Well, about the Guevara, Seth: I picked up the book because I used the movie (and consequently the book) in my Humanities410 paper. If you would like to blame it on anybody you can blame it on one of my professors, Dr. Plies, who recommended the movie to me. When I get back I plan on researching a lot about Guevara. He interests me only for how he could go from the innocence of "The Motorcycle Diaries" to the other things he did, which I am still not positively clear about.

On Tuesday I got a package delivery, which was very exciting. My parents sent the package to Ralph Crain in San Diego, and he was going to bring it down here. However, because of all the rain we have had (Tijuana getting even more), it had been hard for him to get out of TJ. But, the waiting taught me a lot of patience, and Tuesday I was a happy girl, getting peanut butter, sour patch kids, crossword puzzles, two new books I asked for, and another book my mom picked up for me. The extra book is called "When Our Hearts Were Young and Gay" and is by Cornelia Otis Skinner?). It is about her trip abroad with her good friend from her college, Bryn Mawr, in the early 20s. I just read the first couple chapters and I think it will be a lot of fun reading it. It is going to go right in the theme of other books lately: On the Road by Jack Kerouac, and having read The Motorcycle Diaries. Trips and adventures.

Monday started off normal and the kids came in the morning. About 10:30, though, it started raining very strongly and Abel and Rosa started taking the kids home. I decided to ride with Abel on his last trip up to Triki (not sure how to spell that). It is up by the hospital for those of you who know the town. I wanted to see what all this mud and exciment was. Well... it sure was a trip and I am glad I went. At times it was very scary, although I don´t know what was scarier, the huge lakes we drove through, or sliding around in a big old 15 passenger van, in the mud. We were literally sliding back and forth on their "streets". The last thing I wanted to do was get out and have to push or something. We got all those kids home safely. It rained the rest of the day, so no kids on Tuesday. It rained Tuesday night so no kids on Wednesday. There were also no kids today although it has been warm and sunny. Rosa said it just still too muddy. Tomorrow though, all the kids should be here except the kids from Candlelaria, which gets hit twice as hard as other places with all the mud.

The girls still come in for three or four hours to work on projects, so I have been working on the March bulletin board (which I am going to take a picture of) and doing other various things. Tuesday it was sunny and i laid out on a bench and thought to myself "I am actually in Mexico...". Sometimes it is still hard to believe that I am so many miles from home, all by myself. Welcome Home is very familiar to me, people have been wonderful to me, and so I feel very at home. So, on occasion I have to remind myself of where I am! I realize that might sound a little odd.

Tuesday afternoon I went to the globos with the girls. Most of the streets have huge lakes in them so it was hard to maneuver around them all. We didn´t do much besides just look around. Most of the time the girls just want to take a walk, and are up to going to a store or the globos.

I am just starting to get in line all of my interviews from my project on Mexican history and I am excited for those. There is so much information I am accumulating through my reading about the government and history of Mexico that sometimes I feel like I have too much information to try and condense.

I guess that is all for now. Thanks mom, for the idea. I put some bleach down there, and it has worked, though i think the smell might be coming back. I´ll try your idea next.

I realized after I left the internet cafe on Thursday that I didn´t finish talking about what i do with the kids all day, and that I often repeat things that I have said before... so I´m sorry about doing that. Mostly I just play with kids.

Wednesday, though, I started working on my project for my independent study with Dr. Foltz. I took a little while to figure out what their normal schedule is, and how the kids are in the development, etc. I am going to be taking a group of drawings from kids at the Early Learning Center (American kids) and then drawings from the kids here at Welcome Home. Then I will be analyzing, studying differences and similarities, etc. After the kids drew me pictures on Wednesday I got very excited about what they had given me. Although we told them to JUST draw a picture of their own self, Evelin ending up drawing a picture of her AND me. That little sweetheart. Earlier in the day she was just enamored with my post-it notes and wanted one for herself. She made me write something on it, so i wrote "Clase de Brigida" (Brigida´s class) on it, and Claudio read it aloud for her. However, she still wanted me to write my own name on it. So i did, and i stuck it on her nose.

Thursday I went with Brigida to pick up the kids at school. Brigida has to go to the principal´s office and hand over papers for the kids that will be going to school in August. She was in there quite a long time and left me to be in charge of the 9 kids from Welcome Home. We hung out on the teeter totters, and Evelin made me guard her humungous glob of homemade playdough. It became 20 minutes of me counting over and over the kids to make sure they were all there, and to see that I knew where they all were. In that twenty minutes Evelin got a frisbee stuck on the school´s roof (and it was someone else´s, too), Ulises got into the garden hose, the kids were running in and out of the principal´s office, I had to hold onto someone´s lunchbox. Finally I sat down and gave up chasing them around.

