Coming To America

I always thought it was interesting how people from the United States called themselves AMERICANS.  I think everybody who lives on the American continent should be called Americans.  But that’s a whole other blog day. 

I have been living in the states for 23 years; I got here when I was 18. Mathematically speaking I am an American because I have been here longer than I was in South America.  But, there are a few things that I still can’t get used to. You can take the girl out of Paraguay, but you can’t take Paraguay out of the girl. Here are a few things I will never get used to: 

-Summer in JULY? This means the holidays are in the winter.  At home sprinklers were on while my mother, aunts and grandmother were cooking the big dinner! The cousins would sit outside and eat watermelon with spoons and after getting all dirty just get more sprinklers on us!  We had Christmas dinner on a long table set on the back yard of my grandma’s house.  She built her nativity scene under her bamboo and coconut trees.  We barbecued and spent it outdoors until crazy hours of the night.

- The school year ends in the middle of the year and not in November… towards the end of the year. It’s so confusing to me! When I tried to think about the school year I have to combine 2 year calendar?  Weird!

- You have to call friends to see if it’s ok to stop by, sometimes even family.  This one I have to agree, that in the last 3 years, since the twins were born I am starting to get used to.  My house is an absolute mess and if my mother-in-law were to just POP-IN, I would be MORTIFIED!

-Dinner at 6p? We eat between 9p and 10p!  Maybe that’s because we also have afternoon tea or mate, so we are not hungry by 6p, we just had tea and pastries.   Our work hours are between 7a ‘til 12noon, and then go home for lunch and siesta and then go back to work at around 3p or so.  So you have your “merienda” at work and then come home to make dinner at 7p and eat with the family at 9p or 10p. Our lunches are HUGE and our dinners very small. Totally backwards than here, maybe that’s why my weight has never been the same since I moved here.  And I can also blame it on BACON, MILKSHAKES, and FRIES!!!

- There are no siestas here! Although once I had kids and stayed home with them… the siestas are back in my life.

-It’s considered tacky to sit in your front yard in a lounge chair? When that’s what we looked forward to every afternoon, especially in the spring and summer!  My friends and I would sit outside, to watch the drive byes and drink Terere, which is the cold version of Mate, and Mate is like tea but you put the tea in a big cup stick a special straw in and serve the hot water into the tea herbs.  It’s yummy, and anybody who tries it, gets hooked on it.

- You could go weeks without seeing your neighbors.  I guess back home most people sit outside to enjoy terere or mate and you saw each other a lot.  What’s the fun of gossiping if there is nothing to gossip about or with!

- Nobody goes for a joy ride, but then again who can afford them these days. But we would go for a joy ride and by the end of the ride we will find a place to hang out and within an hour all our friends will be gathering around drinking mate or terere depending on the season!  I go visit every 2 years and this still happens which I think is awesome!

-Going to the store is a huge outing, especially with kids. It could take hours.  I pack my bag with snacks, drinks, diapers, and some kind of entertainment so I can get through my list without interruptions. But even that sometimes does not work.  In South America we had little stores pretty much in every corner, my parents owned one. They are called “despensas”. Every day people make a 5 minute walk to these stores and buy stuff they needed to make dinner that night. Maybe once a month you’ll go to the supermarket to buy the big stuff or the stuff you can store for a month.

-Your whole family does NOT live 5 minutes from you!  I miss having family close by.  My husband’s family is here and that’s great. But his family is small so it still does not feel like at home.  I grew up with all my cousins just minutes away.  I think we took that for granted, we knew that any given afternoon I can see them, play with them or later in my life a quick game of volleyball.  I have 29 first cousins, I am not even counting the extended family who was also in my hometown.  I’ll never forget the first time I took my husband home. Every time we went for a walk we ran into a relative.  He would ask “who was that?” and I will say “my cousin”; so next time we ran into another relative… he did not bother to ask! 

I am an American now and I love it, I love that dreams do come true in this country, but my South American blood is very strong and very thick, just like my thighs.  What’s comical is that every time I go visit my hometown, my brothers tell me how “AMERICANIZED” I am;  when I don’t see that at all.  In fact, I get upset when they say that.  Not sure why because I love this country and who I became here, but maybe because I don’t want my brothers to think I am losing my roots? AND, yes… I still have a lot of South American flair in me… specially my grammar (deal with it).  I do hope that my kids grow up to be proud Americans, but also be proud of where their mommy came from.