Meeting new people has never been my strong suit. It takes something in common to set everyone at ease and overcome the communications gap. For us, it was ping pong. I was pretty good at it. I was crushing all my opponents (except Gerson) until they told me that I was serving wrong. From then on, I became the Washington Generals of ping pong.

I met everyone. By everyone, I mean sisters, brothers, cousins, neighbors and some people that I am sure were just drifters or something. I met the two other C's, Claudia and Christina, bringing my VERY confusing total to five to keep sorted in my head. I think there was another one that stopped by, but my brain refused to accept another.

Everyone went out of their way to make me feel at home. They gave me my own room to sleep in despite the fact that they created a dormitory out of the living room as a result. I felt a little guilty sleeping like a comparative king, but I tempered my guilt by remembering that I had lugged 1/2 of Cecilia's gifts to Brazil (and through Customs) at great personal risk. Whenever I entered the den, they would switch to the English language track on the satellite. At first, I wanted to learn the language a bit and kept asking them to put it back on Portuguese. After the crisis in Argentina started though, I became a news junkie and taught myself how to switch it to English.

Andres, Cecilia's nephew, quickly became my newfound best friend. He let me serve however I wanted in ping pong :) After I explained that there was some sort of soccer game going on down the street (#1 #2), he threw on his shoes and took me to the game. It turns out that it was a practice of some sort, but I couldn't tell the difference anyway. You have to picture him explaining things in great detail in Portuguese and me just smiling and nodding. I returned the favor by teaching him the latest in American pool splashing technology.

Andres and Carol allowed me to join them in a game of Life as well. Once you play an American game, there's just no stopping me. I won the one time I played with them and crowned myself Grand Champion for all time. They are in this picture (Left to Right: Carol, Andres, Cecilia & Matteus).