ahhh the breeze

Beautiful girls in the Lempira Day parade! The one in the center is one of my students, Nicol.

The Drummers

Cheylin and Fabiana

The boys posing for my camera

Leah and I were very "fruity!" Got my dress at a thrift store here!

I didn't do anything to this photo, the water was really pink at sunset last night



Eddie and Amy

On our porch after dinner last night





Another example of the beautiful pink sunset!


As I clicked the "post" button a strong breeze blew through the porch. Finally some cool air!

I've been busy! Which means less computer time, I might miss some blogging days but I"ll try my best not to.

Yesterday was Lempira Day here in Honduras. It's a national holiday dedicated to Lempira, who was a warrior who fought against the Spanish for independence (I think...) What that meant to me was, my kids didn't come to class because there was a parade through the town. The girls all dressed up in traditional "indian" dresses and wore makeup and looked very beautiful. They had a small band (which finally explained why we've been hearing crashing drums from the school across the street for the last few days). It was very cute to see the parade and my students all dressed up. They had a party at their school afterwards where they did a beauty contest and ate and played music. I wasn't there but it sounded fun!

Leah and I took a last minute trip into Ceiba yesterday to do some food shopping. We were offered a ride from Susan, the woman who owns the big house were we went to church. She is incredibly hilarious and we are finding out that she is really fun to be around. She's one of those people who will say anything and never be embarrassed. She speaks no Spanish and will use charades to get what she wants. For example, she was trying to order "chicken breasts" and when the people couldn't understand her awful attempt at Spanish, she grabbed her chest and bawked like a chicken. This is hilarious to watch, believe me! She's one of those people who says "Grassy-ass" instead of "Gracias" because her Spanish is so bad. Needless to say the four of us girls who went to Cieba with her yesterday were cracking up the whole time!

Last night all of the volunteers went out to dinner by the beach to say bye to Eddie and Amy who are leaving to continue with their travels. They are so much fun and planned a game for us to play. We divided into teams and they had written out questions for us to answer like a trivia game. Some questions were about them, some about Honduras, and they also played songs and we had to guess the song. The hilarious part was we were all very competitive because they brought prizes for the winners which consisted of bags of stuff they weren't going to take with them. My team won second place which was a bag with a roll of toilet paper, a can of sardines, vinegar, one wine glass, plastic wrap, and a few other things. It was a good time, I'm very sad to see them go!!

Eddie was the lead teacher in my morning class (which makes Leah and I the teachers now) and he was also the assistant teacher in the afternoon class. So during both classes today we had going away parties for him. I had my kids make cards and a banner and decorate the room and then we all went to the beach to play. No one had bathing suits, but we all ended up in the ocean with our clothes on. Swimming in jean shorts is not especially comfortable, but I suppose they dry out! The afternoon class planned a real party for him with food and cocktails (for the adults obvs). The kids sang a song for him ( SO CUTE) and they also did a little modeling show (that must be a 'thing' here). Eddie and Amy got on the bus after that class and they were off! Two down and a few more to go...two more girls leave this weekend.

Leah and I are still doing two private lessons, one with Xavier, the 14 year old with great English and one twice a week with a 14 year old boy and 25 year old girl (both dont know much English). I'm really liking both of these lessons. Yesterday we asked Xavier about the Honduran national anthem and he explained that it's 7 verses long and then he sang part of it to us. I was so impressed that he sang it so beautifully and without being embarrassed. Very cute. We also had a nice lesson with the other two tonight, it's fun because I get to use some Spanish, and they are excited to practice English.

Tomorrow Monica is coming to El Porvenir to swim and hang out. She will stay overnight because in the morning we are leaving at 6;30 to hike a little bit of Pico Bonito (the highest mountain in Honduras) and swim in a waterfall! Should be awesome! We are planning to go out in La Ceiba on Saturday night to celebrate my birthday.

I'll add a few photos here, but some are still on my camera at home.

Miss you all!!

xxD

Leah's Here!

Leah made it to Honduras yesterday! I met her in La Ceiba at about 6:30 after spending the day with my friend Monica. Monica and I went shopping at a thrift store (I bought a cute sun dress) and got some coffee and caught up on the past few weeks! It was so nice to see her and we made a bunch of plans for this coming weekend.

