Day 1 with My Host Family

After a night at the discoteca we assembled for the walk up to the Training Center.  The training center is a beautiful large home that was once part of a larger tract of land that got sold off into smaller parcels.  It’s gated with tiled roof and a large back yard with a decorative pool.  We had a briefing about living with a host family and had lunch.  At about 1 in the afternoon our host families started arriving and taking us out to our communities.  Five of us are in a community called Huascata.  One by one folks started leaving.  By the end, it was me a couple of others.  I kind of felt like one of the last dogs at the shelter waiting to be adopted.  Finally my host father showed up to take me to my new home for the next 10 weeks.

My host father is a retiree with a son and a daughter and two grandkids ages 6 and 9 who all live in the same house.  There’s a main living room that has a little electric keyboard where the kids took turn playing Happy Birthday and Fur Elise.  Someone was  playing a song that sounded a lot like Sinatra’s Chicago.

My penthouse suite is up on the roof has a bed, desk, lights and is pretty comfortable.  The bed has a Super Heroes comforter complete with Superman, Spiderman, Wonderwoman and a couple of other muscular, manly, masked do-gooders.  I’m sure they had to wrestle it away from the 6 year old.

I spent a little time unpacking and getting settled in before me and the other volunteers in the area walked around, met the other host families and checked out each other’s room.  Caleb, a fellow from Virginia is right next door which is nice.  I imagine that our little group of five is going to be pretty tight the next couple of weeks.