There were other kids at the teeter totters. Converse shoes are very very cool here, it seems that most of the teenagers wear them. I was wearing mine, and another little boy tried to ask me where I bought them. I couldn´t understand him, and I had to ask him to repeat himself about 3 times, which just made him roll his eyes at me. I finally told him I bought them in America. He then bragged that he had three pairs himself. A girl came up and asked me if I spoke English, and I told her yes, I did, and that I only spoke a little Spanish. She eyed me for a little while and then left.

Maybe it´s because I miss home, but it seems that I tend to associate people I see with people from back home. There is a girl I see every once and a while at the school who reminds me very much of what my sister in law, Rinda, looked like when she was younger. It´s quite an alarming similarity.. I wish I could take a picture of her. One of the girls at the center, Esmerelda, has the same face shape as my cousins McKenzie and Breanna. I hope when I take a picture of her and show her to my family I´m not the only one who thinks so.

We had lots more rain on Thursday, which meant that there were no kids again on Friday. It was warm and sunny yesterday and it still is today, so we should have kids tomorrow.

Dr. Foltz-- I have been thinking about your last question. The only thing I can think of right now is for culturalization of nature. Here there is only one paved highway that is the main street through town, and then only a few short offshoots that are paved. Everything else is dirt. There are many potholes and when it rains it only gets worse. Every once in a while a crew will come by to level off the dirt. I would think that making that leaving the roads as dirt, and then trying to level out what nature has down would be culturalization of nature. I will still have to think about the vice versa of that.

I have been really bored the last few days. Earlier this week I read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. It is my favorite book and I brought it along as a comfort, which it was. I then re-read The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara. Yesterday afternoon I started reading Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut and finished it before I went to sleep! Yikes.

I feel like I am running out of things to talk about. If any of you want to ask more questions, I am very open to those. Also, the shower in my bathroom has a VERY stinky drain and it is driving me nuts. Does anybody have a remedy for it? That would be greatly appreciated.

Tuesday night we had a Valentine´s Day party for the staff. I think it was everyone´s idea, but the girls I work with took it over and went all out with food and decorations, even though there were only 8 of us. I made Strawberry Shortcake, but I am used to using Bisquick and there is none of that. I used a recipe out of Ruth Ann´s old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. I don´t know if I did it wrong or if I just wasn´t used to it, but the shortcake was NOT good. Oh well. The strawberries and vanilla ice cream were wonderful. It is a lot easier now to be around town. Monday I was out with the girls shopping all over for things for the party. We went to the dulceria (candy store) and saw some kids we knew from church. We stopped in a clothing store and a baby store. It is much easier to walk around once you start knowing places. When you come here just for a week and only drive by in a car you can´t see in stores, don´t know what´s going on, you don´t know what exactly you are supposed to do in a different culture. Being with the girls makes me understand a whole lot more. I know that some of you may be wondering what exactly it is I am doing with the kids. I have understood that it is required for girls like me who stay at Welcome Home to work at least 4 hours a day with the kids to earn their room and board. I, however, have been working all day because otherwise I don´t know what I´d do with myself! The kids arrive at 7 or 7:30 and we go to breakfast at 7:30. I usually help the baby class (2-3 year olds) wash their hands and get their aprons on and eat with them in the dining room. They come back, brush their teeth and wash their hands. All the teachers groom the kids by doing their hair, brushing their teeth, washing, etc. Most of the kids step off the bus with very dirty clothes (which we really can´t do all that much about), dirty faces, and unkept hair. There is a family of three sisters, though, that always look wonderful... their mother can take care of them and really tries. The Kinder class really gets groomed well because they leave for school at 8:45. They have uniforms and different aprons for school. I think about the other parents at the school and how they get one, two, or three kids ready for school in the morning. You have to admire Brigida and her handling of feeding, clothing, and grooming 6-9 kids every morning. I have had to stay in with her kids while she has gone to devotionals and do their hair and get them ready.. it is a lot of work! In the morning I am usually with Geno´s baby class and Avy´s class. I sit around with the babies and learn what they do (numbers, vegetables, fruits, farm animals, etc.) and often I will help her make her materials. Today I traced a picture of a hen 6 times (they ALWAYS trace their pictures, they don´t make copies) and helped make little baby chicks coming out of eggs. In Avy´s class I do less.. she doesn´t need my help as much and the kids are more talkative and I don´t speak ALL that much Spanish. Geno´s class seems to be easier because I can entertain them by letting them chase me around the room. There is one little guy, Manuelito, who is only just about two and does NOT talk. He only says "Meh!" or "uhh!". He is so funny because he will try to chase me around (he loves it), but when I don´t let him catch me he yells and throws his little fists down in frustration.. but fun frustration. It´s quite funny. It´s hard not to have favorite kids. Claudio is one of the kinders, being 6 years old. I looked at his file and his mom is only 19. He is an only child, which is rare. He is very intelligent and when I do something like tickle his neck he always says "Aye, Meghan!". He is the kind of kid you just want to bring home with you. There are things they don´t have here that I miss. First and foremost I miss skim milk. Here they only have whole or 2%, and I am used to drinking a LOT of skim milk. I also miss cheddar cheese because there is not any cheddar cheese here. Most of the time, for dinner, i feel like a regular college student because I eat a lot of cereal. My ear infection is gone, my cold is pretty much gone, and everything is well here. Nice dream you had, Natalie. It reminds me to talk only in Spanish to you when I get home :)

