I'm in the process of learning about my new residence in Turkey. So far, it has been great: I've met many friendly people on the streets and in stores, and everyone seems so helpful. There is obviously a huge language barrier, but I am hoping to learn enough so that I will soon be able to get by - at least minimally! It is hard, though, learning the language. Even though I am surrounded by people who speak in a foreign tongue, I feel like if I lived with host family, I would learn much faster.
I had a friend who did the Fulbright in Morocco, and she said the best experience of her trip was that she chose the homestay option. She said she learned Arabic faster and better than anyone else - even with the rigorous language program the Fulbright offered. In addition to merely learning the language, she learned an enormous amount about the Moroccan culture. I have another friend who lived with a homestay family in Costa Rica, and she learned some of the craziest things there -- like about their small pet snake they had roam around to eat any bugs or mice. Scary! But, of course, it's only scary because I am not used to that... And I guess I do deploy my cat for many of the same duties!
I even have friends here who are living in dorms - a kind of student homestay. It seems much more effective when they live with native speakers rather than groups of native English speakers. Even with that, they, and I, have found that too often the interactions too quickly devolve into everyone speaking English. I am hoping that I can find a nice apartment to stay at, owned and occupied mainly by a family that doesn't speak any English so that I can practice my Turkish with them. It won't be a free homestay, but it will be better than nothing in terms of my language skills.
Plus, hopefully in the future, I will be able to find a host home that will fit my needs - one where I can do a language exchange and be able to live and work comfortably. For now, though, I am content to listen to the stories of others and learn from their experiences.
I signed up with a language class at a school here, which is kind of expensive. It's supposed to be really good, so hopefully the pretty high cost will be worth it. No matter what, I am sure forcing myself to study for a few hours a day will really help out with my langauge skills - as will living here longer! I especially need to learn some of the basic words for everyday foods - onions, garlic, and so on. Yesterday, I don't think there were onions at the store, but I had no way of asking, so maybe they were just hidden away somewhere! Hopefully in the future some nice family will help me out with learning basic words like that!

I just love being in a new place - it really helps me to reflect upon my past experiences with different people and cultures in a way that I don't normally have to.  Being confronted with change can really bring out a lot of great memories!

For instance, when I was younger, I was always jealous of my friends who got to host a foreign exchange student.  That doesn't sound like a great memory, but you may laugh along with me when you hear what I mean.

Most of the students kids at my school hosted were French and had crazy, but cool, French accents. Of course, like all little kids, we wanted more than anything to learn how to swear in the other languages. But, since we were little, our conceptions of the worst words to use was probably a little skewed! Still, it was always fun to meet kids from another country and culture right in our own town.

Once, there was this French girl - I don't even remember her name - but my sisters and I had put a mouse in a cage that our cat caught. This was a pretty common practice for us, since we had two great mouser cats and lived in a big farmhouse in a suburban area perfect for raising little mice. Of course, these were just field mice, totally not the kid of domesticated pet mice that are sold in stores. So their primary activity was attempting to escape from our evil clutches to get back to their enormous families. Their other primary activities were, once having secured freedom, exacting vengence from our family for holding them hostage by chewing through suits, wires, etc. They didn't just wait until they had escaped to act out their rage over being enslaved, though, they also took it out on us when we cruely attempted to handle them. (To us, as young kids, they were just the ‘cute little mouse our cat caught.')

So, there was this French girl and the vengeful mouse. Well, we picked up the mouse, and the mouse bit her. It actually wasn't that bad, but I remember her host family pretty much freaked out. My mom had already been through all that they were feeling, because she was pretty anti-pet mice-from-wild-mice. In the end, it wasn't that big of a deal for the French girl - hey, baby mice sometimes bite - but I sometimes wonder what she thinks of American families.

I wonder if after her stay with her host home, she went back to France and informed everyone how crazy Americans keep vicious, kind of gross animals as pets? As far as I can tell, if she told anyone, or remembered at all about it, they would think that we Americans were totally insane. I guess that's just a reason for more cultural connections and a reason for more international language homestay.
I think that it's great that families around the world took the initiative to send their kids away. Even though it's hard to be a foreign exchange student, in the end it seems worth it. If I had gotten to do an exchange when I was little, who knows what kind of crazy animal bite story I would have gotten! But seriously, I really do wish I had gotten to spend some time abroad when I was little. It seems like the sort of thing that has a lasting effect on language abilities - and I think most people could use a little boost in their foreign language skills. I know that I could!