Host Family

As much as it pains me to say this, we had to leave Cuzco yesterday :( Although I was so sad to leave beloved Cuzco, sunshine, and Rafo...I was semi-excited to come to Lima to meet my host family and start a new experience here.

We arrived to Lima yesterday afternoon after dipping below the clouds and into the humid salty air which is about as opposite from Cuzco as you can get. All of us were in a bad mood because we barely ate anything all day and we were all missing our Cuzco adventures. At about 5pm Carlos told us that we would be meeting our families very shortly. Chrissy and I were so nervous! What if the family is mean, what if they don't like us? We were all like little puppy dogs in a pound just waiting to get chosen! Any time a woman would walk by, we would all think "are you my mommy?!"...some of us louder than others.  All of these crazy things were running through our heads until our host mom finally called out our names. "Elizabeth and Christin!" and we were so excited. I was totally embarrassed because I had 2 HUGE suitcases, a big hiking pack, and a duffle bag...the mom asked me if I were staying for a year...jokingly of course. We got to the house...or should I say mansion...and got the grand tour by our host mom. She was SUPER nice and talked to us for a while before she told us that she had 20 friends from her childhood coming over for a dinner party. We were kind of taken by surprise, considering it was our first night and all. We went upstairs to change and organize our stuff when Marcos, her 20 year old son, and his 3 friends came up to say hello. They were pretty nice, but made Chrissy and I feel super awkward...like we were not part of the group. We soon realized that one of the girls (an American) was studying abroad here and decided to stay a few more weeks after her program ended....soooo yeah she is also living with us too. The night went downhill from there. We came downstairs to a house full of drunk 40-50 year olds offering us Pisco Sour and speaking in rapid Spanish. I could basically understand what they were saying, but it was overwhelming...I can't imagine how Chrissy felt! We started drinking with them to be polite, even though all we wanted to do was have a nice sit down dinner with the family and settle in for our first night. Our host mom came up and told us we should go out with Marcos and his friends who were going to drink at a friend's house. We were very hesitant and did not want to go, but after we refused three times but they still instisted, we started to go. We then realized that neither of us had eaten since noon and it was about 10pm, so we told the group of kids we were gonna stay at the house. They gave us weird looks and were on their way.

After that we felt very uncomforatable, like they did not really want us there. The mom saw us sitting in the living room and instead of asking what was wrong, she kind of got annoyed that we did not go. She kept saying that there were snacks and we should eat snacks, but never anything to make us feel more comforatable. I thought I was going to CRYYY. We decided to go drink with the adults and get the night over with...free wine couldnt be so bad! So we went downstairs and drank a lot of wine while talking in Spanish to some 50 year olds. Our host mom kept ignoring us, not even eating dinner at the same table as us! We finally had enough and decided to go to bed. We emailed Rafo who helped us out a lot with the situation. The adults were up partying until 3am! It was ridiculous.

Today was a lot better though. We had a nice breakfast with the mom and sister, until the other American girl came down and dominated the conversation from then on. It makes it very hard to make a relationship when there is some other exchange student living here with us. We spent the morning with the mom while she showed us around town, that was nice. Lunch was the best because we got to know the mom and sister a lot better. After lunch we came to our room and got on our computer forever! The mom and sister went to the aunts house without even inviting us...again we found this odd, but whatever...and we went to chilis with two of our friends to do homework. Since Chili's we have been back here, but no mom in sight. I am not sure if she is here or not? Chrissy and I get pretty delerious at night, so we have been cracking up in here because 1-we have not seen our host mom since like 4pm 2-She never offered us dinner (she didnt know we went to Chilis. And even so, we only got appetizers) 3- we are not completely positive who all lives in this house....new people show up every day. and 4- we are pretty sure a ghost lives in the kitchen.

I know Lima will get better, especially when we can see our NCSU friends again (tomorrow thank God), but as of right now...I am homesick for home and for Cuzco! Pray for us, this family is a little bizzare.