LA trip – part 1
The progressive reverend took a group of kids to the U.S. every summer. The former reverend had moved to Los Angeles to run a church there, and their congregation was going to let us stay with them. My sister visited California 4 years earlier when she was 15, so it was my turn. My parents agreed to let me go on the trip. My sister might have never looked at her photos from her trip more than once, but I often looked at them. Behind my sister and her new friends, I saw the land still foreign to me.
It was my first time flying on an airplane. I barely slept. Once we arrived in Los Angeles, we were taken to the host family’s house. I was put in a house with 4 high school girls: two tall and pretty girls, one funny girl, and one kind girl. The pretty girls formed one pair, and the other two formed another, so I felt alone again, like at school. But younger girls took an interest in me, and we became friends. One of them was the former reverend’s daughter, who spoke English like a native Cali girl. There were some elementary school boys and two boys of my age. The two boys were tall and handsome tennis players, and one of them was a younger brother of the pretty girl. I had no business with boys in general, especially handsome ones, so I mostly ignored their existence.