One cigarette on rare occasions is all right: 25 de diciembre de 2014
It’s about 5am, I’m outside on the patio smoking a minty cigarette I stole from a pack someone left out here. Smoking is so bad for you! But I decided one cigarette on rare occasions is alright. Perfectly acceptable, although I prefer rolling my own. Today is Christmas! Actually, technically it’s the 26th, very early.
Christmas Eve was so great. I slept all day, and around 6pm I left to buy food and sit by the rotonda close to Patio Olmos to write. The young man did approach me, and he turned out to be very nice. He said my Spanish was really good, and walked me back to the hostel before saying goodnight. Buena onda, but I’m really not interested in anything more than a casual conversation.
When I arrived at the hostel they were beginning the festivities. Everyone was dressed up, the lights warm and dim, and my bosses were cooking a huge dinner. The music is playing and everyone is drinking and socializing. I speak in English and Spanish, everyone has a funny accent in both. How international we’ve become, the mix of cultures feels so right.
I laugh hysterically as one of my bosses (I have four), un argentino moreno, tells me that when he was young his mom basically called him ‘nigger,’ because in Spanish calling someone ‘negro’ is perfectly acceptable. It’s like, “hey, man” or “dude” or something like that. I remember working on the farm in Mendoza and the daughter there, a few years older than me, used the name ‘Negra.’ Normal!
Also, Christmas morning my boss wakes me up saying, “Tu amigo de Chile está acá” — Raúl! I’m like, wut? and I go downstairs and there he is in the lobby! He told me he never left because Ximena invited him to spend Christmas Eve with her family, and then later they had the idea that they’d spend New Year’s in Chile with her roommate. They have a car so now Raúl doesn’t have to hitchhike or take the bus…
All day we hung out, ate hot dogs and went to Parque Sarmiento and napped in the grass, and then bought groceries to make lunch, which I cooked all by myself while he slept on the couch on the patio. It was relaxing, and I loved waking up to his return, my only Christmas gift.