Mis Padres

My Argentine mommy´s name is Piera. She is a tiny little thing with a heart of gold. She runs around the town like a chicken with her head cut off. Dropping the kids off or picking them up from their millions of activities is a feat in itself, but she also seems to have time for her own extra curricular activities and her own counseling business. She is like five people in one with the body mass of half a person. Whenever I need anything, however small it may be, she grabs one of her three cell phones and is on the new task. She is always worried about my well-being, and it´s not one of those fake worries. We actually have a weekly conversation on how my experience is coming along and how I feel about all the changes. It´s like she read a book on the emotional evolution of an exchange student. It really wouldn´t surprise me if she did. And if there isn´t a book dealing with these issues, I bet she is in the process of writing one... with all of that free time on her hands, of coarse. All I want to know is.... when does this woman sleep?

On to Gonzalo, my Argentine dad. Gonzalo is a big kid caught caught in a red neck´s body. He owns all the toys a grown up red neck dreams of; dirt bikes, tractors, 4-wheelers, trucks and trailers. He is constantly watching the racing channel on satelite, and drives like a bat out of hell. He is incredibly generous with everything he owns. He taught me how to drive a stick shift the first day I was here, so that I had a way to get to and from Vicuña Mackenna. He always has a smile on his face and is always joking around. He works (I think), but I don´t know exactly what he does all day. I think it is somewhat productive because he carries a briefcase around. Maybe it just doesn´t seem like he works because he doesn´t carry himself like a person who works. He is extremely helpful, almost too helpful. If you want to ask him a question, you need to allot about 30 minutes for the answer. He speaks a little English and it gets better and better every day. I have to keep reminding him that I am one here trying to learn a different language... not him.

I call my parents the tortoise and the hare. The tortoise being Gonzalo and the hare being Piera. They are the sweetest Argentine parents a girl could ask for.