Home sweet home?

I was going to write about this a few weeks ago, but to be honest, it’s been hard for me to put into words. My perspective on the whole things keeps altering every time I sit down to write…
Part of the induction process accounts for a week’s home stay with a local Bangladeshi family. I’m not going to lie, I was a little apprehensive about the whole thing but I wanted to give it a try at least. Knowing that if the worst came to the worst, I could always leave if I didn’t feel comfortable or safe.

On the Saturday of the departure, all of the volunteers met at the VSO office, packed and ready for a week’s stay with a local family but as we approached the destinations, the first drop-off point made me concerned to say the least. One of the British girl’s got dropped off in a really shady area right next to the slums. I know we were all prepared to enter ‘reality’, but this seemed a bit too extreme. Security and safety as a woman here is vital. I know this now even more after what happened the other week. Anyway, after she left, we all got dropped off one by one at more moderate locations and anxiety started to rise in the pit of my stomach. Even though the other drop-offs seemed of a higher standard, we hadn’t reached my destination yet, and then lastly, we got to my home stay.

First of all, the VSO van couldn’t even make it’s way down my street. The narrow, cobbled and dirt road was too small for the van so I got out with the driver and made my way along the passage with my bags. The lane was littered with so much rubble and garbage, it was hard to walk, and beggars in wooden carts filled in the gaps, making me realize all too clearly that I was definitely in an even poorer area of town than I was used to. Regardless, we made our way to the block of stone flats where my family lived, and up the dark winding stairway. Upon arrival, there were a lot of people to greet me which was nice but then I realized that all of these people actually lived there (in two rooms) and that I’d be sharing a bedroom with three of them, with two beds pushed together. The humble family obviously needed the money from VSO for the home stay visit but without sounding like a princess, I was worried about lasting a week there, especially with all of the other VSO work scheduled. After some simple pleasantries, I discovered that the family didn’t really speak Bengali because they were aboriginal and spoke a dialect at home, so my new limited language skills were practically redundant. The family also had a handicapped child, a boy about fifteen years old. The mother explained that he has suffered from meningitis as a child but sadly, he stayed at home most of the time, and because I was there, they kept him hidden in the bedroom. All I could hear through the wall was constant groaning... Shortly after, dinner time rolled around and out of politeness, the family insisted I sit alone for dinner, dining first, but this felt awkward and counteracted against the ‘family experience’ I’d been hoping for. To top it all off, the power went out after dinner for almost two hours, leaving us alone in the dark, struggling for conversation. I decided to eventually go to bed, rolling out my sleeping bag alongside the others, squinting to try and get to sleep, trying not to concentrate on the bugs crawling around. No mosquito nets here kids, not even glass in the windows. By morning I was exhausted and rolled out of bed, hoping a shower would wake me up… but the family had no shower, only a bucket. Mmmm. One thing after another was making the whole experience feel like it was becoming too much.

After getting dressed and waling down the lane with the mother of the family, I eventually got a CNG to the VSO office and in speaking with the other volunteers, realized I was roughing it a lot more than most of them. I started to question the value in the whole experience and realized that there was no logic to where we were placed, it was more of a panic to just put us somewhere so that the box could be ticked; ‘the volunteer completed the home stay’. By the afternoon, I approached the issue of my accommodation with one of the VSO organizers, and after a lot of back and forth, it was decided that I would leave the home stay and go back to the induction flat.
Everything felt like it was just becoming too stressful and I felt sick of being pushed around here, there and everywhere. I requested to be moved into my new flat. That’s it, one more move. Done. Enough. Luckily VSO agreed and I moved into Mohammedia housing society, where I am today.

There’s so many mixed emotions I have about those twenty-four hours. Should I have given the experience more time? I didn’t want to insult the family but the whole induction was draining. Looking back on it now, maybe I should have. I don’t know. I made the decision that felt right at the time and there’s no going back. I’m disappointed it didn’t work out but there’s nothing I can do about it now...