Family

Having a loving family is a gift. You can imagine, then, what a veritable wonder it is to have three or even four! It is in the home that we develop our first understanding of love, responsibility, and reciprocity. It is there that we construct a foundation of values, principles and habits that facilitate our relationship with society, other individuals, ourselves, and our own health. We go to college and we question all of these principles and lifelong assumptions –or perhaps we begin to examine them upon leaving home and entering the workplace. But wherever our learning environment, we all come to a point when we take those childhood lessons and reincorporate them into a coherent whole: Ourselves. It is quite an experience, then, to return to the seat of childhood at this age by being placed -plop!- into the middle of a new family and a novel pool of values and ideas. And yet, one retains that former lifetime of learning, using this new environment as a means of reflecting upon the former.

But more than serving as a point of comparison, this familial nucleus bestows its own lessons, its own valuable ideas, its own handy habits. Through my integration into my loving Chilean family, my host parents have exposed me to a number of wonderful characteristics that build upon and strengthen my personal foundation. Through their patience and open-mindedness, they have communicated that which they hold dear.

For one, I may have had a wonderful example of a loving, committed pair in the form of my own parents, but my host parents have reinforced my understanding of what makes up a long-lasting, caring relationship. Patterns emerge; ah, yes! Both couples of parents are always there for each other, ready to share time and energy, and, above all, always looking to keep the other at their side in their many life pursuits. Now I know to look for this continual giving, sharing, and accompanying in my own relationships.

My own parents may have pointed me towards an acceptance of those who are different from me, but my host parents show me how this can be done through their own learning experiences; hosting a Jewish-American student as a Chilean of Palestinian heritage can provide a massive stereotype overhaul for everyone involved, for example. My host parents have shown me how to maintain a pristine house and a instructed me in a new, exceptional way of preparing an egg. My host mother has exemplified a profound love of cooking that I never grew up with and my host father has taught me new was of debating ideas.

The entire family has given me the tremendous gift of showing me just how close-knit a family can be and exactly what this life-long intimacy requires at a logistical level. My Senegalese host family and host culture may have opened my eyes to a valuing of family that I discovered I shared, but my Chilean family has helped that appreciation sink in more deeply, maturing with understanding and growing more committed as I see that is it, in fact, possible to maintain a unified extended family. I come from a family that, for the most part, unites around holidays and seldomly communes with the uncles and aunts otherwise. I view my parents, Grandmother, and siblings as paramount within my life, so the knowledge that we can build such a beautiful commitment to one another as that which I see here in my Chilean family is heartwarming. Ours is a culture of loving and leaving and making our way in life –intrepid travelers scattered around the states and pulled around my economic strings. Now I see with clarity that that is not the only way.

Fotos! The best in life: Food and Family!

My mamá, my baby nephew, and our lovely neighbor Miré who is practically part of the family.

An appetizer! Its some sort of mejillon, or mussel.

My host father, Jorge, and my little nephew.

In spanish, this is called tuna. It is a delicious fruit with round seeds in the middle that comes from some sort of cactus. yum! AHA! I just looked up the translation for tuna! It's a prickly pear! (*Don't pick the prickly pear by the paw. When you pick a pear try to use the claw!*)

My host father eating tuna. :-)

Host Family Pictures

This is Jayna, my sister-in-law and the wife of Lou-Lou (the brother who likes to mess with me and joke around), with her son Gi-Gi (or Junior). Gi-Gi is the assertive one of the two toddlers in the house. There's a lot more noise when he's around! Jayna is due in a month, but people don't really talk about pregnancy here because it is associated with bad spirits who, if overhearing, could curse the child and mother. So, I actually didn't ask when she was due. The other student unwittingly asked and received a somewhat surprised response.

This is my host mother, my host "cousin" Assane who is my best bud, and me. Assane is the muslim of the household.

Me and my host mom.

Teaching How To Make Cookies and Homelife

Today I taught my host sister Janire how to make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Although she has little experience in good, thorough stirring and beating -and aside from her need for practice in the art of scraping cookies off the sheet with a spatula- they came out great! We had fun whipping out the hammer again and breaking the chocolate bar to pieces (I mentioned that she might take to baking this sort of cookie when she is in need of a little stress release!). And thus, after a day of baking, my mind is on food.

