Saturday, November 23

Today Caro and I woke up around 10 and then stayed in our room talking for like an hour. Then I went and took a shower (there was no hot water so I showered with cold—another reason I’m not too fond of the countryside). When I was ready I went out and ate breakfast and then helped Caro Eva and Nicole set up chairs and tables outside for the party. Then I went in and helped set the table and get everything ready for the huge family lunch with 25 people again. After lunch, Tamara, who is 11, invited me over to her grandparents house (they live like a 1 minute walk from the house we were staying at) to see something (I didn’t really understand what), so I agreed.

 

 

 

When we got there, all of the other little kids were there, passing out candy to a bunch of old people seated in the garden. It turns out her grandparents were holding an annual party for the people who lived in an old folks home nearby. I greeted the old people and gave them some candy, and then a mariachi singer came out and started entertaining them. Tamara’s grandma kept asking me to go ask the grandpas to dance, so finally I decided what the heck and asked one to dance. After that song, I had to individually dance with each grandpa there (while everyone watched) and then the mariachi singer asked to dance with me too.

After like 10 dances, I escaped to the kitchen where Tamara’s grandma put me to work making sandwiches for the old people. We served them and attended them, and then it came time to sing happy birthday. We all sang, and then they gave me the mic and told me to sing it in English. I had to awkwardly sing the whole song into the microphone completely by myself. It was uncomfortable and I felt vaguely like Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday Mr. President. After that, Tamara’s grandpa dressed up like Santa Claus and handed out presents to the old people. By that time it was pretty late and I was worried that the birthday party was starting down the road, so I excused myself and the little kids and we all went back. When we got back the patio was all beautifully decorated for the party and everyone was preparing the food (70 people were invited so we were basically cooking for an army and obviously they’re Chilean so they cook everything and don’t buy anything premade). I worked on the appetizers, which were little pieces of bread with different stuff on top.

We made like 400 of them, and by the end of the night they were all gone. After I finished that, I changed into jeans and then went with all the big kids to a nearby field to play baseball. Felipe plays baseball and I told him that I really like it too, and so we threw the ball around for a while while trying not to get eaten by flies and mosquitoes that were everywhere in that field (the next day I had like 10 super red swollen and disgusting bug bites that still haven’t gone away). Then we went back to the house and met more people as they showed up. We stood in the patio and talked for a while, and then we all sat down to have dinner and then sing happy birthday.

Then, the dancing started. Felipe invited me to dance and he tried to teach me how to dance Merengue and Bachata. I was the only person there who didn’t already know how, but he was a really good dancer and actually a pretty good teacher so I had fun dancing with him. After a while all the kids went inside and talked for a while, and then went back outside to dance some more because they had put on music with a better beat. I was expecting all the kids to be great dancers with great rhythm because I mean they’re Chilean, but they were all really shy and embarrassed to dance, and Felipe and I were the only ones who were actually into it. After a while Felipe asked me if I wanted to learn how to dance reggaeton. I said why not so he put on a reggaeton song and we started dancing together. Reggaeton by nature is a pretty sexy dance, and so obviously we had to get close, but we kept it PG. Even so, I noticed after a few minutes that all the adults had stopped dancing and we were the only ones left on the floor and everyone was looking at us. It was really awkward but I still wasn’t sure if it was socially acceptable because Felipe seemed to act like it was perfectly normal. After 2 songs, we stopped and went to sit with the other kids and talk some more. After a while we all got bored and tired and went upstairs to watch a movie. We couldn’t agree on a movie, and after arguing for like an hour, we finally started watching YouTube videos of this really hilarious Chilean dude who is kind of like Jenna Marbles in Spanish. It’s called Hola Soy German I recommend it. Around 5 in the morning I was so tired I could barely open my eyes, so I excused myself and went to sleep.