Saturday evening, I went to a quinceñera with my friend Amiel. For those that don´t know, this is a a catholic tradition celebrating a girl´s exit from childhood and intoduction to womanhood on her 15th birthday. After a special mass, all the girl’s family ranging from babies to great grandparents get together with friends to eat and drink and dance into the early hours of morning.

Amiel pushed me into the crowded party room to watch the birthday girl prance around with a doll wearing pink fluffy taffeta to coordinate with her own marshmallow of a dress. Amiel explained that this is the last doll she recieves, the exit from girlish games. Total eclipse of the heart replaced the cutsy doll dance music, and 4 boys replaced the doll. Apparantly, womanhood means being passed around to all your friends. I´m kidding of course, but it did seem a bit strange that even in celebration of the girl, she is recognized by her relationship to men. Machismo is still entact in Latin American culture, as is chivalry. Can we not loose one and keep the other?

Next we all sat down to steaming plates of barbacoa de pollo and rice served alongside the most ambiguous and strong liquor I´ve ever tasted. I stuck to grapefruit soda. Before the plates were cleared the dance floor began to fill with all ages of people grooving to salsa, rock and reggaeton. I was perfectly content to watch the festivities, so I refused the first time man who asked me to dance. Finally, I decided “When in Mexico…”  and spent the next hour or so dancing my little heart out.

Amiel had to be home at 1am so we left early, but it was three hours later after a snack of fresh gorditas and a healthy dose of chatting that we finally went to sleep. At 7am, the most hateful sound range through my brain, my alarm clock.

Amiel´s parents drove me home in a fantastic skyblue voltzwagon from the 70´s. I had time to change clothes and brush my teeth before joining a good portion of the family (grandma, grandpa, son, daughter, son inlaw, grandchild) for breakfast in honor of Father´s day. It was a light affair with fruit cups, orange juice, black beans, eggs scrambled with chile, gorditas with salsa verde and queso, pan dulce, coffee with milk, and finally, generous portions of a decadent cake. I don´t know if i´ve ever eaten so much for breakfast in my life and still they asked me why I wouldn´t eat more.

After an hours nap that hardly took the edge off of my seeping exhaustion, it was time to meet an even more extensive assortment of family for la comida. This is what they call lunch in Mecico and it is traditionally the largest meal of the day. Even with a smorgesborg of delicious food, I still felt like I was being force fed. The family I live with keeps calling me flaquita wich means skinny girl, but it is in no way a complement. I have more than a fleeting suspicion than Señora Rosa is seriously trying to fatten me up.

It had been more than 24 hours sense i´d heard or spoken English and i was in a house filled with a huge family that wasn´t mine but treated me like they were. All the tias were passing cups of tequila around and laughter ricocheed off of concrete walls. The whole experience felt surreal. For the first time I realized I was speaking Spanish without translating from English first in my mind. I´m no where near fluent, but I can think of no better way to help me in that dirrection than celebrating with my adoptive Mexican family.