How does living in dorms compare with living with host families?
Living with a host family can be challenging in the beginning, especially with communication, dealing with a host sibling, and having your host family expect you to participate in family events/responsibilities. Many past volunteers say the reward far outweighs the challenge. You come to love them, you are exposed to more language, and you really see the culture first hand. The dorms/apts. lets you be in a foreign country, but come home to a little piece of America at night. Where the social aspect is strong, the cultural/linguistic may not be as strong as a host family. You really can’t lose, both options are great–most past volunteers say if they went again, they wouldn’t change to the other.