I was very very excited to see Leah step off the bus! We talked for a minute and then grabbed a taxi to El Porvenir. She had a very smooth easy trip here, so to give her a nice (accurate) welcome, I picked a taxi that broke down on the way home. We sat on the side of the road next to the pineapples for about 20 minutes while he called his friend to help us. We debated the whole time whether or not we should try to grab another taxi, but it was dark and a bit scary so we chose not to. Luckily he got his car started up and (barely) got us home.

We had a full day of teaching and exploring and beaching today. We did two classes and two private lessons together and I showed her around the village and introduced her to the other volunteers. It didn't rain today! Imagine that! So it was a really nice day.

We haven't had dinner yet, so this will be a short post. And dinner should be interesting because Leah is allergic to eggs and milk, doesn't eat bananas and doesn't really like avocados (among other things).

I'll update soon!

I went to chruch today...

I bet I have your attention now!

I joined two of my room mates, Courtney and Stephanie, and my co-teacher Eddie, for an evangelical church service led by American missionaries this morning. The girls have been going and told me that it's quite an experience mainly because the people who host it are very interesting. They live in huge house, built and funded by their church back in the States. This house can sleep up to 40 people at time in multiple bedrooms, it has two floors and 3 separate wings, and two huge porches with a total of 11 hammocks. They also have a pet monkey and another pet called a kikajoo (or something weird like that) which is a relative of the monkey and is a little furry cuddly thing with a long tail.

We went at about 9:30 and had coffee and donuts and met the very eccentric Susan, who lives in the house with her husband. Susan is from Springfield Ohio and appears to be kind of a crazy hippie who is loud and outspoken. I've heard she usually speaks in tongues during the service, however I didn't witness this today. She showed us the animals and we wandered around the house and met a few of the people staying there. They are missionaries from Canada and came to help build a house in a near by town for a woman and her 7 children because her husband and oldest son recently died in a car crash. Susan and her husband have different groups stay in the house and help out with missionary projects.

The service was in a nice open room upstairs and there were about 30 people, including 5 or 6 kids who live in the village, one of them my student. (otherwise everyone was American/Canadian). We started out with music, they had a guitar and piano and screen with words to the songs. This was my favorite part, not only because I like music, but also because it was neat to see the Honduran kids dance and play tambourines, etc, along with the music, even though they didn't know what we were singing. I love that music affects and means something to everyone no matter what the culture, religion, or language.

Then the pastor began the sermon with a very heavy southern accent. He spoke very quickly, similarly to an auctioneer, and interrupted himself often with "amen"s and "praise the lord"s. I wasn't a fan of what he had to say, although it was definitely an interesting experience and not as intense or forceful as I had imagined. The part that bothered me though, was thinking about the kids who didn't understand what he was saying and imagining how they were perceiving it. The pastor yelled rather than spoke and most of what he said sounded very angry. I think I would be afraid if I were in the kids' shoes and could only hear his tone rather than the words.

Afterwords, Eddie invited us over for tea (he's Irish) and we sat outside with him and his girlfriend, Amy, for almost 4 hours talking. They are really interesting people. They were both lawyers in London and about 6 months ago, after a year and a half of planning, they quit their jobs and left to travel the world for a year. They leave this Thursday to continue their journey. Sounds awesome!

This afternoon we attempted to go for a swim, but it started thundering as soon as we got to the beach and it was pretty choppy so we decided just to sit by the water for a little bit until it started down pouring. When we got home we cleaned our house to prepare for Leah's arrival tomorrow!! She will get to La Ceiba at about 7pm and I'll meet her there :)

I don't think I'll use my computer tomorrow, so I'll write again on Tuesday. Miss you all!!

New supplies!

Fabiana

Juan had such a crush on this little girl!



Heydi writing her letter

Sheylin making a Honduran flag

So many new crayons and pencils!

Juan

Vilma with the paints

Thanks Claire, Emma and all the girls who helped :)

Clouds and mountains

There's a song about how clouds in the sky sometimes look like mountains. After living in New York City I started to see clouds that looked like buildings which was equally tricky :) From where I'm sitting now I can see the seemingly black Honduran mountains and they are currently capped with clouds. It almost looks like they have snow on top because the clouds are sitting so perfectly up there. So I guess clouds in the sky sometimes look like mountains even when there actually are mountains. Pretty pretty.

