Stand down, doña.

1 September 2013

This weekend I went to visit my friend and during that trip I bought popcorn and wine. Needless to say we finished the bottle of wine, but I brought home popcorn to make in the future. Today was the future. In true spirit of "compartiring", I made popcorn to share with my host family. Some of you know that my preferred method of making popcorn is air popped in the microwave with no or "un chin" de sal. Well, living in the campo we have no microwave, so I did it the old fashioned way on the stove. The little girl in my house was watching the whole time. She wanted to see me "cook". When the kernels had stopped popping I dumped my corn into a big bowl.

The cleaning lady came in and grabbed some kernels. She had been advising me to use butter and salt as I started "cooking", so I wanted to save myself some clean kernels before the salt was loaded on top.

I told the little girl that if she wanted salt to grab a little bowl behind her. This is when the cleaning lady jumped in and grabbed the salt from the girls hand and said no. I said she could have some salt. I told her that I hadn't put any salt on it, so if she wanted to put salt on a separate bowl it wasn't a problem. I said that I just happen to not want salt. She again said no, so I asked why. If she threw a health reason at me then okay, maybe we could talk, but her reason was just that she couldn't. I I just dead locked on the situation and said, it's not a problem if she wants a little salt, popcorn has salt, I just happen to not want any. My doña had walked in at some point and was in on the fuss. She told the cleaning lay to let it go, but then yelled at the little girl for something and called her a coño. I hate that word here.

Anyway, I have he cleaning lady a bowl of palomitas too and if she even reached for the salt I was going to give her a piece of my mind.

We all ate the popcorn in a bit of an awkward silence, but I made sure to joke around with my little friend during it all.

Why such a big deal over a shake of salt? Is it because I was giving her a special bowl? Was it because I let her feel like an equal in the popcorn process? Why do the rest of you insist on making the life of a little girl feel so awful when it's already clouded by a lack of parents?

Whatever. I'm moving out. Hopefully tomorrow. And I am going to see if she wants to come have sleepovers at my house. We will make popcorn and watch Toy Story on my computer. We'll play "Bloque" y "cartas" and have a good time without you guys yelling at her. I admit, she's a kid, she's not perfect, she has likely done some "bad" things over the years, but dang, chill out.

Okay. Maybe I'll stop talking about this for a while. I started a Somos Mujeres group and am starting an English class on Tuesday, so stay tuned for games and fun as I disguise education as an English class.