Caleb in Mexico

Our home-stay family is a somewhat different matter. Don Tito and Mago were awesome. They opened their home to us, spoke very slowly and clearly, and shared their stories with us. Unfortunately we met some palpable tension during the second week. I had sort of expected to form some sort of life-long bond with these people I lived with for weeks. It didn’t happen. There are probably several reasons for this. The major one being that, after hearing their struggles and their successes, I grew to respect them a lot. As a matter-of-fact midwesterner I refused to let myself “pity” anyone I saw, because in reality they have accomplished so much more than I will ever do…I could have utter respect for them. I think by remaining conscious of these types of issues, I detached myself from forming any type of lasting bond. Other factors like generational difference, short time period, multiple other stressors, PLUS stomach trouble just made the whole family situation a big “miss.” I think this will probably take me a while before I can fully articulate what happened. In spite of the awkwardness in our household, we still managed to have a pretty good time. I ended up doing a fair bit of the translating and conversing, so Don Tito started calling Josh "the Bishop" and me "the secretary!" Which is pretty hilarious. I'm thinking that humor is a good way to start to overcome asymetrical interactions.