The daily thunderstorm just finished about an hour ago and it was a good one today. I was sitting on the porch, drawing and trying to listen to music, but the storm was so heavy that I listened to the rain instead. Love that cozy feeling of being right at the edge of the rain but not actually being in it. I remember when I was younger my dad talked about how cozy the rain made him feel, so much so that he would sleep in the sun-room on nights when there was a storm. I never understood because it was still scary to me, but I wanted to so badly. I specifically remember sitting by my window trying to feel what he felt. And then finally one day (not too long ago) I finally got it. Don't know what changed but I started to love rainstorms too and I felt that comfy cozy feeling that my dad always felt.

Back on topic...Honduras...

A few of the girls and I went to volunteer at an event at the air force base today. As I mentioned last time, we had no idea what we were getting in to. (Laur-ended that with 2 prepositions.. i'm forgetting English here) So we went to wait for our ride at 8am, and going along with typical Honduras time, we finally got on the bus at 8:45 and took the 10 minute ride to the airport. When we got there, with about 100 kids, we were informed that they 'weren't ready.' So we played outside for about an hour with the kids. Finally they invited us in and they told the 4 of us to sit in the front row in the chairs with a few other adults and they had the kids sit in the back on the floor. Then they spent about 20 minutes arranging the kids so the smaller ones were in front, I'm assuming this was so they could see. Not sure why it was important for them to see because for the next hour there was an airforce dude who gave a boring speech all in Spanish, with a few breaks to re-arrange the kids as more arrived. It really got to a point where it was hysterical. They made the 'ceremony' seem so important but the people leading it kept interrupting their speeches to text on their phones. Ugh. Eventually they called about 50 kids up to the front, in groups of 5, to receive a certificate. This took at least a half hour. During the final speaker the kids were loud and restless and out of control. OBVIOUSLY! You can not expect 100 kids to sit quietly on the floor for 2 hours and listen to boring speeches.

So we ended up sitting there doing nothing (except dying of boredom) the whole time. They explained to us after that today was just the ceremony for kids who had completed the program and to introduce the new kids to the program that will start next week. So it was a waste of my morning.

The ONE interesting part was when they sang the Honduran national anthem. It was surprisingly long and I was amazed that even the littlest kids knew every word. I kept thinking that they probably have no idea what they're singing about and what it means, only because I remember reciting the Pledge of Allegiance when I was little and having no idea what I was saying. Pretty sure I thought "whichitstands" was all one word.

To try to salvage what was left of the day, we went to the beach when we got back. It was a good swimming day because it was windy and there were actually some waves, which is rare. It was nice and sunny all afternoon until the sky suddenly turned black for the thunderstorm. It happens the same way every day which is pretty cool to see it go from bright blue to black. We all get pretty excited about it too because it cools things off.

Most of the volunteers came over to our porch last night to have a few drinks and hang out because it was one of the girls' last night. I think tonight will be low key, maybe we'll find a movie with English subtitles..exciting! :)

Thanks for the bug bite remedies, I'll have to look for baking soda. Mom-life is so much harder when I can't instantly 'Barb-it.' I'm missing having a phone/constant internet access!

Oh! I'll try to upload those photos!

Good good day

I had a great day today, just what I needed after feeling kinda blah yesterday.

Before I left for Honduras my cousin Emma and her Girl Scout troupe, led by my Aunt Claire, gathered school supplies, art supplies, flip flops, socks and underwear for me to bring here to give to the kids. I've been anxiously waiting to share them because I wanted to wait for a day when we would have time to talk about it and spend time reading the (adorable) letters that Emma and her friends' wrote to the kids. I also wanted to make sure the kids here were able to fully appreciate the very generous donation.

So today I finally shared everything with them! (except for the underwear and socks, which will probably go to another group of kids who are more in need than the ones I teach.) I explained the situation in Spanglish, before opening the bag full of stuff and they were very intrigued by the letters and photos of the girls. They read a few of the letters and translated what we could. When I opened the bag they were amazed and soo excited about all the supplies. They dug right in and I told them it was fine if they played with it today and we took time to write letters back to the girls on Monday.

To my surprise they all immediately took paper and pencils and started writing thank you letters. When they struggled to write in English, I told them it was okay to write in Spanish, but they insisted on English and I helped them translate. Then when I told them that the girls were hoping to practice some Spanish, they also wrote letters in Spanish. I couldn't have been happier to see them so interested in English and so thankful for the gifts! It's the first time since I've been here that they really wanted to practice English! It was the perfect mix of learning and playing that I've been wanting them to experience.

