La Familia -- the other one

At NPH, the word "family" is thrown around a lot. The kids are in touch with their biological families, when they enter NPH they join a new family, the group of volunteers becomes a family of a bunch of people all going through this same crazy experience.

I knew to expect all of this, but I didn't expect that we'd extend the word "familia" much outside of NPH, and I definitely didn't expect to extend the term to the local watering hole in our tiny town. But, this is a year of surprises, so here we are. There is one restaurant in Parramos, and it doubles as a bar. I don't know the real name of it (I think it's Don something?), because we simply call it "La Familia."

La Familia is a small restaurant with a wooden bar, plastic tables and chairs, and a cooler of help-yourself beer and sodas in the corner. There are two types of beer (that pretty much goes for the entire country), or you can buy a bottle of rum and a plate of limes to mix with your soda haha.  There's a bottle opener tied to the bar and a semi-functioning bathroom in the back. A local family owns and runs the place, and their two young girls are always running around the tables with us. Sometimes, their adorable newborn kitten is also in tow. So cute. There's also a jukebox with all the best Latin and reggaeton hits, so we're all remembering just how awesome jukeboxes are, and you don't pay for anything up front. You help yourself to drinks or food all night long, and there's just this honor code that you pay in one big sum when you leave.

In the two months we've been going to La Familia pretty regularly (they have THE most delicious hamburgers), I've only seen other people there maybe twice. Almost every time we go, we have the place to ourselves. It really is like we're part of the family.

Last night, we went out to celebrate a volunteer's return from a 3-week vacation back to the States, and when we arrived at La Familia, we discovered that they had decorated the entire restaurant for Valentine's Day. Dozens of paper hearts hung from the ceiling, and when we looked up, the hearts had our names on them! It was the cutest thing ever.

This is definitely the smallest town I have ever lived in or will probably ever live in. Sometimes we hate that there's no real grocery store or coffee shop, but other times (like nights at La Familia), you have to just love it. :)