“A mi me encanta todo.”

Posted by Brynn G.

A mi me encanta todo. (I really love everything.)

This is what I keep thinking to myself: as I eagerly stare out the window of my papa’s coche, my hair blowing wildly as we fly precariously along the highway; as plate after plate of delicious food, whose names I hope I’ll soon learn, is set in front of me; even now, as I sit on the roof-top of my new family’s cozy house and drink the cool ocean breeze that always seems to live up here.

I really have not traveled much in my life.  I hesitate to say “yes” when people ask me if I have been out of the US.  Does Canada count?  Do two weeks with a choir in Germany really count?  Surely not my trip with my family to Bermuda.  I think this is what makes Peru so enchanting.  Everything I look at, hear, eat, is part of a rich culture that (although these 3 months are short) I have the privilege of living in.

Since this semester is so short, I am also constantly grabbing at the little things that happen around me to store in my memory.  I know I’ll always remember Machu Picchu, but I also want to remember the time I made mi papa laugh when we visited his tia (aunt).  Mi mama holding my arm as we cross the street together to go buy fresh pan at the tienda down the road.  Watching “Inside Out” en espagnol con me hermonita (sister) Romina, and laughing–she, because of the movie, and me because her laugh is the most precious laugh I’ve ever heard.

I know there are plenty of things to dislike, to be afraid of, to miss about mi pais, but in este momento–

A mi me encanta todo.