The Home Stay: McLean Hudson

Since I'm still having formatting troubles with the pictures, I'll just talk about the home stay here and include pictures in the next post.

Our group's home stay was in a small town of 20,000 about thirty minutes outside of Córdoba called Cabra (translates as goat; ironically they don't have goats). I stayed with the city coordinator for EIL along with his family in their summer house. The house was very nice, and they even had a small soccer field and a small pool on their property (see video in next post). My father, Julian, my mother, Maricarmen, and their children, an eight year old boy and a 13 year old girl, named for their parents, were very gracious and patient throughout my stay.

Though I had plenty of trouble understanding my family, it was exciting because my comprehension was passable and it will not get any harder than how it was there. The first two days in Cabra were spent mostly with our families, though the kids of our group and any host siblings of the same age often met at el Paseo (a sort of town center/park) at night.

My most distinguishable memories come from the camping trip in the mountains we embarked on after two days in Cabra. I could talk about that trip for an hour, so if anyone would like a more detailed account of what we saw and did, please ask me, but for the sake of brevity, I'll summarize...

It was hot. Very, very hot. We climbed a mile in the first two hours before hiking down through a valley for the rest of the first day. Sometime after lunch, we starting walking through a pass between two peaks. The going was very rough, and at one point, we had to crawl under thorn bushes for about twenty feet. At this point it was about four in the afternoon and we'd been on the move since around 7AM. We were all very sunburned due to the flaming fireball that is the Spanish sun, exhausted, and all those other adjectives that go with city-slickers hiking through mountains in the summer, when a beautiful white town came into view through a break in the mountains. When we finally made it to the town, it was the middle of the siesta and no stores were open. As we desperately searched for a shower and aloe vera, we finally came on a beautiful little cafe next to a random castle-ish thing and...a fountain(!), all of which overlooked miles of farmland. Of course there is much more to that story, but I felt the town, Zuheros, should be commemorated for its great service to our group.

One of my favorite parts of the home stay was when the mayor of Cabra asked us to do a graffiti paint out at an underpass on a biking trail just outside the city. We were asked to do American things, so we were all debating between a giant American flag or a map of the U.S. when someone noticed we only had black, white, and grey paint. Eventually we all split up into little groups to do our own paintings. In the next post there is a video of what my friends Chuck, Wyatt, and I decided to do. I wont' ruin it with a poor description...

One day, we bussed with the other group (staying in another town) to Granada to see the Alhambra. It was absolutely gorgeous of course but the heat soiled the experience a little.

Another day, we went to Cabra's bull-fighting arena for a tour, though we did not get to see a bullfight. We did however get a little demonstration from aspiring bullfighters going against what was essentially a bicycle with horns. We also got to do a little bit of that our selves (I lost the video though).

Looking back on the home stay, there weren't many other big events to mention, but I feel I should make it clear how much fun it was just hanging out with local teenagers at the public pool or at their houses or just at el Paseo. It really was an incredible town and it was so much fun to be able to settle into everyday life with my family. From helping my father in the garden to swimming with my little brother to finally convincing my mother to let me do my own dishes, I had an awesome time with my family, and I am so thankful for their love and hospitality.