miserable? but for good reason

I'm not sure if I'm just not adjusting well (which I don't think is the case), or my home life is, once again, terrible, but I am so miserable right now. I am so uncomfortable with my living situation right now and I think Monday, I am going to go speak to the Director of Housing to try to solve this situation.

I'm not being stupid. I'm not being selfish. I'm not being rude and I'm respecting every rule that has been set forth. I don't make much noise and I don't eat everyone out of house and home.


A few nights ago (perhaps Wednesday or so), as we (host mother, host brother, other CIDEF student and myself) were sitting down to dinner, all of a sudden my host mother started SCREAMING (like for real screaming - at a level, if sustained, would warrant noise complaints from the neighbors) at Katherine and me in French. She complained about not having hot water to wash the dishes and do laundry that day. Three people had taken a shower that morning/early afternoon (myself, Katherine, and someone else?), and there was no sense in not having hot water to do daily chores. She said something about a certain allotted amount of water for each person to take a shower with and if we didn't start following it and conserving hot water more, she would start monitoring our shower usage and limit it to like 5 minutes a day. She just kept screaming and screaming at us and finally, she finished by saying, "Is this understood?" so Katherine and I just nodded and said, "Yes, Madame."

I couldn't speak for the rest of the meal. I was so shocked and so uncomfortable...and scared. Scared to speak. Scared to ask any questions. I have been like this for days. I am so uncomfortable being here, even in my room. At dinner, I barely utter a word I'm so uncomfortable and scared. Madame is supposed to do my laundry (of course, I have to pay a monthly stipend), but since the other night, I am too scared of her to ask her to wash anything for me. I have no more clean socks. I only have 2 pairs of jeans and one pair is stained from rainy days and water splashed onto them. It's so expensive to do laundry on my own and I'd have to walk about a mile to the nearest laundry mat.

Every single day is like this. I'm afraid to come home from school because Madame will yell again for something that somebody did - even unknowingly did. Today, I came to the realization that I have been feeling extraordinarily homesick and in a terrible mood since that night. I cry all the time. I am so uncomfortable. I cannot remember a time when I have felt so scared to speak even one word. I am starting to tear up just now thinking about how miserable I have been the past few days since she yelled at us. I always speak my mind - I let people know when I'm not okay and when things aren't the way they should be. I don't mind confrontation - I've dealt with it my whole life...but now, I am too scared to confront Madame, even to ask her to do a load of laundry for me. I can't. I just can't.

And Katherine - a whole other story. She's nice...but all I hear every evening is her talking on the phone to her friends and family (in English, of course, so I understand every word). She just makes fun of people she's met. Their accents, their mannerisms, their social customs, anything. It's so degrading and so horrible. And LIKE. LIKE LIKE LIKE every other word. I know me writing about her doing this is slightly hypocritical, but...I don't make it a habit...

Well, I just took a break from writing this - for dinner - and I think things are more settled. I was actually able just to ask casually if she was doing laundry tomorrow and she said that if I needed some, then that was perfectly fine...

I guess I just have to deal. Maybe now that I've gotten the ball rolling things will be easier and then my feeling of homesickness will go away.

Wow. Life is very, very strange here. I have a feeling it's only about to get stranger...