She Had To Escape Her Host Family’s House While Studying Abroad In France
As summertime kicks into full gear, a lot of young people will be planning trips abroad. Many of those people are students going to a new country to study abroad for the summer.
A lot of people choose to stay with ‘host’ families from different countries during their study abroad experiences.
Host families are typically very helpful in helping their guest students adapt to their country and give them a home away from home.
Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. One woman currently studying abroad in France shocked her TikTok audience after posting videos about how she had to “escape” from her nightmarish host family.
Jenna Jean (@jennajean8) is a 27-year-old American student studying abroad in France. In a series of TikTok videos, Jenna documented her escaping from a host family her school paid to house and feed her during her time abroad and explained why she needed to leave.
Jenna was paired with a host family by the school she enrolled in to learn French. She traveled alone from the United States and knew no one in France.
Red flags began popping up from Jenna’s host family as soon as she arrived in France around 8:00 am.
The host couple told her she wouldn’t be allowed in their home until 8:00 pm. There was no one to pick her up from the airport, and she had to find a way to occupy herself for 12 hours.
Jenna recalls feeling lonely and overwhelmed to the point where she was ready for a hug and warm energy when she arrived at her host family’s home. However, she never got one and was given a very cold greeting by the husband and wife.
andreykr – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
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The especially troubling host mother gave Jenna a lot of attitude, judging her for the amount of luggage she had on her and acting disappointed upon discovering she was 27 years old, not 20.
“I was just really sad because I needed that hug, y’all,” says Jenna in one of her TikTok videos.
“I needed a mother’s love. If you’re signing up to be a host mom, be a mom. Be helpful, be kind.”
Thankfully, another student in the household named Lea was studying abroad from another country. Lea gave Jenna all the information their host mother should’ve given her after she was dumped into a bedroom with no house tour or even a towel for the bathroom.
As her time in the household progressed, Jenna learned that her host mother likely had a distaste for Americans.
Although she showed great affection to Lea, she was extremely cold to Jenna. She wouldn’t even say Jenna’s name correctly and called her “Gemma.”
Jenna’s host mother accused her of slamming doors in her house, yelled at her for “stomping around,” accused her of disturbing her household’s peace, and referred to her as a rude American behind her back.
When Jenna would let her host mom know in advance if she wouldn’t be home on time for a shared meal like breakfast or dinner because of school, her host mother would sometimes lock up her kitchen instead of leaving food for her and wouldn’t unlock it even if she was home.
The host father was not much help and was mostly memorable for making weird advances on the two students, like asking Lea to hug him whenever his wife wasn’t home and awkwardly stroking the back of Jenna’s head after dinner one night.
After experiencing more unfair mistreatment from her host family, Jenna went to her school to report what happened and potentially move to a new household. But just as she was talking with administrators from her school, the host mother called and denied all of her claims.
“This mom [was] like, framing me,” recalls Jenna. “Now [the school] doesn’t know if they can believe me or her, so they just say, ‘We’re not taking sides.’ That felt even worse.”
When Jenna returned to her host family’s house after that incident, she felt more unsafe than ever, as the mother told her she should leave, acting as if she wasn’t the one forcing her out with her mistreatment.
After a tear-filled FaceTime call with her mom, who encouraged her to leave the house immediately, Jenna decided to book an Airbnb and escape from her host family’s home when they weren’t there.
She documented the entire experience in a vlog-style video, which now has over three million views on TikTok.
Terrified, Jenna packed up her things and snuck away while her host parents weren’t home with the help of Lea.
While horrified that her host parents would catch her, she got to her Airbnb safely and left her TikTok viewers, especially those planning on traveling anywhere, with an important message.
“If you have a bad feeling, get out,” says Jenna. “Don’t wait for something to happen. Sometimes, you are the only person who can take care of you, and you need to take care of you.”
Thankfully, Jenna seems to be in a much better place for her travels, and we’re so happy to see she’s out of that horrible situation!
@jennajean8
Replying to @Boss i can do it & i can do it alone if i have to ? but thank god for supportive friends ??#storytime #studyabroad
? original sound – Jenna Jean
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