Rica 2014 – Family Life
Ashley Hager
Living with a Host Family allowed me to be 100% fully immersed into the Costa Rican culture, including unique lifestyles, language, and the best of all making life long connections with the most welcoming family in the world. During my experience my roommate Katie Heubusch and I had the opportunity to stay with Maria Marta Gonzales and her wonderful family. At first the thought of walking off the plane and meeting my host family was terrifying I thought that I wouldn’t know how to communicate or build a strong relationship due to the language barrier. Especially, if you know me I am easy to get along with, but I am a very shy person until I get to know you. The first few days it was an adjustment to get use to listening to my family talking in Spanish instead of English like my family back at home. But, after a while I got use to listening for key words that I understood, or once learned in my High School Spanish Class, quite a few years ago. Every morning Katie and I woke up and got around for our day and about thirty minutes before we had to leave for our destination Maria Marta would always make sure that we had a well prepared breakfast. Every morning we woke up to a smiling face saying “Hola! Buenos Dias! with a prepared meal waiting for us on the counter. After we would eat a good breakfast with our host mother we would go to wash our dishes and Maria Marta would tell us that we didn’t have to wash the dishes, and to just set them on the counter and they would be taken care of. At first this was a very different concept to me because at my house I always made myself breakfast, and picked up after myself, and it definitely took a while to get used to. I would always catch myself washing my own dishes. Then after breakfast she would drive us to school either for our class or to meet the other students for our tourist adventures and tell us to have a good day.
Costa Rica 2014
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My family life in Costa Rica in some ways was similar and in others it was different from my family life in the United States. I felt like when I was living with my host family I was less independent than when I am at home. Maria Marta always made us feel at home she made sure we were well taken care of. She would always leave work early when she needed to come and get us from school and take us back home, and ask us about our day. She would also always have our laundry done for us by the cleaning lady that came every Monday and Thursday, and she always cooked us a delicious dinner every night around 6:30- 7:00pm. The only thing that was different is we rarely ate dinner together as a family most of the time it was Katie and I and sometimes their son Marco Jr. However, this did allow us to get to know Marco. Every evening Maria Marta would tell us about our plans for the next day and tell us “Buenos noches”, to have a good night.
The language barrier turned out to not be as difficult as I was expecting. Luckily Maria Marta knows a little English, which allowed me to ask how to say certain words in Spanish. If Maria Marta didn’t understand her son Marco was also a part of a study abroad program in the United States and he knew how to speak English very well, and was able to help out if we were completely lost, which was very comforting. Her husband Marco didn’t know much English but when he talked in Spanish he did talk slowly, which allowed me to catch familiar words and try my best to figure out what he was asking. By the end of the fourteen days I could tell that I made life-long relationships with some very caring people. Living with a host family was definitely one of the best aspects of this experience.
Learn More: Study abroad with Modern Languages @ FLCC: Costa Rica!
– Ashley Hager
The LEAF Project
www.leaflanguages.org
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