...Familytiago?

Leaving the airport we were greeted by our program coordinator and Manuel, the guy with the van that would take us all to our appointed destinations. Happy to get off of the less than comfortable plane, we were saddened to realize we would yet again have to be smushed into a small moving vehicle.

Ukulele in hand, I hiked across the parking lot with my companions, taking our time to sacrifice leg room and personal space. I really wanted to brush my teeth at this point. Manuel looked at me curiously, and I was quite prepared for a comment about my brown skin or the explosion of curls that were toppling over my head. Only when he opened his mouth he simply asked, "is that a violin?" Thrown off by his questions, and relieved to have been wrong in my assumptions, I explained to him I was was toting a tiny Hawaiian guitar, which seemed to satisfy him. At least for a minute. He later asked if it was allowed on the plane, a question I thought to be self explanatory as I had successfully smuggled it across the Americas. I then realized that what he wanted to know was if I had to check it or not; not doubt a way to see if I had money to frivolously throw away on extra baggage on an international flight. After reassuring him that it was allowed as my personal item, he seemed to lose interest in the foreign instrument.

Seven sardines plus three months worth of luggage each were packed into the backseat of a soccer mom van. It's amazing how much can fit in a car if you have just enough will and an eye for spatial reasoning. We were chatty, but mostly because we all were trying very hard not to think about our next immediate adventure: meeting our host families. Some of us had contact with them before hand, most of us did not. As we dropped people off at their various houses and apartments, I was the last to meet my host.

We pulled up to a tall building with a rod iron gate that separated me from my fate. The courtyard had nice tiling and a palm tree. Three gentlemen, two abuelos and one younger Peruvian greeted us in unison and we made our way through the lobby and up to the sixth floor. At this point the only thing I knew about my host was that there was a woman named Pilar Isabel. Arriving on the 6th floor, the door to apartment 605 opened just as we approached it. In the doorway stood a petite women who stood probably 4 and a half feet off the ground with a short bob and eyes that squinted when she smiled.

Pilar. She was very kind, showed me where my room was and encouraged me to have a seat and to

feel at home. She was adorable to say the least. I looked around the small apartment and wondered, "where's everybody else?" I soon learned that Pilar was a widow and her two daughters and grandchildren lived elsewhere in the city. So it was just the two of us. Just me and Pilar, in a quaint apartment for 3 months.



Poll

True of False: Pilar has never been outside of Chile's borders.


Answer in the comment section!