¡Que barbaridad!

That´s the phrase that sums up Christmas Eve (La Nochebuena) for me. Ready?

The Good
I was sitting in my room with my door open because I didn´t just want to go out and sit in the living room and look like an out of place gringa—but my host sister´s friends saw me there and said, “Come dance with us! We´ll teach you punta!” (Of course I tried, looked like an uncoordinated American and a 10 year old boy totally showed me up. He was REALLY good.) And they insisted that I keep dancing—punta, merengue, reggaeton, and salsa! (finally!) It was pretty good—I danced with my family, which PC would refer to as “good community entry”. I was having a really good time and I thought, “Finally, I don´t feel like such an outsider”.

The Bad
Until a group of 10 guys came into the party. Suddenly everyone of them “has” to dance with me—some resorting to pathetic tatics, “I´ll give you candy.” (Yeah buddy, that´s going to convince me to dance with you!) After one song there would be a group of guys grabbing my hands or my waist trying to be the next one to dance with me. And whoever I dance with ending up showing me off to his friends like a damn trophy. But I tried my best to shrug it off. I start dancing with this one guy “Elvin” who asked me, “How old are you?” 24. “How old are you?”, I ask. 16.

Stop right there.
Why do you have a full beard?
Why do you smell like alcohol?
No. I am not Mary Kay Laterno (sp?). This ends now.

The dancing stopped right there. It would be one thing if he was dancing with me for fun, like when I danced with that 10 year old, but the fact that he was trying to get fresh with me is a whole other thing.

“I think I´m going to vomit. Too much dancing.”, I tell him.

I go into the kitchen and my host grandmother gives me coffee and sweet bread. Thank goodness…this buys me at least 15 minutes.

The Ugly
My family made the party end at 11 pm and I thought that people had cleared out, so I sat down on the couch to talk to my host aunt and then someone sits next to me, this guy named Ever. And it begins:
-Do you have a boyfriend?
-Why not?
-Don´t you want a boyfriend?
-Are you looking for a Honduran boyfriend?
-Do you like me?
-How old are you? (I ask him first, he says 20. I tell him that I´m about to turn 25. He then changes his mind and says that he´s 23.)
-Are you Mexican? (every time!)
-Do you like beer? (huh?)
-You need a Honduran boyfriend.
-You´re pretty.
-I think I love you. (Really, if I wanted this, I could have stayed in Chicago, walked one block north to Lawrence Ave. and gotten the same thing!)
I try to be as polite as possible considering he lives in San Ramon and I´ll probably see him again and I shouldn´t be burning any bridges just yet (give me at least 3 months before that starts...) But he doesn´t get the point. The circle of questions begins again. At this point, I´m just crabby so I get up and say, "It was nice meeting you. I´m going to bed." and went to my room to hide (real adult, right?). Finally he left. To be continued...?

The Hilarious
I was dancing with this one guy and he was absolutely plastered. During this reggaeton song "La Cuarentona", he kept pointing to the ceiling and singing to the celing. My 12 year old host brother, Luis, looks at me, wrinkles his nose and does the hand gesture for "he´s been drinking". Then ceiling guy tries to grab my hand, grabs the Christmas tree instead and falls into the wall. He gets up, looks at me and says, "Shhhh. Don´t tell anyone."

Well I don´t have to tell anyone Prince Charming, everyone just saw you make an idiot out of yourself.