Taylor's homestay was one of her favorite weekends

Without a doubt, the home stay in Ocean View has been one of my favorite weekends so far.  My roommate for the weekend was Laura G., and it was so much fun getting to spend time with her since we are not roommates in the house! We spent our weekend with an amazing family, Astrid (our host mom), Adrien (host dad), Aiden (15), and Amber (10).  Even though Marita and Chantelle told us how excited the families were to have us for the weekend, I was truly amazed at how warm and welcoming they were to us from the minute we arrived.  We started our trip on Thursday, and first stopped at Chantelle’s house to meet her parents and give Chantelle a chance to organize us and start dropping us off at our host families’ houses.

The moment we got dropped off, I felt so at home! Not to mention, they had a little cat named Ginger (Gingy) and a new puppy named Basha, only about 2 months old.  The pets alone could have made me happy, but the family was so much fun to talk to and spend time with as well. On our first night, all of the UConn students went to a ballroom dancing class run by a dance class in Ocean View. The young dancers were so fun to watch, and they told us they had a competition coming up soon so they were all perfecting their routines! We learned how to cha cha and waltz, and it was a lot of our first times taking any dance class. At first it was difficult to catch on, but we were all having so much fun by the end!

On Friday we first all volunteered at different crèches throughout Ocean View, which are what we would call pre-schools.  The kids were all so cute but we were definitely tired after only a few hours! I think the best part of the weekend was when we took all the kids that Chantelle works with to the beach.  She runs a center for children who are abused or neglected at home, and it is a safe space that they can just come and play and be loved for a few hours each day.  They were all so happy to be at the beach and we bonded with each one of them so quickly.  On Saturday and Sunday, we spent the day with our host family, just hanging out and getting to know them.  By the end of the weekend, it was hard to leave because we felt so at home! I was pretty excited to go back to Rondebosch though, because my mom was arriving for her 10 day visit later that week!