In the field of international service-learning (ISL) there is an increasing call for practitioners to engage in critical reflection of the experiential aspects of their ISL programs. We take up this call by turning our attention to one particular dimension of our ISL course: our relationship with our host partner. Our analysis is grounded in our experience as ISL practitioners, and we use our own "points of discomfort"--the moments in which our relationship with our host partner was unsettling or agitating--as our starting point. Throughout, we show how these "agitated interactions" suggested contradictions between the rhetoric and the reality of ISL and led us to question the distinctiveness of the ISL identity, the practicality of reciprocity as a guiding framework, and where ISL fits within the ongoing colonialist project. We have emerged from this reflective process with a more "encumbered" view of ISL practice, yet have found many ways to move forward from this new perspective.