Hanging with the Familia

Today, I woke up around 8 and ate a breakfast of tea and bread with jelly.  (Also some cake from last night.)  My host parents asked if I wanted to go to the market with them, so I of course agreed!  They said it’s better to go to the cancha (market) on Sundays since it’s less crowded.  We took the blue jeep there, and then walked around this huge market with lots of fruits and veggies and meat.  We bought fruits and veggies (whose names I’m trying to learn, but it’s hard because there are so many!)  They had starfruit and my parents bought some to make into juice.  Yummers!  Then we went to the Hiper (short for Hipermarket, aka supermarket) to buy tp and napkins and noodles.  I told my host mom about Costco and how Matt and I used to build houses on the flatbed carts out of the stuff we were buying.

Then we came home, and I played Tetris with my host sister Andrea and played music (and sang along, obvi.)  For lunch we had lasagna and omelette (yup, I know that’s not vegan.)  My host mom got it from a Martha Stewart cookbook and we talked about how she went to jail.  Then I had a water balloon fight with Andrea and Andres, and Papá drove us to the park to play basketball.  While Mamá cooked dinner, Andrea and I sang Selena Gomez songs and talked about how cool she is.  (Andrea can say, “I love Selena Gomez” in English.)

I talked with my older brother Bruno about American fútbol and fútbol (soccer), and Bruno told me Bolivia has the worst soccer team in Latin America, and it’s like watching elementary schoolers play.  At dinner, we turned on the Superbowl to watch.  We all moved our chairs to one side of the table so we could watch the Superbowl across the room.  My host mom recognized Madonna’s voice so we talked about her a bit. 

Bruno told me that every Bolivian man has to serve 1 year in the army, and it’s interesting because he went to private school (most Bolivians do if they can) and he got the chance in the army to meet different types of people.  We talked about learning languages in school (he learned a little English but he mostly uses it for playing video games) and he told me my Spanish is very good!  WINNING.  Then we talked about politics in the US and Bolivia, and when we all went to bed the Patriots were winning so I’ll just pretend that I never learned otherwise.  Oh and I almost forgot—my family has 2 cats and they are totally cool!  We are already BFFs.  (Duh.)

Sorry for the lack of photos.  Ima get on that.  I’m trying not to look like a tourist (which is mildly impossible given my hair/skin tone).