Day 2

Alright, I'm going to attempt to fill you guys in about my second day, however I'm sitting in the dark because the boys are watching a movie and the movie is in English and very loud so I'm slightly distracted. Not to mention its very hot!

I had another great day today and although I sweat more in one day than I have in my whole life, I'm still loving it!

My first Spanish lesson was at 7:30. My teacher's name is Leslie, which of course I liked because of my Leslie! Her English is pretty good (she lived in Queens for a year) and she's a great teacher. She was impressed with how much I understood (I was too!) and she kept telling me "you know Spanish!" hmmm, not so sure about that, but positive reinforcement is always helpful. I'm not much of a studier, but I am SO determined to learn Spanish while I'm here that I studied for a combination of about 3 hours today (be proud mom and dad!). I'm looking forward to my lesson tomorrow!

This afternoon, Hector, one of the guys that works at the school, gave a couple other students and I a tour of La Ceiba. I feel much better now that I know the city a little bit and which places I can walk around safely. I was getting a little anxious this afternoon because I felt like I couldn't go anywhere.

Hector showed us Central Park (no relation to the one in NYC), the beach, and a smelly meat market, among other things. Surprisingly, the thing that made me the most nervous was crossing the street. I'm just not sure how to do it without stop lights, white lines, and a flashing red countdown telling me how many second I have to make it across. People just cross when they feel like it, and cars just stop when they feel like it. Should keep things interesting. On the way back we stopped at a smoothie place that uses all fresh fruit from La Ceiba and I had a banana, orange, papaya, and granola smoothie. Granola! Someone needs to start that up in the US!

There were two other people on the tour with us, Kevin, an American, who is here with his wife and two sons, and Monica, who is 22 and from the Netherlands, also volunteering here.

Kevin and his family are here doing missionary work and are basically here indefinitely as they sold their house and belongings back in Louisiana. They are studying at this school for 4 months and then moving to the jungle to help the people in a village there. They live off of donations from the church and people from their home town. His sons are 3 and 6 and will be home-schooled. There are no other children where they are living in the jungle. I'll keep my opinions about that to myself.

Monica seems really cool and we get along really well. I think she will come with me to visit El Porvenir (where I'll be starting next week) but she will stay in La Ceiba for two months.

On the way back from our tour it started pouring so I walked into my host family's house drenched. The little girl, Pamela, said "You shower!" and I said "OR, we can go play in the rain!" So she got a volleyball and we played in the street and jumped in the puddles. Then we took the ball to the field nearby and played there. Two random people asked if they could play with us (which was cute because Pamela didn't know them and they weren't hesitant to join in) and one of them happened to speak perfect English! He learned from watching American TV shows, figures.

After the rain adventure I went home feeling temporarily cool (temperature-wise) and happy to have a clean shirt (since I don't know how I'm supposed to do laundry here).

After dinner and a shower Pamela and I did our homework together. When her mom wasn't watching she would jump up and start braiding my hair, and then as soon as her mom walked by she'd hurry and sit down and pretend to be working hard on her homework. The nanny in me wanted to tell her to finish her homework first, but I figured I'd let her have a little fun (and I didn't know how to tell her in Spanish).

After this I'm going to sleep! The sun is exhausting! I did take a few photos today but they are still on my camera, so hopefully I'll post some manana!

xxD