Even before I begin to describe the policy on homestays in
Peace Corps Macedonia, I will publicly announce that I cherish my living
situation. My homestay family is (using
the American vocabulary to its fullest extent) the bee’s knees. I am also lucky to have my own floor to
myself, with which I can escape into my own privacy when I like and feel like I
am living in my own apartment. I have
been writing this post for the past week now, and as I finish it on Easter, I
am reminded how great a homestay family can be.
The Policy on Homestays
MAK18s are the first group that is required to live with a
homestay. The former country director
decided that he would implement the policy requiring all to live in this
situation. PCVs in other countries also
live in homestays, but I do not know of any other country that requires all of
its volunteers to live with a homestay family.
There are clearly some benefits to making volunteers live
with a homestay. Living with HCNs every
day helps with the integration process.
We are forced to speak the local language with our families, are invited
to participate in the cultural holidays and traditions, and if we strike the
right deal, enjoy the local cuisine. We
may also be accepted into the community more easily, as neighbors and villagers
will recognize us as the Americans that live with this or that person. This in turn leads to an increase in
volunteer safety, as the chance of somebody breaking and entering into one’s
home is decreased with the presence of a homestay family. Peace Corps Macedonia advertises this as the
major success of the homestay policy, with hopes that incidents of robbery,
assault, and rape will be diminished.
But the homestay policy also reduces the cost of the Peace
Corps program in Macedonia. As I
mentioned in an earlier post, utilities like electricity are expensive, and
homestays reduce the expenses that are allocated for covering the utility bills
of PCVs.
Where the Letter and the Spirit Do Not Meet
Much of what the homestay policy in PC Macedonia hopes to
accomplish does not always work in practice, although the theory may be
sound. As I mentioned in a previous
post, more than a handful of the current MAK18s are either not happy with their
homestay situation, or they had switched homestays in the past few months. Many times, it is due to the fact that
homestay families do not understand the idea of their role but instead hope to
extract as much money as possible from the volunteers or the Peace Corps.
For example, one host family started to charge a volunteer
for utility costs that clearly did not add up.
In another situation, a family charged a volunteer half of their monthly
allowance for food costs, and they basically hid all of the food from her so
that she could not eat or cook on her own when she wanted to. Negotiating money tends to be a major
issue. One volunteer was tired of eating
similar soups all day, so he decided to stop paying for food and decided to eat
on his own. His host mother became
furious by the sudden loss of additional income flow, and in return told him
that she would stop doing his laundry or cleaning his room.
The most surprising story that I heard was about an older
volunteer who was promised his own floor for the living arrangements. He had seen the arrangements in November
during site visits, but when he returned in December, the host son (in his
early 20s) had inhabited the promised space and began to renovate it. When the volunteer approached the son, their
argument became heated, and the argument almost deteriorated into fisticuffs.
Now these are just the horror stories, and for every
terrible homestay situation, there are probably 1.5 tremendous
experiences. But all of these situations
have a similar theme- when are host families acting as families and when are
they acting as renters? Many of these
instances illustrate an arrangement where families treat the PCVs like
tenants. In most cases, this would be
fine if both stuck to the contract arranged by Peace Corps. But when a volunteer only has one room to
call his own, and when he has no control over food purchases, utilities, or the
preparation of meals, these volunteers are often taken advantage of by their
host families.
In other cases, families and volunteers observe their side
of the contract, but their personalities or stages in life just do not
match. Volunteers and host families are
only human, and therefore conflicting personalities can sometimes turn into
tumultuous homestay situations. Many of
the volunteers who switched homestays had found families that were much more compatible.
While the volunteers dwell on our own problems with the
homestay policy, we often forget to think of which burdens we are placing on
the homestay family. Sure, at first they
are excited to have us. But over time it
is challenging to have a volunteer live under the same roof for two years. While many of us are assured that we are
included as a part of a family, in the end we are strangers who are inhabiting
a family’s home for two years. I could
not imagine what it would be like to have a foreigner live in my house for two
years, especially if the volunteer happens to be the same age or older than my
parents, or if they are married volunteers.
My Two Cents
Before arriving in Macedonia, I learned that our whole group
would eventually live with a homestay family.
At first I was a bit perturbed by this policy, but I was more excited to
be a part of the Peace Corps, so I accepted the situation with good faith. Living with a homestay family during PST was
vital, and in no way do I argue against the policy for the first eleven weeks
for training purposes.
But my major concern with the homestay policy here is the
lack of choice. Given my somewhat
libertarian streak, I find issues with a policy that prevents individual
volunteers from maximizing their own utility.
But Macedonia is not the only country that I find issue with regarding
this policy. The policy that Macedonia
used to have, and which other countries still practice, randomly assigns
volunteers to homestays or apartments based on which site they are assigned
to. As far as I know, there is no
ability for a volunteer to express interest in living with a family or
apartment before they are assigned to their site. Thus, the policies are not “fair,” since
volunteers are placed in living situations that they may not prefer.
Living in a homestay may also inhibit a volunteer’s
opportunity to be effective in their primary projects. Expectations or duties from the host family
may sap a volunteer’s energy or time that he or she could have spent
concentrating on the work at their organization or school. Also, many volunteers feel that they lose
part of their identity when living with homestay families. Volunteers often feel that they need to
change the way the carry out their daily lives, losing a part of their
identity. For example, many female
volunteers in Macedonia who live with Albanian families are subjected to the
gender culture of Albanian families.
From what I heard, gender roles in these families typically expect the
women to carry out all household tasks without question. On the other hand, men are not expected to
participate in the household chores, including cooking or cleaning.
But as I mentioned before, these problems seem trifling to
what other volunteers faced in the past or in other parts of the world. For example, while dining in Skopje last
week, our country director told us a story of her service in Liberia. One time, her closest PCV neighbor who lived
hours away by car had invited two male PCVs to her hut to hang out for the
night. However, a local’s jealousy
turned to fury, and not long after he entered her home and chopped her to
pieces with a machete. This story
illustrates how PCV problems have generally become less serious throughout the
years, many times due to policies like the homestay policy in Macedonia.
In the end, I try to stay clear of the public debates
regarding this policy because I consider myself one of the luckiest volunteers. Not only do I have my own space so that I can
take control of my daily habits and occasionally escape into privacy, but I
have the nicest homestay family I could ever ask for. Overall, I am disappointed by the mandatory
homestay rule because I believe that volunteers should have a choice of how
they live in the country in which they serve.
Another volunteer put it well: sure, we gain the benefits of integration
by living with a family for our two years of service. But being forced to live with a homestay can
make some volunteers feel like they are students on a study abroad trip. This can turn the focus of this experience to
cultural exchange versus developing ourselves professionally or making a lasting impact for development in the country that we serve. Even though I
publicly disagree with the policy, I also publicly recognize that, without the
homestay policy, I would have never had the opportunity to meet such an amazing
family or have the ideal living situation.
But not everybody can be as lucky as me!