They wrote the letters and make pictures of the Honduran flag and the beach and hearts and flowers for about an hour and half and then when it was time to clean up they piled up their projects and told me I would need a big envelope to send them :) (unfortunately if there is an option to mail things here I have no idea how to do it and have heard that it can take over a month so I plan on bringing the letters back with me.)

After we were finished we played with water balloons outside and had a really good time. It was a very good morning with the kids!

In the afternoon I met with the 14 year old and we practiced his English with more conversation, this time mostly about church, since that's where he spends most of his time on the weekend. Again, I found it interesting and he seems like a pretty cool kid.

After that I took a trip into La Ceiba with Courtney and Stephanie, the 2 girls from Ohio who live in my house. We went to a really nice coffee shop (definitely the nicest place I've seen yet in Honduras) and sat a talked for almost three hours. We had a great conversation and I learned a lot about them that I didn't know. I think I was too quick to assume that I was too different from them to really get along with them and I was proven wrong today. We went the big grocery store afterwards and then picked up some mangoes and avocados from the vendors outside.

Tomorrow I"m doing some kind of volunteer thing at the airport base. I say it that way because I literally have no idea what I'm doing. The woman in charge of our program arranged for a few of us to do this event from 8-3 tomorrow and finally gave us 'details' tonight at 8:00 which consisted of what time we will be picked up and that we probably won't understand much because it's all in Spanish but we should go to scope it out because she wants us to start a new program there. She also let us know that she can't go because she has an early dentist appointment. This is typically how things go here..not much detail or thought put into things. Also, no regard for time or convenience. (Our cashier at the grocery store today stopped in the middle of ringing me up, with a long line behind me, to go to the bathroom. I couldn't believe it!) So anyway, this could be interesting.

No pictures today, I have some of the kids with their new supplies but they are on my camera at home. So tomorrow!

If anyone has good bug bite remedies please share. I'm dying over here. I woke up at about 3am convinced that I had malaria because of the huge bites on my feet. As of right now I'm not showing any signs, but if there's no blog entry for the next couple days you'll know what happened...

Day 19 (I counted)

She's out of focus in this shot, but it was the only one I got before she noticed me taking photos and started posing so it's my favorite.

This little boy isn't in our program but he always joins during snack time :)

I hesitated to take this photo bc these kids were in school and only peeking out because we were playing outside their classroom. But when I uploaded it I couldn't have been happier. It's my favorite shot by far.

This girl and her twin sister were playing with huge grasshoppers. Hard to see it in this photo but I liked the shot.

Sisters

Little smiley

This girl was full of personality. Also not in our program but came along to play.



I just mentioned in an email to Grandma, I'm running out of things to write. I think I'm basically in a routine now and there isn't much daily news. I'm still enjoying being here and it's a nice break from the real world, but I'm feeling a bit defeated by a combination of the school and people here.

The kids I'm working with are barely speaking English and it's because of they way they are being taught and the curriculum. I'm guessing it was not designed by someone who teaches children and it is not kept up, meaning no one checks in and guides the volunteers. The kids are not singing, they not speaking to each other in English, they are not moving around and playing games. They seem to really like the class (and it's voluntary so they are choosing to come) but it could be SO much more fun for them! And they could be learning so much more!

So I feel torn between attempting to take over and change a lot of things, which involves a lot of work and possibly offending someone, or just going along with they way it is now, and leaving here feeling not totally satisfied. When I type it out like that it seems obvious what I should do, but easier said than done.

That being said, I am slowly making connections with the kids and starting to really like them and look forward to seeing them. I always forget that it takes time! I have been teaching the morning and afternoon class with another volunteer, Eddie, and am having fun with the kids. The afternoon class also has a woman who comes with her daughter. They kids are all about 8-10 years old and then there's her, and she takes notes and participates just as they do. It's pretty cool.

I'm also a little bit disappointed with the other volunteers. Luckily I live in the smaller house with only 3 other girls and they all are nice and I get along with them. But there is a bigger house with a bunch of girls in it who are all very negative and gossipy and are causing a lot of drama. It's pretty easy for me to stay out of it, I have no interest in being involved, but this means I'm not making friends with these girls. Overall, I'm not here to make friends (and Leah will be here soon!) but it'd be nice to have more people to hang out with.

On a better note, I just met a boy today who is 14 years old and is Honduran but lived in the US for 8 years. He speaks English very well but he doesn't have anyone to practice with and wants to meet (possibly) every day to have a conversation. We met today and he is such a cool kid, very mature and easy to talk to. He described to me how his mom makes tortillas and I described how my dad makes bread :) Looking forward to talking more with him and I'm planning to ask him to work with me on Spanish a little!

