Barbecue

Last night, I met some of my host relatives! Natalia’s cousins came over for supper around 10 pm. My host mom’s boyfriend barbecued on the porch for the occasion. I was a little concerned after noticing the grill was in the same spot where the bird cage was the day before, but Natalia assured me we weren’t eating Patito, the parakeet. Instead, we had pork ribs, steak, longaniza (sausage), rice, potatoes, and salad. Everything was delicious! It felt like a typical family get together with a lot of music, food and laughing. The radio music was a combination of Spanish reggae and American, mostly 80s. There were frequent jokes about how I don’t eat very much and how it was their mission to make me a “gordita” (literally, a little fat girl) by the time I leave.

My host mom's boyfriend, my host mom, my two cousins (one is 7 and one is 15), aunt who is a high school Biology teacher, me and uncle who is an Engineer.

The relatives also found it funny that I’m a cheerleader, because there aren’t any cheer teams in Chile. When Natalia and I were walking around on my first day here, there were two guys and a girl partner stunting in the middle of an intersection during a red light. They were actually really good, doing a lot of stunts that we do at UW-L and I got excited thinking that I would be able to see some cheer teams here. Natalia was quick to point out that cheerleading doesn’t exist in Chile and that they were doing the stunts for money. I thought about the UW-L Cheer Team stunting on Losey Blvd. in La Crosse for a fundraiser and decided it probably wouldn’t be the best idea…