Choripanes and memories

It´s not a single experience, but I´ll always remember the Fiestas Patrias of my childhood and the enthusiasm that my family put on them. We would gather on my great grandmother´s backyard and do either a barbeque or a "discada" (a seafood stew cooked on an iron disk on the ground), my uncle Pablo would arrive early and prepare the fire and decorate the place, my great aunt would make "empanadas" for everyone and my mother with my great grandmother would be making sidedishes and salads.

It was really fun back there when i would go around, helping on little things, receiveing the remainings of the family that would arrive near lunchtime, playing with my cousings and assembling the tables on the backyard where we would eat. And I specially remember that after lunch my uncles Víctor and Jaime would play "cuecas" on the guitar for us to dance.

And like that, it was all dance, laughs and drinks till´ the night when my cousins would go to sleep at their grandmother´s house and only the adults would keep the chatting...and me, because with my mother there, there was no one on my house for me to go back (but usually we would go back home not-so-late).

It is a dear memory for me because it was the only time of the year that the whole family would gather and just have fun and be ourselves.