My Opinion on Homestays

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!