My host mom prepares two meals a day for us: lunch and dinner. Lunchtime is an hour that I hold in high regard, and rightly so. The usual heavy, lunch dishes are lentils or garbanzo beans, each served in soup/stew form with mild, green peppers, carrots –always extra for me-, and meat (steak is frequent and chorizo –a sort of chunk of pepperoni- is a must). Other usuals are the Spanish omelet, Spanish rice (garlic flavored rice served with tomato sauce and a fried egg), fish of every sort, puree of vegetables, and fillet of steak or pork. Many of these are also served for dinner, but practically never the garbanzo beans or lentils since they are considered too strong for right before bed. As a first dish, a salad of lettuce, tuna, tomato, olives, pickled leeks, canned corn, oil, vinegar, and salt is common and french-fries are served with almost every meal. We’ve also dinned on hamburgers that are more like a hamburger and BLT all in one from time to time and French omelets (which are like our regular omelets). Frozen pizza and breaded and fried rolls of ham and cheese are also part of our diet. My favorite dishes are the garbanzo beans, Spanish omelet, Spanish rice, puree of vegetables, and salads. Desert is always yogurt or fruit (apple, melon, pear, banana, cherries, strawberries…) with an occasional ice-cream thrown in.

Aside from cooking for us, my host mom also does the laundry (put the clothes in the washing machine, hang them on the clothes line, take them down, iron, fold, and distribute to the appropriate rooms) and cleans the house (sweeping, mopping, scrubbing, wiping down…). She would like to work (perhaps as a hostess at a hotel or in retail) but since they are relatively new to the area, she has not found an opportunity. So, she spends her time on the computer communicating with her friends back home in the North of Spain in Bilbao. My host dad works in the Civil Guard, which means he does hard work and suffers a lot of tragedies. In his off time, he goes running, bicycling, plays Paddle, fixes little electronic things, helps his daughters with homework, and does odd jobs around the house. He helps my host mom with dishes and does the weekly shopping trip with her. He is also the only one with a working driver’s license, so he takes people places if they aren’t using the usual methods of transportation –walking, bus, or tram. Since we only go shopping once a week but eat bread with every meal, we keep loaves of bread in the freezer to make them keep through the week and place them out over the clothes line or in front of the portable heater to thaw a few hours before we expect to eat them. We also use scissors to cut our spaghetti to pieces, but I am assured that this is not normal. Janire, my 15-year-old host sister, is not old enough to go clubbing like all of my friends. She prefers shopping, hanging out around the city, and going to the beach to tan, bathe, play volleyball, or chat with friends –but above all to tan. She’ll also go to an occasional movie, but usually opts for TV shows or the movies that are shown on a variety of channels. We watch Los Simpsons over lunch most every day, unless there is a soccer game, which is first priority, or car races, which are second. Over dinner, we watch Cámara Café (Coffee Camera) which is an imitation of a French show where they use one fixed camera set up where the coffee machine would be in an office and every show is made up of witty scenarios that could or could not take place in a similar situation. It is very funny, but I didn’t start getting the jokes until after a few months. We also watch the news during many meals. As you might guess, this is not conducive to lengthy discussions, but we do chat.

Well, ttfn! Ta-ta for now!

Love,

Jocelyn

Yoga at Sunrise

This fine Saturday morning, in the darkness of the 5:30 pre-dawn shadows, I rolled out of bed and got onto the first tram. I rode it into town, walked my way down to the beach, and joined my friends from yoga class in the mountain pose observing the sunrise. These pictures are what follows. One relaxing highlight was a trust walk through the warm waves and feeling my feet melt into the sand as they lapped at my ankles. Afterwards, we all went to a chocolate shop and chatted over churros and liquid chocolate.

Photos from Malaga!

My host mom and her sister-in-law Malu. I stayed in Malu´s house this weekend and it was heavenly! First off, it is a real house and not a flat. The spanish refer to this type of house, and the houses that we live in in America, as challets and only associate them with the rich. Malu prepared delicious food for us. Mmmm!My favorite cousin, Marta, is five years old. We played ball in the backyard, she taught me spanish vocabulary, and I described America to her. She had never heard of America before since she is so young and lives a sheltered life.
Lunch one day at grandma´s house. The fish was excellent and the shrimp was better than usual. The next lunch, however, of oisters and rice with clams was not something I would go for again. Too many shelly animals in one meal is not my style.
The view from the balcony of the grandparent´s house in Malaga:
The view from a different window of the grandparent´s house. This reminded me of Delhi, only cleaner. I thought you, David and Rachel, might find it interesting. I keep on noticing things here that I wish I could comment to you, Rachel. Man, I need my traveling buddy here!