I also am joining two other girls with an evening adult English class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which should be cool.

Just started raining here again, it rains every day! We love it though because it cools things off. I'm adding a few photos of the kiddies again!

xx

Fruit

We found lice on Astrid's head so we needed to wash her hair with lice stuff.

School work





Found her on the way home from school. She had flower petals on her eyelids and next to her eyes. She was so excited that I wanted a photo.





Today was pretty low key and I don't have much to say. The most exciting part was drinking some yummy coffee and reading emails from you guys. Love hearing back from you all!

I did play with the little ones today and took some photos so I'll add those here. Apparently all kids here are given coffee in the morning, so needless to say they are all pretty hyper.

My dear NYC room mate Tovah asked about the food here and the first and most important thing that comes to mind is the fruit! It is growing all over and whatever you can find you can pick and eat. The kids love showing us where the good stuff is.

There's a mango tree down the street from my house. It's hard to find ripe mangos, but if you pick them when they're green and wait about a week they turn juicy and orange on the inside. They are smaller than the mangos I'm used to from home but are delicious.

Although I live right in the middle of acres of pineapple fields, it is not pineapple season, and the rare pineapple we find is from another area in Hondruas, still yummy though.

Avocados (a veggie right?) are soo good here and cost about 30 cents each. I eat them regularity.

And then there are the fruits that I've never heard of. My favorite by far is the mimona which is similar to a lychee but smooth on the outside and a little sweeter on the inside. It has so much flavor and I just tried freezing them (like freezing grapes) and they are such a great little treat. I literally dream about them.

Another one is the nance. It's a little yellow berry with a pit in the middle. I tried them when I first arrived here and don't like them at all, it's a weird chalky gross taste.

There are a bunch of uvas (not sure of the spelling of most of these) that grow by the beach. This is their version of grapes, but they grow on trees rather than vines. They are not as sweet as grapes and have a pit in the middle but are pretty good.

Bananas are plentiful and cheap but brown quickly so they must be eaten the same day you buy them.

Okay, stop drooling. :)

An adventure in Trujillo

Trujillo

In the center


More horses

Church in Trujillo

Plantains

Dinner on the beach!

Hiking in the jungle

Our hotel

View from the top!

Thumbs up..

Slowly going back down

See the tiny little water tower on top? That's where we hiked to!

These are out of order..but this is another from the top. The high point of the trip :) If you click to enlarge you can see the tiny town wayyy down by the water!


For those of you who have read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, you might be slightly skeptical of the name of this little city just as I was, but it's actually a quite pleasant town if you can actually make it there. If the curse really exists, it must be on the public transportation to and from which is not highly recommended. Actually, not recommended at all.

The way there consisted of three hours on a hot rickety charter style bus. It was bearable until the last hour or so on a dirt and gravel road. Luckily I don't easily get car sickness, but the left side (window side) of my sweaty body was quickly covered in dust. Ew. More on that later.

Once we were there we walked through the town to find our hotel. Shannon and I both really liked the town, it's bigger than where we are living in El Porvenir, but smaller than La Ceiba. There were a lot of people outside and the streets were lined with clothing and food shops. Everyone seemed friendly (and helpful when we got lost) and it had an overall upbeat feeling. I kinda wished there was an English school in need of volunteers there!

We found our hotel, which was right in the center of town and it was very nice and very much worth the $7 each. We dropped off our stuff and explored a little, but only because we felt like we had to-all we really wanted to do was go swimming after being on that hot bus!

The beach in Trujillo was a little nicer than our beach here. The water and sand were clearer and there were actually locals swimming, unlike in Porvenir. It felt amazing to cool off! After swimming we went to the store to buy some lunch for the next day, then showered and went to dinner. We ate a restaurant right on the beach, our chairs and table were actually in the sand. It was right before sunset and so beautiful!

Our little room had a tv and I actually found a show in English. I haven't watched TV since i've been here so it felt kind of exciting :) We went to sleep early though and woke up at 5am yesterday for our hike.

The hike....I kept thinking I wish I could watch a video montage of my hike to the top. Like when you watch those shows that show clips of someone working really hard and struggling and then finally reaching the end result. It's so satisfying to see the end and how much was accomplished and you barely had to see the process and struggle they went through to get there. Ok, that related more to my situation when I thought it inside my head, but basically, it was difficult, and very hot, but the view at the top was worth it!!

