This has been my first two days of true TOTAL immersion in the Argentine culture. It's beautiful and exhausting at the same time. I got here at about 12:30 yesterday and have already met SO much of Eliana's (my host mom)family. I'll try to describe it the best that I can but I'm not even entirely sure I understand it all well. When I got here it was just her and her 6 year old daughter Fran. It was really good that I brought gifts to kind of break the ice and it gave me something to do with Fran for the first chunk of time. Isidro (age 9, Eli's other son), came back later and was equally excited about the goodies I brought although he might have prefered his favorite toy, Pokemon. Their family is of Italian descent and basically acts like I would assume a traditional Italian family would have in terms of coming and going and loud talking and eating etc. etc. She's really close to her sister Yamilla (In argentine castellano 'll' is pronounced like a j instead of a y...the kids corrected me a few times :-) who has a really friendly husband Marcello and three kids- Gregorio is 6 and is one of the happiest kids I've ever seen, he and I are great friends already! I haven't seen as much of the older girls but one, Mercedes is 18 and one is 16, Ardi (short for something...not entirely positive) hopefully as I get to know them they can help me out some because they seem really cool. Mercedes already offered to take me today and help me figure out how to put minutes on the phone Adam/Joe left here for me.
Yamilla's family as well as her parents came over for dinner last night, it lasted a few hours. There was beef, salad, bread and wine...all delicious! They all put alot of salt on everything I have noticed. Eli has commented several times on how little I eat...which seems really strange to me. I still don't understand how they can eat as much as they want and stay really skinny. No one seems to run down here, and a few gyms exist but they certainly aren't popular. My best guess is that the food is healthier because it's really fresh- there are alot of meats, veggies, grains, fruits and juices but not alot of things with preservatives in them. Also, meals never have the rushed vibe so there's no pressure to scarf down more than you can enjoy. Interestingly in la plata they're not supposed to buy any beef this week so the prices go down. The government is encouraging the strike.
I've gotten along really well with all of the kids. For me it's sometimes easier to take a break from chatting with all of the adults and play with the kids for a while because I feel like it's harder for my personality to be lost in translation with them. I didn't realize how truly exhausting it would be to speak in spanish all day- I have to focus alot to understand what's going on. Right now I'm at the point where if I'm having a one on one conversation with someone I can hold my own and understand about 80% of what's going on...but in group settings it's a little easier to get lost in the back and forth banter. Everyone has been really patient with me which I really appreciate.
Some common questions people have asked me-
Do they watch the Olympics there? No...not really...maybe they would if it were the summer olympics? They watch SOCCER! There's 2 big popular teams in la plata but alot of other teams with smaller following. I've noticed that about 50% of the graffitti seems to be about soccer and the other half is political
What are the guys like there? Well, it's summer so alot of them walk around without shirts...It's a very attractive and fit country overall. I would say there's alot of artsy musician types but maybe I'm just jumping to that conclusion because of the long hair and unique fashion. The men wear capris alot. The women/girls wear alot of jean skirts and gladiator sandals. Also it's trendy to wear really loose fitting pants with a long crotch, which seems out of place to me because everything else they wear seems to highlight their lean frames.
When do you start classes/what are they like? It's summer break here for the rest of february, so I only have classes at the commission for the next month. I have my first class at 2 today...but I'm going to leave in 15 minutes because I know it's going to take me forever to find...I was hoping michelle (the other WM student living in this house) would be here for me to go with...
What do they call you? Kathleen seems to be a hard name to pronounce...so alot of them are calling me Kati (like coffee with a t) or alot of the people here just say KOTlin. Also...they call us yankees here and I'm sure the people that I'm not staying with have called us some other names that I just don't understand
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