Lunch with the Castros

I duly turned up at midday. It was warm and I sat in the small charming garden with its pots of geraniums and shady tree while Maria was busy in the kitchen. Monica showed me her house, next door, which was like a showroom, smart and empty with shiny white floors and introduced me to her rather handsome husband, Alberto. Alberto, a retired bank manager, was much more worldly than the Castros and talked with graceful ease about all kinds of things while he lit the barbecue in the garden and prepared slabs of meat. Yolo took me into his workshop, filled with boxes of stuff including what he claimed were dinosaur bones and spouted various bits of wisdom. Obviously he’s a keen amateur philosopher and poet as well as sculptor though he told me he spent his working life in obras (roadworks) – he knew lots of little rhymes and snappy lines.
So we sat at the kitchen table with Alberto bringing in trays of delicious meat and Maria’s home-made empanadas and bread and salad. I spent a very happy three hours chatting to the family, drinking a little wine and helping grand-daughter Chiara with her English homework. Yolo tuned the radio into a station playing Chamame (Argentine folk music, like Paraguayan polka, with accordions and violins) and Maria told me with the little money they have left each week that they go dancing together, most nights, in a dancehall by the river – not just tango but other dances too.
I promised to visit again before I left. It’s wonderful having you here, Maria told me by the garden gate – just wonderful. Yolo’s been telling everyone about the English girl he’s met. And then, unreservedly, she wrapped her arms around me, gave me the most enormous hug and a bag of warm empanadas to take home.