Old people are basically tourists. They're here, you see, but they're not from here.
The language here is the same as where they're from, but it's spoken differently and can be hard to understand. Things cost more here, which is hard for them to get used to, too. Customs are different, and the way people dress, and the things on TV, for the most part. Although sometimes they will catch a program that reminds them of home, like when we flip the channels in a hotel room in Lima and find Lost.
They speak to us sometimes like Ugly Americans in a third-world country--loudly, over-distinctly, slightly contemptuously, trying their best to make us understand. And sometimes, being old, they get confused and start thinking we're the ones from somewhere else and that we're taking over the place, like summer people during the season.
But they're the transients. They never go back to where they're from, however much they miss it, but neither are they stopping here for good.
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