a half an hour in a life of a girl

The simple rectangular ad in The New York Times was enough to reinstill that sense of wanderlust, unquenchable while remaining in Connecticut. On the page advertizing summer camps, the small ad ran under the heading of "Travel". "The Experiment in International Living" it read in stark black capitals. Underneath, in smaller italics: Changing the world one friendship at a time. The ad offered "Challenging programs for high school students in"-it then listed locations in boldface print- "Europe, The Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania." Below that, in small italics, was its claim to having been providing "Excellence in International Education since 1932." Following that was a phone number (1-800-345-2929) and a web address (www.usexperiment.org). As she wrote and contemplated, all the while acutely aware of her own metacognition, her dramatic background soundtrack was provided by occasional outbursts of windblown rain outside and the musical ramblings and tangents of her sister playing the piano, playing what the girl thought was quite loud and a bit annoying considering the time. She had sort of been trying to sleep for the past half-hour or so, and with ther sister miraculously having been spontaneously energized, it looked like she would be trying for a while now.

The whole day a growing resentment of these near-weekly family parties was creeping over her. Nost of that stemmed from petty and rather selfish reasons, she supposed. It was just that, even with the spending of four hours in the car and nearly three hours with relatives, it just didn't seem to matter that much. Of course, it was her cousin's first birthday, how exciting, how nice, but she somehow got the feeling that she wasn't particularly hyped to see any of her relatives, and they weren't particularly excited to see her. The conversation was far from stimulating and the pizza crust was too sweet. It was so cute, though, to see how her little cousin would instantly react to a camera by splitting his face into a huge smile. Good little celebrity- or, should one say- prince.

Finally her sister let the last chord fade away. FINALLY she could go to sleep...

The Gate..

I was knocked out of my dreamless sleep to Maria’s booming voice behind the steering wheel. Her voice rapidly tilted high and low like a rollercoaster and her speech was peppered with a few familiar sounding words. When I finally opened my eyes the first thing I saw was four sets of olive skin colored knees smushed together and sweaty thighs stuck to one another like suction cups. I was sitting on Sylvia’s lap near the window and she had the lucky job of adjusting me every now and then to make sure we didn’t become glued to one another. I’m sure my boney ass was hurting her but all I heard her say during the entire car ride from the air port is “tutto okay?” which is exactly what she said to me when the car suddenly stopped in front of a tall gate on a dirt road.
I Couldn’t help but be reminded of those never ending dessert highways in the middle of nowhere you see in movies. Not that the dirt road was otherwise empty, about ten feet away there was a small stucco white shed that looked meaningless and random except for a peeling poster of gelato on the front wall. In front of the barren building there was a starved wolf -like creature chained to a fence, panting in the heat.
Once the car stopped the girls began to moan and grumble “mama!” sleepily as Maria kept shouting back at them and poking at them with her stubby sausage fingers until somehow Giga, the youngest and the one sitting closest to the door in the car that actually opened, was pushed out of the car to open the rusty, unromantic black gate. Giga huffed and puffed as she pulled the first gate open, and then the next, with her flabby arms. As she leaned over I noticed her bulging out of her too-tight green shorts and top that used to be Sylvia’s. When she was done she tried to look up and smile her at her mother, but she just looked nauseous.