The comedy becomes a tragedy

The Players.....

1. Carlos......administrator from the Spanish school
2. Father
3. Mother
4. Kid
5. Jason....the villain


So in my last entry, I wrote about the idiosyncricies with my new ¨family¨ in addition to a few humerous anecdotes that had taken place. Well, this week was a little wierd, and as the week went on, I found myself feeling increasingly alienated at the house. By the end of the week, I noticed that I was not only eating alone, but that I was being avoided COMPLETELY. If I was at home, the rest of the family simply went into the other bedroom and closed-locked the door. If I asked why I was eating alone again (was no one else hungry?), there was always some wierd excuse as to why they were not hungry. Of course I had to question why they would eat in the room (behind closed doors) AS SOON AS I HAD CLEARED THE AREA. In the event that someone had to actually enter the same room as their houseguest (me), they went to great lengths to avoid eye contact and conversation. HMMMMM......something was certainly not right.

Well, last night I simply had to find out what was going on. When I cornered the father and pressed him for answers, he finally told me what was happening. Here´s a brief summary.

Scene 1.......Remember the humerous (at least I thought they were humerous) anecdotes I shared involving food and exhibitionism? Well, I had also mentioned them to my new friend Carlos from the school. When I mentioned them to him, I was coming from the standpoing of ¨hey, let me tell you something funny that happened¨. I was also coming from the standpoint of ¨these were mistakes that I made¨ as I was adjusting to some cultural differences. No more.

Scene 2.....Carlos calls the house and talks to the kid. I don´t know exactly what he said, but apparently he wasn´t particularly friendly.

Scene3......Kid cries and tells mom and dad about the phone call.....dad calls Carlos and they arrange a meeting. Now, at this point mom is VERY protective of her son and upset at both Carlos (for confronting the kid) and ME (for supposedly talking badly about her son.

Scene4......Dad has meeting with Carlos in which they talk about all of the above. In addition, Carlos apparently tells them that I am very unhappy with them and with living in their home.

Scene 5....the ANGER scene.....OK, now they are ALL upset and have taken VERY personally the fact that I ¨do not like them and am unhappy in their house¨. They agree that they will fulfill their obligation by providing 2 meals per day in addition to a bed. BUT, they decide that they are NOT obligated to talk to me, be nice to me, or even look at me. In fact, they actually instruct the kid to NOT talk to me at any time. In the meantime, the school will be looking for a new place for me to live.

Scene 6...The confrontation. So last night I finally get all of this information from the father. I had absolutely NO idea that any of this was going on last week, and other than my casual comment to Carlos in scene 1, I was uninvolved. So we talked for a long time, and I told him repeately how much I enjoyed and respected them as a family, how I enjoyed being there, how I appreciated all that they had done for me, etc. etc. etc. He didn´t seem to be interested in much of that. He just kept shaking his head, talking about how wonderful the other students had been (the two they had hosted before), and, in contrast saying Ï don´t know what happened with YOU.....Ï don´t know what´s wrong with YOU¨. In fact, he also repeatedly stated how they would NEVER EVER EVER host another student.


So, that´s pretty much how things went down. Again, without saying anything to me, the school has been working on a new place for me to live. I´ll have to talk to them tomorrow, but it sounds like I may be moving as early as tomorrow.
I´m really sorry about the whole thing and wish I could do something to make things right. I´m also feeling like I was completey misrepresented and am now being villainized.
Oh well, maybe it will all work out better in the end, but I have to say that the local hotel is looking pretty good at the moment.
I´ll keep you posted.