Sitting on the porch stoop with my host mom and sisters, Kari and Lis, ages 11 and 3. El norte is blowing. I'm wearing my gringa sunnies, looking like a rock star as usual.
"Malvado lobo, Big Bad Wolf," says Lis and growls. I've been reading her The Three Little Pigs, Los Tres Cerditos.
"You're not a lobo, you still have milk-teeth", says Kari. She turns to me and says authoritatively, explaining the world to the ignorant gringa. "That's what we call baby teeth. After they fall out, we call the new ones 'permanent teeth', dientes permanentes."
She looks at my tooth-filled smile and at the gap-filled one of her mother's. Most adults here lose a few teeth before the age of 30 and most of the rest in the following years.
"I don't know why they call them that," she says. "It's not like they're really permanent."
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