I arrived in Mexico City at 3 in the afternoon after 24 hours of traveling. To say I was tired does not even begin to describe the weakness in my arms and legs and the sting in my thoughts. Yes, it hurt to think. And now, my thinking had to be in Spanish, the language I’d been learning from a textbook for the past year.

I arrived and forgot the word for “luggage” – for “exit” – for “left.”

I was shuffled through the dingy airport, relying on the slightly better spanish of four other students I had only just met on the plane and the well-meaning airport personal.  They would ask me a question. I would respond with “Como?” They, perhaps realizing the pointlessness of repeating themselves would start using gestures or broken English to try to communicate with me.

I felt incompetent. I felt dependent. I felt lost.

I wanted only to get to my homestay and take a nap.

After a three hour bus ride from México City to Querétaro, we arrived at a brightly painted yellow bus station and hailed our first taxi. Three of us shared a ride and the cost was $50 pesos, or about $4 US dollars. Not bad! Then we got to our barrio. To take us to each of our homes, approximately two blocks apart from each other, the driver wanted an additional $40 pesos. It seemed a little unreasonable, considering it had been only $50 to get all the from the bus station, but none of us knew where we were or how to get where we were going. We were at his mercy. I’ve learned it’s common for taxi drivers to increase their price with foreigners.

My frustration at feeling taken advantage of quickly dissipated at my relief at finally being “home.” My “house mom” came outside, visibly excited at my arrival. We embraced, touching our cheeks together and kissing the air, as is Mexican custom between women.The house was immaculate and the decor simple. The dining room table shined, the pine green couch wasn’t worn or faded, and the plastic flowers laid on the floor in the walkway were perfectly arranged. I was shown to what would be my room for the next six weeks, sparsely decorated like the rest of the house. A picture of Mary hung above my bed, a small arrangement of plastic lilies and a cactus were on one bed stand, and an small glass lamp stood on the other. I would have my own bathroom, a shower and a toilet with a yellow rubber duck pattern on the seat cover. The house was clearly decorated with care, yet there was little consistency in style or pattern. With my unaccustomed, Americana perspective, it seemed cheap and stylistically ignorant, maybe even quaint. It took time to appreciate the time and care my hostess took in displaying and caring for her household items. Nowhere was there clutter, or even dirt. But, I didn’t see that my first day.

At first, it all seemed wrong.

I put away a few items, but was cut short from settling in to eat comidas, the two-hour lunch period where families join together for the largest meal of the day. We were to go next door to join her sister and nephew, who were waiting for us with another study abroad student. I sat on the couch with a young Chicana student who had family in Querétaro and advanced Spanish skills, both of us across from my host mom’s nephew, a gentleman in his late thirties who had come home to eat with the family. Sweetly, they had prepared a vegetarian meal for me, and I was comforted to be able to talk about literature in English with the nephew.

After food and awkward conversation in my struggling Spanish, with my study abroad peer often translating, I was finally able to make it to my room to unpack and rest. I had an hour before we were to leave and start exploring the barrio with the other house moms and study abroad students. Out of the house, my house mom held me by the elbow, determined to explain everything to me: where I could buy good chili rellenos, where I might have a pizza party, and when was the best time to go to the movies. It was clearly well-intentioned, a way for her welcome me and give me a chance to get to know my new environment, but the constant Spanish combined with endless new sights was overwhelming, especially with each of the moms grabbing me excitedly to show me something else or ask a question.

After an hour of exploring, we went home, and I was finally able to retire to my room and pat myself on the back for making it through my first day.