The journey begins-day one with my first host family

I just spent my first night with my first host family.  I was so unbelievably nervous when going to meet my home stay family.  When we walked outside all the families were standing there waiting to pick each of us up.  As each family was called and each of my group members went off with their host family I became more and more anxious.   When my family’s name was called and I walked up to them they both seemed so welcoming that I was able to relax for a minute.  Then the talking started.  When my papa Tico started talking in Spanish all of that panic came back because I didn’t know what he was saying.  Thankfully, my papa Tico is learning English so he was able to tell me what he was saying which helped me relax again.  This definitely showed me that I am one to freeze up in uncomfortable situations.  When my Mama Tica would say something I would freeze up and second guess what it meant.  In some cases I really had no idea what she said but in others I feel like I did know some of what she was saying but I was so worried about being wrong that I just froze up.  This is something I definitely need to work on because when I am a teacher I can’t just freeze up whenever something gets tough to explain to the students.  This is one thing that does worry me about being a teacher.  I have been in situations before where I didn’t know how to respond to something a child asked or did.  I think that after realizing this tonight I will be able to improve upon this during the next few weeks of this trip. 

                These are some of the nicest people I have met! When talking to my Mama Tica I felt so bad not knowing Spanish.  We tried so hard to communicate with each other.  It was very hard but all things considered I feel we did very well.  It helped that my sister Tica spoke both English and Spanish fluently and she was able to help me get through this first night.  I am so excited to see where this experience can take me.