I am since Monday one of the many AFS participants in Paraguay who has changed hostfamilies.
My change was not due to maltreatment in any form, as has been the case with others, but rather because it is a fact that some people simply don't have chemistry.
I lived in my first house for 9 months, and despite trying to get into the family for this time-period, I grew more and more uncomfortable and suffocated in the house.
Also, my hostfather was a rather intimidating human being, and even though he was pleasant to me, he is very 'Paraguayan macho'(ie thinks his and only his opinion has any value and that my opinions are by default worthless and insignificant because I'm younger and female) and I never really got over my anxiety in his presence.
In my opinion, the major effort of an exchange student should not be trying to integrate with the family. Do not get it wrong, I think it is really important to be integrated in the family, but if it takes so much effort that it constitutes 90% of your worries -and still doesn't feel good- it simply isn't worth continuing. At least not for me, I didn't come to Paraguay to be stressed out by the fact that I don't function in a family that I just am not compatible with.
Sometimes, people are just..."the wrong sofa". It is pretty and comfortable but it simply does not fin in your living room...
So I have been discussing the subject with various AFS people over quite a large timespan(about 2 months) and last weekend my local counsellor decided that I HAD TO move.
So she took me under her motherly wings and let me stay in her house with her family.
I have now been here a little less than a week, and I already feel more comfortable here than I did in my first house after 9 months.
The family consists of Mariela, my hostmother (and also AFS-counsellor), her husband Olavo and two daughters (ie my hostsisters, Olinda and Oriana, 3 and 14 years old). They live with the parents of Olavo, and in an interesting twist of circumstances, my Belgian friend Jana is the hostkid of my host-grandparents, which technically makes her my host-aunt, although she is more my sister than anything else. We have realized that we might seem to be as different from each other that two people can possibly be, but we actually think the same and function well together. I love her.
In fact I feel an affectionate love towards all of my new family members, including the maid and the nanny who work here. And not because "I should", as it often felt in my first family, but just because I simply like then very much.
So nowadays I share room with Jana and Oriana. In an interesting, and for me extremely beneficial, twist of events, I got to sleep on the loft the room features, which was previously just a deposit of a darn huge amount of clothes. I have my own personal window, something I have not had in nine months (my first house was a bit depressing in that sense).
I am just very happy here. And very set on having three awesome last months of exchange.
Take care. Smile.
