Dinner

Allow me to relate tonight's dinner:

My host mom cooked lentils, hard-boiled eggs, and tacos.

I tried a salsa made of carrots and yogurt.

My host dad thinks I should open a salsa-club in Chickamauga, Georgia.
He also thinks I know the salsa well enough to teach others. Obviamente, this is erroneous.

I accidentally told my host family, "I finished writing a children's novel in Spanish today."
What I meant to say was, "I finished reading a children's novel in Spanish today."
But the time I realized my error, we were seven minutes past the initial faux-pas, and they were insisting that they read my work and that I sell it on the street.
Whoops.

My host brother told a story about the time his Morman friend, who is fluent in Spanish and English, tricked the workers at McDonalds into thinking he was a foreigner. The fulcrum of the joke pivoted on the translation of "for here or to go?"

My host mom used the mustard bottle as a microphone and proceeded to make fun of Chile's president. Apparently, he has had some verbal slip-ups recently. He used the words of the Nazis in an address to the German people, he wanted to give something posthumously to a poet still living, and he thought Robinson Crusoe lived on Robinson Crusoe Island, off the coast of Chile.
How silly.

My host family translated for me what-in-the-Sam-Hill the metro announcers are saying. The Santiago Metro only hires Mumbling Marcos for the speaking-gigs, so I am always clueless. Now I know, "the doors are now closing."

Finally, my host family and I lamented the unintelligibility of Catholic church services. They said they can never catch what the preacherman is saying either. They also said they watch each other for cues, the predominant question always being, "Can we leave yet?"

Dinner lasted for over two hours.

When I looked out the window of our 25th floor apartment, the city was orange and shimmering, like a sky full of stars fallen and rooted to earth.

I left the table very satisfied, unable to clean my plate of laughter.