On the radio this morning:

"And on this day, back in 198-, millions of television viewers were tuning in to see who REALLY killed JR..."
Ah, Dallas. I vaguely remember adults congregating around the television set to watch that show and thinking it was boring. Not that I didn't like evening television. My personal favorites were The Great American Hero, Simon and Simon and Wonder Woman. Dallas was just boring, and the show I really hated was The Incredible Hulk. I think I liked the first two because their theme songs were awesome...and I thought Simon and Simon were cute. Wonder Woman was just the coolest. But I understand how watching television shows about filthy rich people who have unhappy lives is the opiate of the masses, probably. For a while, I too lived for a certain soap opera, or telenovela, when I was in Peru, living in a small town on the edge of the rainforest. "Sonadoras," the show was called. (Dreamers).

When Sonadoras was on (I think it came on around noon) everyone would crowd around the television set. Never have I been more mesmerized by a soap opera. I would tell my boyfriend and his family that I wasn't really an "engreida," no, but look at those girls on Sonadoras. Those were the real "engreidas!" I remember that his aunt was amused with me, and she'd laugh, but I'm not sure that they believed me. When I showed them photographs of my aunts wedding, they told me that we looked like movie stars, and wanted to know if the building where she got married was my house, and if that was where I lived. I'm sure my family would love to hear that they looked like movie stars but...

"In your country, do you have swimmies?" one of his young cousins asked me one day, as I was drinking water out of a liter bottle.
(She was referring to those things that kids wear on their arms to keep afloat when you learn to swim).
"Oh yes! In my country the children wear them, too." I said. She eyed my water bottle.
"Here, most families are too poor to buy swimmies. So they save those water bottles and the children hold onto them to keep afloat."
"Oh," I said.
"People from your country have so much money."
"I know."
"Why?" Por que?
"I don't know. Maybe because there are a lot of big companies in the United States."
"At school, I told them that I have an American girl staying at my house, and they didn't believe me."
I don't know what I said. I think that after that, I passed by them one day on the street, all the school girls in their uniforms. I said "Hi," to her and she smiled brightly and waved at me in front of all her friends.

I remember a Christmas parade, perhaps the nicest one I've ever attended. It was at nightfall. All of the school children made lanterns out of paper and burned candles inside of them. I was mesmerized by the sight of the children marching, the light of their glowing paper lanterns.