It took us about 3 hours to get to the top, and we were walking swiftly and only stopped once for about 5 minutes. The way down took a little over 2 hours and was much easier, but I got quickly bored and wanted it to be over with when we still had about 45 minutes left. It was a pretty neat experience though, we were hiking through the jungle so we were surrounded by huge palm trees and different kinds of flowers and wildlife. The view at the top was of the beach which was cool to see from so far up. Once we got back down, we couldn't believe looking up at the mountain how high up we had been. We were pretty proud :)

After that we had to hurry back to the hotel to grab our stuff and then catch the last bus out of Trujillo which was at 1:00. Unlike the day before, we had to take what people call a "chicken bus" back to La Ceiba. We debated whether they are called that because of the fact that people are stuffed on like chickens, or because people actually carry their chickens on with them, and we learned that both were very true. Basically it's a old yellow school bus that a school in the States decided was unfit to use any longer so they shipped it to Honduras to use for long distance trips with too many people. (of one of them actually said "Franklin County Schools.") Now, I remember back to my bus riding days, always feeling like my legs were too long for those seats. Imagine how I felt on the 1:40 minute ride (until we switched buses) filled with people (in the seats and standing) and me and my almost 6 foot body stuffed on the inside with my huge backpack and barely any air. NOT FUN. Add in climbing a mountain just a few hours before. UGH.

Anyway, we finally switched buses, and the second one was better but we soon learned it was not a direct bus and made a bunch of stops. So we were on this bus for about 2 1/2 hours. Then we were back in Ceiba but still needed to get to Porvenir. We had JUST missed the bus to our house so we hopped on another that took us to the entrance to Porevnir off of the main road. From there it's about a 1.5 mile walk which we were willing to do to get this commute over with. Thank god one of the families drove by in their pickup truck and offered for us to hop in the back and they drove us in. (Riding on the backs of trucks is common here, in Porvenir they do this instead of use a school bus).

So we made it back! And minus the transportation, we agreed it was a pretty cool trip. I've never climbed a mountain like that so it was a good experience!

Today I had my morning class and afterwards I took the kids back to do some crafts on my porch. There's one little boy, Rigo, who is very shy and never talks or plays with the other kids. Right when we walked up to my house, our kitty ran out and he picked it up and started petting it. He held it almost the whole time we were over. He was reluctant to let it go when he left and I almost wish I could have offered for him to take it home, but that wouldn't make sense. It was very sweet though, I'm glad he made a connection :)

It's been raining almost all day here and there is supposed to be a tropical storm tonight..not sure what that entails.

Tomorrow I'm not going to my own class because I'm going to help with the littler kids for a day. I'm very excited for that!!

I'm going to attempt to add some photos. Talk to you soon!!

xx

So sorry for the delay, geez!

The only way I can write a blog entry is if a walk the 2 blocks to Charlie and Amalia's house where they have internet. The sun sets at about 5:30 here and walking alone in the dark is not recommended. Therefore, I might not get to blog every day. I apologize for the inconvenience!

That being said, I want to start off by attempting to explain how hot it is in El Porvenir.

Example 1: Laundry hung on the line will be dry in approximately 1 hour or less.

Example 2: Chewing gum must be kept in the refrigerator in order for it to not completely melt into minty mush.

Example 3: After washing hands and or bodies no towel is necessary. 10 second air drying will do.

Example 4: The heat melts nail polish making it tacky, therefore spending time on the beach will leave you with grainy textured toe nails.

It's actually impossible to imagine how impossibly hot it is.

On to other things...

I've been spending a lot of time with my room mate Shannon. She is 21 and from the suburbs in Chicago. She's a cross country runner and is studying to be a lawyer. I'm pretty sure we have zero things in common (she's also religious and conservative) but she's very sweet and we get along really well. She and I go swimming almost every day and hang out together at the house or run errands together. It's nice to have someone to talk to and hang out with! Tomorrow we are taking a little trip to Trujillo, a small town about 3 hours away. We are staying in a hostel there ($4 a night) and on Sunday morning we are doing a 3 hour hike up a mountain. The heat will be tortuous but hopefully the views will be worth it!

