Saturday, July 31, 2010

The First Supper

Hey all, I know it has taken me a while to create this blog, but I have been so busy! I can´t believe that today is already Saturday. I will start off with Wednesday, the night I arrived.

After a long day of travel, I finally arrived in Peru. I walked out past the customs and into the massive crowd where families, travel agencies, and friends were waiting with signs greeting the travelers. I slowly moved past the first crowd because I wanted to make sure I didn´t miss my host family. I turned the corner to see the other side of the crowd and there they were, holding a sign with my name in bold, black letters, with pink fringe as the border. The mom stood out the most to me because she started jumping up and down as soon as I put on my big smile and picked up my pace towards them, confirming it was actually me. They each stuck out an arm over the rope that was keeping us from each other, and apon embrace, there were kisses on the cheeks.

A couple of pictures were taken, and then we went to our car to drive home. That was my first time stepping outside since I left my house at 5:45 earlier that morning, and let me tell you, it was COLD. I knew it was winter, but I didn´t think that it could possibly get that cold. My mom and I talked about how cold it was, and that was pretty much the extent of our conversation. We got in the car and I buckled my seatbelt. Shortly after, my brother patted my belt buckle and said: In Peru, no necessary, in the U.S, very. Here, no. We laughed as I took off my seatbelt.

My parents kept asking (mainly my mom, as I soon learned that she is very talkative and has a loud laugh, which I love) questions about me, where I´m from, and other related topics and they soon found out how little spanish I know. They then moved on to if I was hungry, I said no gracias, but they still insisted that I was hungry and that we should stop at Mcdonald´s or KFC. At that point I felt a sense of urgency to explain that I had recently eaten on the plane and was not hungry, but alas I did not know how to say this in spanish. I did not want to ruin my couple year streak of not consuming either of these fast food resturants. Instead (and I don´t know how this was decided), we went to this fast food resturant native to Peru, so I felt much better.

We finally got home and honestly all I wanted to do was sleep, but now I had to eat. My other brother, his wife and their 3 year old daughter greeted us when we walked through the door. More kisses. My niece gave me a big balloon in the shape of a bunnie´s head. This girl is one of the cutest I´ve ever met. As the mom was organizing the food to eat, I sat waiting in the living room with the rest of the family. While I was looking around and recognizing random pieces of furniture from the assortment of pictures that my host brother has sent me, the topic that I had been waiting for finally came up. How do you say my name? I said it properly and everyone tried saying it themselves, all were wrong, but I didn´t feel like trying to break their own pronounciation of the letter "j", I actually really liked the sound of it: HA-meeka. After everyone tried it, they all argued about who was the closest, and this confirmed that this was a big topic before I arrived, it made me giggle.

After having some of the best fast food chicken I´ve ever had, my first sip of Inca Kola (which reminds me of liquid bubble gum so I didn´t like it very much, not to mention that this soda ruined my almost three year streak of not having soda), then having a corona, they escorted me to my bedroom. This bedroom is about twice the size of my old one, so I was basking in the space. I started getting out my stuff that I would need to get ready for bed when my niece ran into my room, messing with all of my stuff. I found it rather amusing, but my brother scolded her and took her out of my room. Despite this lecture in spanish that I didn´t understand, she still ran in to my room over and over again... maybe I´m not the only that doesn´t understand all of the spanish in this house.