Every night at 8pm, Triunfo del Amor comes on the TV. This is a Mexican soap opera (Triumph of Love) in which the actors are dubbed with English voices that don’t fit them. It seems like everyone here watches it. The show comes on right before the 9 pm English news. “Waiting” for the nine o’clock news is my excuse for getting sucked into this show. My two sisters love it.
You see, Maria Desamperada is an orphan who grew up to be a model. She falls in love with Maximilliano (Max), the step-son of her boss, Victoria. Little does Maria know that Victoria is actually her long-lost mother, and her father is actually Juan Pablo, a devout Catholic priest that Maria is close too. Victoria is constantly lamenting the loss of her daughter and despises Juan Pablo’s mother who is has a vendetta against Victoria for making her son unchaste. At the same time, Victoria is having marriage problems with her husband, Osvaldo, an actor. She works too much to have time for him, so he goes gallivanting off with a much younger Linda, who just so happened to be Maria’s roommate. But Linda in engaged to Juanjo, a simple minded firefighter. Juanjo is the cousin of Cruz, who is the gardener for Victoria/Osvaldo’s house. Cruz falls in love with Fer, Max’s step sister and the daughter of Victoria and Osvaldo. She is dating Federico, who is the son of Rodolfo, a sinister man who had raped Victoria (the mother of both Fer and Maria in case you’re getting lost) in her youth and is now using that to blackmail her. At the same time, Max is trying to hide his relationship with Maria from his disapproving step-mother/ Maria’s boss/real mom. He is also trying to avoid the advances of his ex-girlfriend, Xmenia, who conveniently also works for his step-mom’s modeling company. Xmenia can decide if she wants Max or the much older Guillermo, who is also the rival of Osvaldo.
Both the plot line and adlibbed dialogue are terrible, but I can’t stop watching. Stupid soaps.
Other strange news: Did you know that Miano is a Kenyan name? It is commonly found the central area of the country. It is a Kikuyu name, a very large tribe in Kenya. When I first went to get my visa the visa-man looked at my passport, looked at me, and asked “You’re Kenyan?” I laughed, because obviously I’m not. He was the first person to tell me that my name is common, but I thought he was kidding. Since then, every time I give someone my full name they respond “Is that really your name?” Yes, it is my name. It’s actually Italian. There’s even a little town in Italy called Miano. No, I don’t think that my ancestors were actually Kenyan, but I’ll look into it.
Oddly enough, my Nairobi host family has not said anything about my name. They are of the Luo tribe, and the Kikuyu and Luos do not like each other. Both are very large tribe and have a lot of political power, so of course they clash. Though while I’ve been here, I haven’t met another Miano.
Finally, this Sunday I’m cooking dinner for my host family. This could go ok or really badly, there’s not super-awesome-amazing outcome. If you scroll a little further down you’ll see that I mentioned that my mom loves ugali. As far as I can tell, she loves ugali more than her own kids. So I already know she won’t like whatever I make because I already know I’m not making ugali. Stacy will probably like it. Edwin’s home for the weekend but I have no idea what he likes. They want me to cook though, so I am. I’ll let you know how it goes.
No comments:
Post a Comment