dreaming in spanish

I had a dream in Spanish last night. What does that mean?? I was once told by someone that once you start to dream in Spanish you are really starting to know Spanish well. I sure hope that is true!


Things are going well here. I´m just on my lunch break and have a chance to write a quick update. Well wow, middle of March already! I have had a good couple of weeks. Work is going really well. I have been telling some kids that I am only here for 4 more months... maybe I´m thinking way too far ahead. But I honestly think time is just going to fly by! The kids I am working with are incredibly cute! I am really enjoying working with them each day! I have gotten in a habit of buying chocolate for this one boy Eduardo... he's probably my favorite kid at the Biblioteca. I have also gotten the kids to get their homework done with the incentive of receiving a piece of gum afterwards. Of course not everyday, but on a random occasion they love receiving a piece of gum. I feel like I have gone through endless amounts of ideas on how to get these kids to get their work done. The 6 kids that I have in the morning are angels! They listen so well and get their homework (without the incentive of gum). But the kids who come in the afternoons after having school in the morning are absolutely off the wall. These past few weeks there has been a bug going around and getting all the kids sick. So last week I actually had 2 kids fall asleep while doing their homework... although I do not blame them.. I would have loved to do the same.


It's the season of dengue here... so I have seem numerous trucks go past that spray the entire street with pesticide or something to get rid of the mosquitos. I have been very bad at applying bug stray on, so I won't be surprised if I will end with dengue one of these days. But overall my health has been pretty good. I am very surprised that I have not gotten sicker with my lack of washing fruits when I take them right off the trees. Maybe my stomach has become prone to all the bad things I have been eating. I am a bit worried about when we made our trip to Santiago and I drank the waterfall water because I was just so thirsty. Kind of dumb of me but people told me it was safe to drink. I might regret that in the long run!


So this past weekend in church Walter (my host dad) was trying to plan our fathers day (which was this last friday) service at our church. So we were all in church and suddenly Walter starts choosing people to do things for the service. And so Walter asked me to sing a song in English (yes.. another solo.. with no instruments).


So I have taken about 3 days to write this blog.. hoping that something more exciting would come up. And it did. So like I was saying last night we had a church service. At supper I asked my host family how long this service would be... and he said until 5:30 am. I literally started laughing thinking it would be absolutly impossible to have church from 9 pm until 5:30 am. But I was wrong. We showed up to church a bit before 9 pm and Walter had a list of acts that would take place that nice. So I sang my solo... it went pretty well! Other people sang songs, we did lots of praying, Walter preached 3 times... 1 hour each time! Gosh! We also had a drama. By midnight we had a break and drank coffee (but honestly they load in the sugar so it didn´t even taste like coffee) and had crackers. It was funny because Walter kept informing all of us 15 people who stayed the whole night that there were only 4 hours left. I was also definetly counting down the hours left. So by the end of the night we ended with a bible study on John. We were split into groups and each group had to count the amount of times it said a specific work. I could hardly read by this time at night because I was so tired! But we made it through and we were done at 5 30 am. To my surprise we then we served breakfast. But oh this is not the typical breakfast you would have in North America at 5 am. We were served soup that was made from the pigs head. Everything is put into the soup including the eye balls and ears. I only asked for a little and with each bite I had to say to myself `only 4 more bits`... it wasnt the fact that is tasted that bad, but just the thought of this head being boiled and having these pieces of the pig in your soup. To make a long story short, after we ate we went home and slept. But then my host parents wanted me and Cesia to help them with something at 9 am... so overall not much sleep that day!

Another update. Yesterday (Monday) I went with one of my co workers to do some home visits! We went to 2 houses and it was honestly such an eye opening experience. I was just struck by the poverty and how 5 people can live in a room and share the same bed. I told my parents (my bolivian parents) this last night and they just laughed because they know a person who lives in the same place with 36 people and share ONE bathroom. So we ask the parents a number of questions about their kid and their relationship with them. It is so interesting to hear how these parents disipline their children. Either it´s through yelling or hitting them. I just wish I could take that all away, but it is happening everywhere and it´s almost considered a normal way to disipline.

Anyways so I definetly took a lot out of those 2 home visits. I will continue to complete a home visit to every kid here in the Biblioteca, which is 100 kids. I have defintely found my passion in what I want to continue to pursue as I finish my studies back at home! I really enjoy the challenge that these home visits have on me and I thrive to build strong relationships with the kids. I´ll update more as I finish more home visits.

Well thats about all! Again I´ll update once I have more to write. And thanks to everyone who are sending emails etc. I really appreciate it! I am so blessed!

Much love,
Adrienne

searching for a cow..

Hola from Santa Cruz,
I have a few minutes to update on my past few weeks. Things are going well. Its a soaring 35 degrees today, the sun it out but thankfully there is a wind. I am actually in my lunch break right now. This morning went by smoothly with having 6 kids ages 5 and 6 finishing their homework. It gets a bit hectic some days! I am thankful when it goes by with no one punching each other in the face. Although that usually happens with the afternoon group. Pray for me!

This last week flew by! On the weekend me and Cesia went and bought the movie Julie and Julia and watched in on my laptop in our room! Saturday morning I did a bunch of errands and then in the afternoon the church needed cleaning so we walked over and the guys started cutting the grass with their michetties (spelling?) and me and Cesia trimmed the bushes and trees with scissors. haha it was pretty hilarious. Other than that my weekend was filled with going to Church 3 times and then Sunday afternoon me and Walter and Mary got in the car and drove around looking for a cow for us to get some milk. I had no idea where we were going to find this cow, but they seemed to know where it would be. Turns out, we never did find the cow. After asking around to 6 different people who all gave us different directions of where this cow would be, we gave up and went home! So.. no fresh milk for us!

There is a wedding this Thursday at our church that we are all going to. Mary is making dresses for all the girls who are apart of the wedding. I might see if she can make one more me too.

I cant believe that its already March! Wow! Time has flown by. My parents are planning on coming to visit at the end of May. I am getting very excited. Mary as already asked me what food we should serve and saying that we are going to have a grande fiesta! I am very excited to have visiters come to see where Ive been living and where I work etc.

Yesterday (Monday), I went about choosing courses for University of Waterloo when I return in Fall 2010. I did this by waking up at 4 30 am... having Walter scare me at the door with his flashlight and completing it on my laptop. What a whirlwind of emotions!! Already thinking about going back to school etc. Although it gets me a bit excited! I now have 5 more months to go. Although its not like Im counting down the days yet! Me and my cousin were reminising about meeting me at the airport in July etc... although that is getting a bit ahead of ourselves! But exciting!

Well I should be off! Just wanted to give a quick update!
Much love,
Adrienne