A little strange

Kids here roam the streets freely.  They don't have the fears that have built up in the United States with all the violence and kidnappings present in cities.  Five and six year olds wander the sidewalks and create games to entertain themselves, they kick around soccer balls and run races with no authority figure in sight.  One of my favorite games I have seen so far involves golf clubs a tennis ball and a goal constructed with garbage cans.  The kids whack the ball, hockey style, with the golf clubs toward the goal which is invariably gaurded by the smallest child.  Of course this is played on the sidewalk and street and the clubs sometimes hit the ground with a surprising force.  I like to call the game "Don't let dad find out," and I bet it is usually followed by a rousing round of "Hide the Evidence."  The kids I know better are no less strange.
My host sister reminds me in some ways of my sister at home, and in other ways not so much.  Both my sisters are easily amused and by simply making funny noises I can send them both into laughing fits.  Both my sisters pout and whine from time to time.  At home it was not so bad with the strictly enforced anti-whining rule my mom created.  The noise of high pitched complaints just seemed to push a button in her, specifically the button that turned her evil.  My sister and I learned not to whine too often, my sister had more lapses in judgement than I did so she took the majority of my mom's venom but it was never bad.  In my new home there is no anti-whining rule and I can clearly see why my mom implemented one, I can barely understand the conversation my host parents are having with their daughter, but it's driving me insane.  I think my mom installed the same button in me because it takes all my restraint to not say "NO, NO, No Hacerlo! NO Grima!"  My sister here is also much more eccentric  than my sister back home.  I'm not saying that my real sister isn't strange, she plays with her dolls by holding them at arms length and then has what I can only describe as an imagination seizure.  We watch her shaking and holding her doll, but we have no real idea what's going on.  My sister here prefers to have fun by sneaking out of her room dressed as bat man and hiding somewhere in the apartment.  She then spys on the family, myself included, from the most obvious hiding places.  I'm not sure why she has to be in disguise to spy on us but I play along, it's fun sometimes.  Ninty percent of the time I love both my sisters, but I cannot take whining.
School has to be one of the strangest changes, specifically what they find funny.  I mean the jokes are still along the same lines, namely straight guys (presumably) pretending to be gay, but they are on a whole different level.  Three or four guys will gang up on this one guy who's from Morocco.  They drag him onto a table, pull his shirt up, and start tickling him.  He laughs like crazy and tries to push them away but there are too many.  I can't help myself from laughing the first time but there is some value in it I just can't see that the other guys all seem to get.  Somehow I think this might be the cutting edge of teenage male humor and I'm just too old fashioned.  My host brother doesn't get involved either, we don't hang out much in school, but on the weekends we hang out sometimes.
This past weekend I was body surfing with my host brother.  The waves were monstrous and crashed all at once, catching them was nearly impossible and in the hour we spent there I never got one.  What did happen was I got thrown over and around by a series of really bad waves.  For body surfing we have to wear flippers otherwise it is impossible to move around in the water.  I hate flippers, because when close enough into land to touch you still can't walk, so I am only up to my chest in water but I can't get in any further because of my damn flippers.  Another wave breaks over me and pulls the board out of my hands, fortunately the board is attached to my hand, unfortunately it's on my right arm.  The same arm that I have dislocated twice, I'm face down underwater and I feel the joint pulling.  I know what's about to happen and I can't stop it because my board is still being pulled away by the wave.  My arm separates and hangs in front of  me, it does not hurt as much as other times, but that is probably because I'm numbed by the cold water.  I'm still holding my breath, my feet hurt from the cheap plastic flippers, I can't swim with my arm.  I am not very concerned with drowning for the fifteen seconds that my arm is dislocated and I don't know why not.  To end the terrible suspense I will say that I did not drown.  I was able to relocate my shoulder with the help of my left arm.  Now I start the annoying process of rebuilding the muscle that was destroyed, but that won't stop me from enjoying this city, this country, this year.  I'm going to do what I feel like, and my body is going to have to deal with it, but first I'm going to burn those flippers.