Last night all the volunteers had a potluck at Beach House which is the other volunteer house. I finally got to meet everyone and had tons of yummy food. I make guacamole with fresh avocados and put mango in it. We ate it with plantain chips..delish! Everyone seems pretty nice but spending time with all these random people just made me miss my friends, who are all so much more interesting and funny (I know I'm biased). But honestly, I know I got pretty lucky when it comes to friends and family aka YOU. Can't wait until Leah is here!! 10 more days!

My sunburn is all better, thanks for asking. Went away quickly and I'm ready for more! (sun, not burn.)

I taught a class on my own today because they other teacher's couldn't make it. I actually wasn't teaching per say because on Friday's they just play games, but taking care of 8, 8-12 year olds who don't speak English is enough of a challenge. Luckily they were into drawing and playing hangman and Twister, and luckily I know the Spanish for 'left foot" "right hand" etc.

It's 5:40 here and from about 5:00 until now is the best picture taking light. When the sun gets lower and shines on the hanging laundry and the colorful houses it's impossible for my heart to sit still in my chest. There's just nothing more beautiful than that evening light.

Time to make my curly head some dinner (Mom, I have ringlets every day here). I won't be able to write again until Sunday because of my weekend trip. Have a good weekend!!

xxD

The sun burns

Kitty!!

Random horse sample

Charlie and Amalia's house (where I'm sitting using internet now)

My backyard!

Fabiana on the beach
The kids put messages in bottles and threw them into the ocean. Eventually a fisherman helped us out by dropping them off a little deeper.

Laundry day

On the way to el campo to play!


Little guy watching us go by

On the way to play

Amigos
Laundry at sunset

Happy happy!


I have been so careful since I've been here, but as usual, I only lasted a week and a half before I got sunburned. We took the kids to the beach after class today and that's where it happened. It was an unexpected trip and I just wasn't prepared. I'm very unhappy with myself because being burnt in a location where it is deathly hot and there is no air conditioning and only cold showers is just plain uncomfortable. It's not too bad though, mostly my legs and forehead, so I'll deal with it.

Today is the first day is hasn't rained in about a week. Yesterday when we headed to the river to swim it started raining so we swam in the rain which was kinda cool. Seeing the raindrops on the water right at the water level was pretty, wish I could have taken a picture!

Last night I helped tutor a few people who are trying to complete their elementary/high school education. It's a government sponsored project and these people study from 6-8 every evening. When I first got there I found out I would be helping a 13 year old and a 60-ish year old with third grade multiplication (4x5, 7x1, etc) This sounds pretty simple, but keep in mind, I speak very little Spanish and they speak NO English. Another spin to the situation was that the point was not to teach them English, which is usually my situation. So I couldn't point to a number and say it in English, I had to do it all in Spanish. It was rocky at first, but ended up working out fine. It was actually quite touching to see this older woman working so hard on 3rd grade math. She struggled with writing the numbers and took a while to understand. When she finally got a problem correct without my help we were both pretty excited. The 13 year old understood the math a little more so (Dad,) I taught her the 9x's trick with her hands. Love that one and every human should have the right to learn 9x's that way. :)

Today I went to my morning class and then laid out on the beach with some of the girls. It was sunny all day today and after my morning incident I put on plenty of sunscreen. The water is really nice because it's calm so you can swim out pretty far. It's also a perfect temperature. Pretty delicious.

I went with my friend Shannon to help with the afternoon program she does twice a week with the littler kids. They are SO CUTE. Made me miss the little ones. These kids definitely live in worse conditions than the kids in my class. We picked each of them up at their home and one lived with his extended family which must have consisted of at least 15 children. They were all running around barefoot in their little underwear eating mangoes from their tree, very cute. Unfortunately, I'm sometimes hesitant to take photos near the children's homes because I don't want to offend their parents or make them think I'm mocking them somehow (not sure if that's the best way to explain my feeling). I do think however, that if I continue to go with Shannon to play with these kids I'll get some good photos while were playing.

The people in El Porvenir are very nice. When I'm walking around, most people, esp kids, usually greet me by saying "adios" or "bye." This is a little confusing to me because we never said "hi" so I'm not sure why were saying "bye" but I guess it's just another cultural difference! I'm still not accustomed to all the roaming animals. We often have a horse chillin outside our porch and you can't walk a block without seeing about 5 dogs and 2 cows. Not in a yard, just wandering in the grass or streets.

Okay, time to make some dinner and relax a little. Time goes so fast when I'm on the computer! Goodnight!

xx