The Homestay

From an importance point of view the home-stay is a defining part of a trainee's life. Mine was great. Actually, it was GREAT!

But first, what is the home-stay about? AIESEC Chandigarh has this very good system of offering every trainee a home-stay, basically, a few days of living with a family. Besides many other benefits, one of the best things about this is that you get a taste of India, Chandigarh, food, traffic, people, but you get all this in the comfort of a family. I think other LCs should adopt the home-stay as well!

Let's get back to my experience.

The host family was very warm and welcoming, the minute I stepped into the house they greeted me, fed me, treated me as if I were an old friend of the family. And the funniest part: I was the fourth home-stay-trainee for that night!

I only stayed a day with the family, nevertheless it was a memorable experience. My home-stay-AIESECer took me around the city the next day, he also took me to an AIESEC event to Fun Republic, we had food and fun, and in spite of the heat, the scary prospects of a completely foreign country, where I did not know anyone, the home-stay experience made a good start to the whole internship.

Later on, the home-stay-AIESECer, let me name him, Tejbir Singh Reen, ended up becoming my trainee buddy, my source of cheer and comfort on the hard days, and a good friend after I left India. And because he was such an amazing trainee buddy, I will dedicate him a whole post!