Over the past few days I haven´t been doing much but reading and playing the guitar. Thursday night there was a HUGE storm with lots of wind and rain and so Friday there were no kids around. I spent a good deal of time Friday in Ruth Ann´s apartment watching her DVDs of a season of the show "24".

I was reading "The Brothers Karamozov", but I got about 250 pages into and just got bored. I will probably finish it later on, but I had about all I could take of those people. Instead, I read "Certain Women" by Madeleine L'Engle and "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck, both good books about life and love and loss. And you can see how much time I had on my hands because I finished both, while also reading "Many Mexicos" by Lesley Byrd Simpson (?), a good comprehensive book on the history of Mexico if anyone is interested.

Other than that, not much has happened. I ventured out with Damaris last night to church. There was some special service going on that we didn´t know about, with a lot of local youths. After service they had tamales for sale, so of course i had to have one. It was entirely too spicy for me, but I ate it anyway.

Okay, Dr. Foltz, here is your anthropology stuff. I knew that I would need it, so i found some papers from Anthro class and looked over it this morning. One quite obvious separation of Male and Female is the genderization (is that a word?) of words. "Carro" is male, "Cocina" is female. Nouns are all male and female and therefore command their own "la" or "el" to proceed it, etc.

I don´t know exactly when it is, but here in Mexico there is a Day of the Dead that they celebrate (or rather, observe). I think it is either Halloween, November 1st or November 2nd. On that day I know that families honor the dead people in their families by visiting gravesites and other various things. This would be a great example of the separation of living and dead.

Diachronization of Synchrony. I don´t know if I have this one right, but here it is quite normal and not rude to be late to something, to make spontaneous plans, to not be so rigid about schedules. People arrive to work on time, church usually starts on time, etc. However, with friends, family and casual occasions there is not much worry or many rules about having to be exactly on time. To me this shows that normally the culture here would tell them that it would be perfectly fine to be late, however things like work and the diachrony of special situations have moved that cultural norm to its own casual existence. I hope that makes sense.

Ah. and my favorite: the connection between food and love. It is quite obvious here. Preparing the time old traditions of things like tamales and albondigas soup takes quite a bit of time. This time spent in the kitchen, like I mentioned in my last post, is spent with family members or friends, and I have yet to see or hear a woman complain about her work. It has actually made me like cooking and food preparation a little more than I used to. Avy, one of the girls I work with ALWAYS has food with her during the day and she is constantly offering me some. No matter what, she always offers me some of her food, and to me that shows a little love. Food here is a special part of their life, their existence, their socialization.

That´s all I have for now. Maybe more next time.

So i think with last Saturday´s bus trip to San Quintin, and yesterday, I may have experienced all I need to in Mexico. Time to come home? (just kidding!)

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday I had a little cold, nothing too much. Wednesday morning, however, I woke up with a ringing in my right ear. I didn´t think too much about it until I went to meet with the girls before the kids arrived and their voices echoed in my right ear. I began to worry that my hearing was completely going (and subsequently was reminded of all my mom´s warnings about loud concerts). I told the girls, but kind of shrugged it off. I ate breakfast with the kids, but i was feeling really tired so I went to lay down for a few hours. When I woke up I felt a lot better. I saw Ruth Ann and she asked me how I was, and told her about my ear. She immediately said it was probably an ear infection and that i needed to go to the doctor.

