I've been home for two weeks now and am enjoying it immensely. I have one more blog coming about the weird things about being home. But first, the long promised "Studying Abroad may be one of the hardest things you ever do!" post...
Being abroad is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. You
are living far away from home for many months, studying, adventuring, and
learning a ton (different than studying). There are two types of challenges
that I’ve come to understand: the normal-abroad-is-hard challenges, and then
there’s the this-really-isn’t-okay type of challenges. I don’t want to deceive
you by only cataloging my grand adventures and fun experiences. It was
incredibly hard.
For one, everything was in Spanish. It felt relentless as I
tried to listen, understand, and respond appropriately and with the correct
timing. I got so tired of being constantly corrected before I got my full
thought out. Did you get the gist of what I was saying??? Then let me finish
and correct me after!! Of course, that did help in the end as I feel pretty
confident in my Spanish skills. Traveling around Quito and then Ecuador was
also a bit challenging, especially at first. Quito is huge and has the worst
(constant) traffic I have ever experienced. One time I ran on the road that my
bus went on and it was 2.5 miles to get somewhere that took nearly an hour on
the bus. The buses are always crammed full to the point where it’s hard to see
out the window for your stop. And then of course everyone is staring at the weird looking white gringa. After a couple weeks the buses stopped being
scary and just continued being boring. I even got on the wrong bus a few times
and was able to navigate myself back where I wanted to be. Traveling around Ecuador usually included buses anywhere from 8 to 12+ hours long. The other huge thing
is the safety trainings. They’re ridiculous! I mean, I understand why they’re
helpful and I followed mostly what they said and nothing bad happened to me in
the city so I can see why they’re important, but still! I swear I thought I was
going to be sequestered every time I got in cab – and I was only taking legal
ones! So silly. Another challenge was the food. I liked Ecuadorian food so long
as it didn’t include things I was allergic to or rancid meat, but even food you
like gets tiring when it’s not YOUR food. I ate enough Oreos to last me a
lifetime because they were an easy and familiar snack when I was missing food I
knew. Lastly of course, I missed my family and my friends. I was lucky to have connection to internet when I needed it and thus could keep in touch, but I still felt very far away from the going-on's at home.
So those are more general struggles about being abroad. However,
everyone has their own unique challenges as well. I’ve included a bit of mine
because it had a huge impact on my experience abroad and also this is my blog and I want
to be honest.
It took me a long time to figure out what was going on and
that what was happening wasn’t normal. I blamed my bad experiences and general
dislike of most of my time on not being used to a big city, on my boring
Spanish class, the fact people stared at me on the bus, and my fear of throwing
up in taxis after the “chocho incident” in February that resulted in that new
talent I had spoken of. (The talent is puking profusely from within a taxi
without actually getting any in or on the taxi.) Anyway, if you’re ever abroad
and things are just really really bad, I suggest analyzing every piece. I felt
so much like my problems were due to my lack of ability or personal weaknesses.
Somehow I couldn’t connect that my fears crept in most as I headed back to the
house or that my constant nausea might be due to bad food/food handling rather
than being afraid and nervous.
I don’t want to go into details, because my first host
family members are real people, but it became very obvious that the family and
the family environment were the causes of my issues. I’m not going to put up the
full story here, [but yes, host mom, I am still allergic to said food even after it's ground up and hidden in a soup. And, no, a roll of bread is NOT sufficient for an entire lunch]. Anyway, it got to the point where I had three countdowns to come
home (leave Quito, arrive in America, arrive at my house), a tab open to
constantly check for flights out of Quito, and I was spending any minute away
from that house that I could. The worst was one Wednesday night when (sorry
Mom) I called my mom sobbing and told her that I needed to go home right away.
I couldn’t and wouldn’t stay for the last two months. Thankfully my mom talked
me down (with the help of two dear friends [sorry Lily and Errin] who had
happened to be over at our house when I called). My mom reminded me that, after
way too much drama I had finally, with the help of the incredible girls on my
abroad (especially one of the best emails ever written thanks to dear Brianne),
got our director to agree to switch me into a new host family. Because of the
urgency of my situation, I would be moving into Brianne’s house the next day
and then in with the new family during the weekend. At that point though, I had
been successfully convinced that it was my problem and my weakness and even
with the new host family, I would still have all the same issues.
Note here: everything all the way down to my health improved
the second I got out of the first house. My experience had a complete rebirth
and I was able to understand that I was not the problem. Of course, there are
things I could have done better and I learned and grew a ton from my
experience, but I should never have been in the situation I was. For me, it was
a good wake-up call. We are so much stronger than we think we are and I need to
be careful about what I let other people make me feel.
Here’s a special shout out to the 7 other girls on my abroad
that helped me survive the months that I thought I couldn’t. And especially Brianne
who let me live in her house and reassured me if I panicked about food and also
introduced me to the song that, through it’s apt lyrics “let’s go out and find
ourselves a home,” gave me that spark of hope that things would be okay. (Song
included for your listening pleasure).
