Study Abroad: My Homestay Experience

By Victoria Robertson on January 22, 2015

As a study abroad student, I couldn’t help but be nervous for what was ahead of me. I’ve never been on my own in another country before, let alone lived with another family for two days.

As you can imagine, this made my homestay experience the one aspect of the trip I was dreading. Looking back, it was one of my favorite aspects of the trip.

When we first arrived, myself and another study abroad student were placed in a house consisting of a mother, father and two twin girls about 8 years old.

However, we quickly learned that it didn’t matter who was actually part of the family, as the communal living in the community made it clear everyone in Votua Village was family.

Throughout our stay, we met so many people that two days wasn’t nearly long enough to get to know everyone. Extended family members, neighbors and friends were constantly in and out of the house, many of them spending so much time there you’d think they lived there.

But within such a small amount of time, we were made to feel as if we were also part of this communal living, and by the time we left the village, we felt like family.

Upon being invited into our family’s home, we were each given a handcrafted necklace made of leaves and flowers to wear around the village. Each student’s was made by their individual homestay parents, so everyone’s was different.

But just the fact that our homestay mother put that much work into something just to make us feel included was incredible.

Of course, there were things we had to adjust to as well when we arrived. For instance, in Fiji, resting is a continual requirement, as the pace of life is much slower there than we are used to in the U.S.

So my roommate and I found ourselves continually forced to take naps and asked if we needed a rest, despite our being wide awake and ready to take on the day.

Another adjustment we had to make regarded the food: we were continually eating. In Votua Village, it almost seemed as if life revolved around the meals. Granted, these were some of the best meals I’d ever eaten, but I don’t think that my stomach could have taken much more than two days of this.

Each day, we had breakfast, lunch, a snack, afternoon tea and dinner.

Breakfast consisted of homemade coconut scones, French bread and fresh eggs taken from the family’s hen. They typically put these eggs in cartons and sell them on the side of the road to make their profit.

For lunch, each day was different. Our first day, we had an eggplant bake made in the oven with coconut milk, fish–also made with coconut milk–and a creamed spinach made in, you guessed it, coconut milk.

The second day, we had an eggplant curry over rice. Both of these meals were absolutely incredible, and I didn’t actually know I liked eggplant until I ate here. Plus, all the vegetables used were taken directly from our homestay family’s garden, something they appeared to be very proud of.

Usually our snacks consisted of fruits taken from the garden, which was typically an orange. However, in the village they continually referred to it as lemon. The children usually ate Ramen noodles straight out of the package, something we were glad we were never offered.

With our snacks, we usually were given a cup of Fanta as well (pineapple or orange flavored). Our homestay family was proud of the fact that this “juice,” as they called it, is Fijian made. We didn’t have the heart to tell them we make it in the U.S. as well.

Afternoon tea, which became one of my favorite times of the day, was served along with a plate of Fijian cookies, another one of my favorites from the trip. The tea was lemon leaf, which I am continually raving about to anyone that will listen. In fact, my study abroad group came to refer to this as “Jesus juice.”

Finally, for dinner, we were served lovo. Lovo is a Fijian term used to describe an underground oven in which wood is piled up and burned with stones placed on top of it. Once these stones are hot enough, the food is placed on it in coconut leaves to cook.

I wasn’t expecting much from this feast, but it ended up being a fantastic meal. There was fish, curry, pork, fresh fruits and vegetables all laid out on the mat before us. While we did have to eat on the floor as a group, and use our fingers instead of utensils, it was an experience I won’t soon forget.

So while I went in to the homestay with few expectations, I came out with more stories to tell than I ever would have thought.

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