Family and the Warm Fuzzies of Christmas

I´m sitting at a computer in some of my new family´s house in my capital city (the house of my host mom´s sister). I came into town to buy some things for my new room (like a mattress, bedding, etc). We went to Real Plaza, which is a fancy shopping mall that is acting as my little America. They have a Pizza Hut, Starbucks, KFC, etc. By the way, because Peruvians are in love with chicken, KFC is a huge hit. My family and I shared a bit of KFC and I thought it was dinner, but apparently it was just a snack. My host mom lured me back to the house with false promises of spaghetti. I am not positive that she lied, though I am pretty sure that she did. Her Spanish is difficult to understand. My first host family spoke very clearly and slowly - gringo Spanish, if you will. But this new family speaks campo Spanish, they are from a rural farming community. So their Spanish is slurred, not necessarily correct, and very difficult for me to understand.

Whether or not we misunderstood each other, or she told me there would be spaghetti to get me to eat her rice and chicken is really irrelevant. I am learning to not be disappointed, to just expect that things won´t happen the way I normally would expect them to. In Peru, yes can be no. Solid plans are really tentative. And explicit instructions are suggestions. It isn´t something that I plan to get upset about and that is very different from how I was in the States. I used to be very easily disappointed, always expecting things to go as planned.

Back to Real Plaza. I was walking around today, looking at all the lovely, lovely things that remind me of the United States. There was Christmas music playing while I window shopped and it reminded me of all the Christmases I ran around South Plains Mall with my family - me, Logan, and Tate scrambling to complete our lists and laughing all the way. And I got really homesick. I miss that time of year with my family with a tree, comfy pajamas and cocoa. I miss walking around the mall with Tater, stopping into GameStop to check out videogames we´re not going to buy, browsing for books with Logan, talking her ear off about God knows what, and time with Mom and Dad.

I went into Starbucks and got a brownie with a special coffee that came with whipcream. I spontaneously bought a bag of Starbucks Christmas coffee because my Mom gave me a bag of it one year for Christmas. I sat down and devoured both of them, trying to take my time but consuming rapidly to comfort myself. I sat there wondering what my family was up to and hoping that, by some chance, they would call that very moment to see how I was doing. But I finished my treats and no one had called. So I decided to go browse this store that has smells that remind me of my Mom back home. The store reminds me of Martha Stewart, with things that are cute and modern and smell like candles. I ended up buying a French Press and making warm-fuzzy talk with the security guy. I acted as if we had some report, like we had seen eachother a hundred times and asked about eachothers families. And thankfully he reciprocated with warm smiles and questions. So thank you, doorman. You made my night.

Now I am about to meet the neice of my host mom. We are going to see Harry Potter (dubbed in Spanish). Hopefully that will help me to get through the homesick evening. Love you all. Hug your families. And if you can, hug mine.