Family Day

This morning I got up early to spend a little time with my host Mom- I haven´t been able to really sit down and talk to her as I´m always coming and going from the house. I can tell that she is a strong woman- a single mom of two boys ages 20 &25. She has a lot of strength in her personality, you can just tell she is such a wise woman.. but so warm and welcoming at the same time. I kind of had a feeling that she was struggling a little bit so I sat down with her for a few hours this morning and she was more then ready to talk... it was such a beautiful thing to be able to have a full conversation with her and understand all the things she is going through & the hardships of living in Cuzco. She told me about the past things that had happened to the people- the economy in Cuzco- her personal story and her hopes and dreams. It was awesome! Lots of hard things to hear about how the people in Cuzco are losing their land, companies and culture due to all the tourism and foreigners- but good to hear and be aware of for sure. Now she is a full time host mom- but keeps herself busy with yoga, volunteering at a few places and spending time with her friends.

School was good today- another day of Spanish. It has it´s good moments and frustrating ones, but I feel like my spanish is improving for sure!

I went home for lunch and my host brothers (Ricardo & Juan Carlos- we call him Juanca) were waiting to eat with me- how sweet. They are awesome. We have a really good time talking soccer (they can´t believe that I love it) and laughing about the simple things in life. This host family has been great- feels like home for now. I like having brothers around that I can hang out with and talk Spanish... they are good about helping me. Plus I can pawn some of my food off on them- they try and feed me sooo much (surprise)!

Ricardo is a chef so tonight he is going to take me to his restaurant & the three of us are going to go dancing for a bit after. My tandem class got cancelled in the morning- so I´ll be able to sleep in a bit tomorrow morning before my next class. Juanca told me he is going to see if he can get us into a private tour of the stadium here in Cuzco- they were telling me their dad used to work for the club.

So- in a nutshell I´m enjoying my host stay and am glad I choose to take the family route. Should be an awesome month!