« Pollo Campero - the world's greatest fried chicken | Main | Cafe Matou »
June 29, 2005
Meeting La Abuela de mi Chavo
So mi chavo's grandmother arrived Friday night, as you probably know from my previous entries. She is the most amazing woman. She's 85 years old, and despite serious ailments (like arthritis that has deformed her hands and feet and a touch of deafness), she is still extremely active. And she loves to talk. Which is absolutely fabulous, except, um, I'm not fluent in Spanish.
Oh, if I could only go back and slap the girl who goofed off in high school Spanish because she didn't like her teachers. If I could only chastise the woman who refused to take Spanish class seriously in college because it wasn't Chinese (the language she really wanted to learn). If only, if only.
La abuela de mi chavo made tamales for us in Guatemala and brought them to Chi-town. Except we didn't get all of the tamales, because she "had" to sell some at market to cover the cost of the ingredients (she didn't actually need to sell anything - mi chavo's father would have covered the cost - but again, she's stubborn). I mention this because truly made from scratch tamales taste like nothing else. If you eat enough tamales, you can really taste the difference between masa made from a bag and masa made from ground-up, fresh corn. It was absolutely amazing; better than any tamales I've ever had.
So, we had to make do with my limited abilities and her desire to get to know me as soon as possible. At one point, mi chavo's father had to tell her that I'm a gringa and she should talk to me like a gringa, not like a Guatemalteca. But we managed to work it out. I told her about my work and my family and she told me about how her friend didn't like whiskey, but when she gave her friend a whiskey and 7-Up, then she liked it. (Which got me telling her how whiskey and 7-up is my sister's favorite drink too.) I used to be partial to whiskey, but somewhere between graduating college and now I lost my taste for hard liquor. Instead, I like girly drinks and wine. (My current favorites are almaretto sour and any wine from the Rhone Valley in France.)
I'm really lucky, not just because I have mi chavo, but also because his family has welcomed me with open arms. It's just such a wonderful experience.
Aside: some people might not have read my explanation of "mi chavo." It means my boyfriend and is a Guatemalan phrase. Mi chavo doesn't want to be identified by his name, hence using the pseudonym. When he gives me ideas for my blogs, I refer to him as "Blind Boy Grunt," which was a name used by Bob Dylan. Since I do not claim to know 25% of what mi chavo knows about Dylan, I'm not going to try to explain the origin of that name.
Posted by cj at June 29, 2005 01:54 PM