Home, Love, Family

Kimba the cat just chillin'

Hello again from Spain!

This post will be focused on the family, the house, and the town that I live in!

It's embarrassing that I have 2 weeks left here and am just now writing this. Geez.

This trip to Spain would not have been possible without my host family. As I mentioned in the last post, they are letting me live here and eat with them for free just to speak English with their daughter for a few hours during the week. So, I thought I should introduce them to you!

The mom's name is Laly. She is really nice! She has traveled all around the world to take pictures (she is a photographer). It is cool to hear how passionate she is about different cultures and her efforts to understand everyone better. During meals, she is always asking me about my life and beliefs. The family does not believe in any religion. It's a cool missionary experience for me. :)

When I got into Laly's car when she picked me up from the airport, I knew that living here was going to be harder than I thought: it smelled like cigarette. Yeah, the dad smokes. Edguardo is a nice guy, pretty intimidating. I just wish that he didn't smoke. I didn't know this beforehand, which I think made it harder on me. I can't stand the smell of smoke, so to live in the same house as someone who smokes is not easy. I don't know if knowing before I came would have made me change my mind, so maybe it's a good thing that I didn't know. I might have missed out on experiencing Spain! And he is a nice guy. Smoking doesn't define him as a person.

The amount of people here that smoke is ridiculously high. I feel like that's something that I should have known before, but whatever. Like I said, maybe it's for the best that I didn't know.

Kimba and Elivra

The last member of the family is Elvira. She is 6 years old and has a very spunky personality. My few hours playing with her each day are interesting to say the least. Honestly, I think that this girl needs a brother or two to put her in her place, but that's my opinion. I'm surprised that she doesn't know very much English (at all) because I'm the 4th student they have had stay here to teach her English! One girl lived here for 10 months! So, I don't understand why she can't understand me at all. Basically all she knows are those basic phrases like "Hello, how are you?" and numbers and colors. I'm doing my best, but I don't know how much progress we can make if the girl who lived here for 10 months didn't get very far.

There is a family friend named Paloma who is with us a lot. She is the one who usually watches Elvira when the parents are working. She is a nice, older woman, very skinny. She is also a smoker, but I think she smokes more than the dad does. It's hard to talk to her after she has smoked because her breath smells really bad, but she is SUPER nice and would do anything for anyone.

The family also has a cat and 5 dogs. The dogs all live in the backyard though, so I haven't really seen them. We took one of the dogs on a walk once, but that was the only time I've seen anyone interact with them. It's more like they don't have dogs. The cat, however, lives in the kitchen/dining room. Her name? Kimba. Yeah... that's awkward. The family calls me Kimberlie because Kimber is too close to Kimba. Anyway, Kimba walks all over the counters and no one cares. It's kind of weird. Also, I've never heard a cat meow as much as he does (Kimba is a boy). 

This family is pretty big on dance. The first floor of this house is a small dance studio that holds different dance classes almost everyday! They also own a discoteca (which is like a dance club) where they also have dance classes along with parties for kis as well as older people. 

Illescas is the town that the family lives in. It's pretty small and it is also kind of... dirty. I have never seen so much graffiti in my life. I thought that it was all of Spain (it kind of is), but in different towns I've been in, there has not been as much graffiti as there is here in Illescas. Aside from the gross aspect, it is a cute town. There are two really old churches here that are cool to see. 

One of the churches in town.

The other church in town.

That's all I have about the family and where I live! Stay tuned for the next post: it is going to be about my experience going to church here! I'm REALLY excited to talk about it because it has been my favorite part about being here! You don't want to miss it! :)

P.S. After going back and forth on a few movie-inspired family quotes, I decided to go with Anastasia because I watched it on the plane ride to Spain. This is the song that inspired the title: "Journey To The Past" - "Home, love, family. There was once a time I must have had them too."