Living with host families can be.... a challenge. I've liked all my host families, don't get me wrong. It's just sometimes you think you're doing alright living in a new place and then the world turns upside down and you're asked to defend America's immigration policy.
The family I stayed with over FBT was very interesting. They have an intergenerational home, with a grandma and grandpa, mom and dad, and two daughters. Everyone was very kind, the food was good albeit a little dry, and the house itself had all the amenities a girl could ask for (dare I say, warm shower?).
One day during lunch my grandpa was watching the news on his flat screen tv and wiggled around in is hammock to face me. "Are you religious?" he asked. So I'm thinking, I got this. Of course I'm religious! I'm catholic and yes, I go to church. This is the answer everyone is looking for in El Salvador and perfecting a canned response, no matter your true religious preferences, is a necessity for all trainees.
"Don't you know that the church tells lies?" he said. "The church steals money from poor people. The father is a crook! He just wants to live a rich life! People here go to church, but they don't pray. They aren't going to heaven!"
I sat there stunned. He continued to tell me how it's much better to read the bible alone and pray alone than waste any of your time in that blasted church.
"Do you study the bible?"
What is this, the Spanish Inquisition? (Literally.) "Yeah, when I was a kid I did."
He looked me dead in the eyes and told me this, "You better start reading the bible again, because you'll never find heaven at church."
Damned if you do, eternally damned if you don't!
This family, and probably the majority of families in Buenos Aires, is a remeza family. Remittances are a doubled edged sword here. On one hand, the people are poor. Any bit of money relatives can wire from the US goes a long way. Also, there are no national aid programs here. No disability pay, no social security. Some people need to live on what their sons and daughters can send.
On the other hand, nobody wants to work. Why work all day in the milpa picking corn for nickels and dimes when you know your brother is going to send you a money order every month? Remezas definitely cause problems for a small country like El Salvador that's trying to establish a workforce.
You can always tell a remeza family by their clothes. They typically have kitschy English slogans like "make art, not war," and sometimes they're even from Amberugly & Fitch. Their clothes are clean, too, because they own a washing machine. The house may have bamboo rafters, but hell if they don't have a washing machine!
At dinner I found out that most of the family does indeed live in the US, specifically in Nuevo York. Again, the grandfather tested my worth. He asked what I thought about Obama and the Republicans, if I knew how many Latinos are deported every week, do I have any Latino friends, have my Latino friends been deported? I'm proud to say I held my own very well, and in Spanish to boot. But I still felt a little jilted, like they were verbally poking me with a stick to see if I'd yell or roll over and cry.
On my last night in Buenos Aires I saw the most breath taking field of fireflies. I've never seen so many fireflies in my life. There were thousands just hovering in the field, blinking away. I told Angelica how I used to catch fireflies by the dozen and put them in glass jars. Angelica didn't seem to get the point of capturing bugs, so I tried explaining that they're like a little light show and when you fall asleep you can count how many times they light up for you. It's fun, I promise! She still didn't get it.
Later that same night I was tucked under my mosquito net when I saw a lone firefly lighting up on the wall. How funny, I thought, that he's the free one on the outside watching me. In a way I feel like a firefly caught in a jar that's sitting on El Salvador's nightstand. Everybody's watching me, waiting to see if I'll glow or if I'm a dud. Host families are often the people you have to please the most because you live under their roof, you eat their food, and your country deports their children. It's a lot of pressure.
I just hope they poke some holes in my jar, because it gettin hard to breath.
