Marta Alicia y su Catalina

Tonight I'd like to introduce you to my host mother, Marta Alicia. She is somewhere between the ages of 60 and 70 and she is about 5'2" tall, with short, mostly-grey hair and very kind eyes. She's the kind of person who looks like she could tell you a thing or two about living, but not the sort that feels the need to impress on you how much she knows. She speaks very quickly and very lightly, dropping a few consonants here and there. I often have to ask to hear things again and a bit slower, and she grins and repeats- the few times I just nodded and didn't really understand she saw right through it.

Marta has a subtle sense of humor that I'm enjoying getting to know. At dinner my first night in the apartment she came out with a bowl of salad, the main dish, a bottle of Coca Light (Diet Coke), and another bottle, that looked as though it had been chilling in the freezer, of Russian vodka. I definitely wasn't expecting vodka at the dinner table of a semi-elderly woman and well, if we're discussing liquor preference I personally would rather have tequila, but who was I to judge her taste in liquor or her dining habits? Luis (the Brazilian student who studied here spring semester and left today) didn't look surprised or amused, so I assumed it was just her dose of relaxation after a long day. We all had Coca with dinner and she had a small amount of vodka afterward. The next night I must've been unable to hide my look of surprise when she poured a rather full glass, because Luis laughed and told me it was only filtered tap water. Duh, Claire. He said on his first night last spring she poured a full glass, drained it all at once, and then bet him he couldn't do the same. He was awed.

She has four children, all of whom have children of their own, and when we asked to see pictures of all of them last night she was very happy to oblige. There's a particularly beautiful picture, in black and white, of her holding her oldest daughter, who was a toddler at the time. Marta said it was taken when she was thirty ("y cuando era flaca"-"back when I was thin"), but she doesn't look much older than I am. She's no longer married, and I think host mom is her full-time title these days.

The other occupant of the apartment aside from foreign visitors is Marta's cat, Catalina, who is about thirteen years old. My first night, a few minutes after I arrived and sat on my bed for the first time, she jumped up, made sure my computer, books, and bag smelled acceptable, and then placed herself in my lap and looked up at me, clearly expecting petting. Once I started scratching her head she purred loudly and then proceeded to drool on my keyboard. She enjoys sleeping on her back on the sofa with her head upside-down under cushions, and when I came home from a night out with friends two days ago looked up at me disapprovingly from her perch in the middle of the kitchen table. I expect that Catalina and I will enjoy each other.