Edgar y Maria

I love my host parents. I really don't think I could have been placed with anyone more suited to me than Edgar y Maria Fernandez Navarro (a mouthful, no?). Staying with them has truly been one of the highlights of my time here. From day one they have made me feel absolutely welcome and comfortable, like a part of the family. We have since moved past some of the pleasantries and now genuinely enjoy spending time together and chatting and laughing. They call themselves my "Chilean grandparents". I would have posted about them earlier, but I wanted to wait until I had a picture to put up. But I guess that women are women around the world and whenever I suggested taking a picture to Maria, she always wanted to wait until she was better dressed, her hair was done, she was wearing earrings.... finally she went to the hairdresser the other day so she was suddenly willing to let me take her picture... woo-hoo!

Anyhow, the Fernandez Navarro's are what I would guess to be in their late-70s. They have been married for over 50 years and have 3 children and 11 grandchildren. They are one of those couples that you can tell, ever after so many years, still totally digs each other. They talk constantly and make each other laugh all the time. They're affectionate with one another in a really sweet way and have a continual banter going on. The other day Edgar cut his finger while fixing a light and ended up going in to the doctor to have it looked at. Hearing Maria tease him about that ("Men. Men will go to the doctor for anything; a cut finger, a splinter, a speck of dust in their eye.... ") made me laugh. Because, really, underneath her teasing, she was really worried about him and has been babying him even more than usual since his "injury". Just watching them is a pleasure.

Edgar is an engineer. Notice I did not say he is a retired engineer, he is an actively working engineer. He says that he has no intentions of retiring as then he's sure he'll die (but when he says it, it sounds funnier). One of the major landmarks in Santiago is Plaza de Armas and Edgar made one of the two major statues that are in that plaza (I tried, but couldn't find a picture). It's very impressive. Maria is a housewife who spent her time raising their children and now mostly spends her time keeping house and helping Edgar as he often works from home.

Maria talks a mile a minute AND non-stop, to boot. Literally. Sometimes my head spins when I'm trying to keep up with her. Even her granddaughter told me she has trouble understanding her sometimes, which made me feel better. Edgar talks in a nice, slow, easy way and so it has naturally progressed that he and I have had some great conversations together, mostly at the dinner table. I usually get home to have my dinner after they have already eaten but he always, without fail, comes out and sits down to "acompañarte", to keep me company while I eat. It often stretches into two hours and these are some of the best times we've shared. I think our initial bond was within the first few days of my stay when he offered me some hot sauce to try. I asked if it was very hot and he said no (he really didn't think it was). I took a big taste and the look on my face, followed by the tears streaming out of my eyes, gave us our first really big, genuine laugh together. There have been many more since. We also share an enjoyment of vino so it has become our ritual to alternate turns of bring a bottle to dinner to try out. Now he jokes about marking the unfinished bottles "Edgar y Katy" and drawing a line where we left off so we would know if anyone else got into our "stash"! We talk about all sorts of things, from what I'm doing in class (he's interested in my teaching him some English words) to politics to religion to wine to travels to Chilean jokes. Tonight he told me a full-out Chilean joke.... and I got it! I can't tell you what a victory that was for me (and him)! Getting humor in a second language is tough, even more so when you're not totally fluent. So before he started the joke he says "I'm going to tell you a Chilean joke now. Are you ready?", thereby preparing me to reeeeeally listen to him. And I got it! And it was funny! Ah, the small things that are exciting while living abroad.

Tonight I mentioned that I didn't have much homework as I had gotten it all done before coming home so Maria insisted that I watch a TV special that was on at 10 (first TV I've watched since being here). It turns out that it was a show marking the opening of a festival in a nearby town, Viña del Mar and that one of her favorite singers was going to be on: Miguel Bosé. It was pretty funny to watch a nearly 80-year-old lady get all giddy about a pop star and to sing along to most of his songs. She would grab my arm and say "Ay, this is such a beautiful one!" and then sing away. It was another cool moment for me with my Spanish and realizing that I could just hang out like normal on a couch watching TV and be understanding what was going on along with all of the little side commentary that Maria was making. Progress, I'm making progress!

But I digress. Edgar y Maria have been wonderful to me and I already get a little pang of sadness when I think about leaving their house in two weeks. We talked about it tonight at dinner and they want to know why I can't "just stay until Christmas". Why isn't it just that easy??

P.S. All of these pics were taken in their yard. We had grapes from that grapevine for dessert tonight!