So off I went with Rosa to the public clinic a few blocks away. Because of my misunderstanding of her Spanish when she said to me "Duele?" we got to go over the emergency room. There was no doctor in the clinic for a few more hours yet. "Duele" means "hurt", and no it didn´t hurt. I saw the doctor and all he did was look in my ears. I had to tell him I am allergic to penicillen and amocillin. I know for SURE that I am allergic to penicillen, and I think amoxocillen, and I thought I would just play it safe with the latter. I just got prescribed some ear drops, so I will be taking those. Ruth Ann told me to take a few days off for my own health, so I have been sitting around reading and being somewhat bored.

Mom and Dad were able to send a package under short notice to a friend, Ralph, who lives in Tijuana but gets mail in San Diego. He is headed down here this week. On the phone Sunday mom told me there were a few surprises in there for me, so I am anxiously awaiting his arrival. While I am sick in my room I look out the window at every car sound.

Something rather funny happened Sunday. I took my garbage out to the spot behind the kitchen where the garbage goes and the kitchen door shut behind me. When I tried the door, however, it was locked. I was standing in this courtyard, not quite sure what to do with my self, as the gate to the outside is padlocked and secure as well. I just stood there, with quite a problem on my hands... there was nobody around, or close enough in the place to hear me yell. So, I did a James Bond type of thing and climbed over a fence, shuffled between a small shed and the building and found myself in another courtyard with the guard dog, Vanessa. Vanessa isn´t much of a guard dog, however, because she only whimpered at me. From there I could just get out and walk around to the front gate, but it sure made me think about that back kitchen door and what I´ll do better next time.

Some of the times that I really love here are with the women in the kitchen. Often Rosa is in there with the cook (whoever it is that day) and Brigida and I might be in there as well (with our old friends, the strawberries, which keep appearing), and Norma the cleaning lady. And some other lady might drop by to chat or get strawberries, and their voices and talking is so fun. I can´t understand most of it, but it is just nice to hear them laughing and sharing together. I think i enjoy it so much because it reminds me of my family, with my two aunts, my mom, and my grandma in the kitchen. They are like that as well.. talking and laughing, and even sometimes singing. So maybe I just like it because it reminds me of home.

I am learning a lot more Spanish because of the girls. I have quickly learned some slang, or catchphrases. They said "Que Suave", I think when something is cool or neat. The girls joke around with me about my brain size, and the word for brain is "cerebro", so I will say "mi cerebro es grande". Also, when we are talking about something, or looking at something someone might say "muy interesante" in a sarcastic tone ("very interesting"). It is interesting to think about our language skils and what we are so used to hearing or saying because of the environment we are brought up in. I could say "what do you think you are doing?" really fast at home and people would understand. Here, however, if I said it to Geno and Brigida it has to be much slower, and vice versa, when they are speaking Spanish to me. Also, Avy is trying to learn English along with the kids when I teach them, so she says "How are you?" but so differently..

I haven´t got much else to say. Dr. Foltz: I will try to the anthro thing next time.. I think I´ll need to collect my thoughts on that one.

To everyone: If you know people who might be asking about me, or about me being in Mexico please feel free to give them the address to this journal. I tried to send out an all-campus e-mail twice, but I got it sent back both times with numerous names of people it didn´t get to.

It is raining here today, and it reminds me of home!

I thought of another phrase that I did not learn in Spanish class in high school, and it is a phrase I wishh I knew how to say:
"Yes, I actually did want that bar in my ear."
One of the first days the kids were really looking at it strangely. I have also been asked by a couple of different people about the silver streak in my hair. They have all asked if I colored it that way, and I have tried to tell them that no, it is genetic and natural. Hopefully I got my point across.

A couple weeks ago I walked into one of the classrooms after everyone was gone and thought I saw a cockroach. The next day I told Geno there was a cockroach in her room. A few days later I was in Avy´s room and I thought I saw another cockroach, so I was pointing him out and the kids were going after him. I kept saying "La Cucaracha" to the kids. This tells you how stupid I am, or how I don´t know anything about cockroaches, being from Oregon: It wasn´t a cockroach. It was a pinacate. Apparently pinacates walk around and cockroaches run. I had no idea. And I didn´t even find out until a few days later when Avy was telling Brigida and they were laughing at me!

I had a fairly busy weekend, which was nice. Saturday was a holiday here in Mexico, and the girls didn´t have to come into work, but Brigida did to wash the kids´uniforms and aprons, and to work on a bulletin board. Then she and I hopped on the public bus and went down to San Quintin, which is about 10 miles (??) south of Vicente Guerrero. I had never ridden the public bus before, so that was a little adventure. Our driver´s name was Juan and I liked him. He laughed with us when one of the kids almost didn´t make it off the bus in time with his family, and Juan would wave to the other bus drivers.

We went to the globos (market) in San Quintin, which is permanent for every weekend. We just walked around, got pizza, and bought a couple of things, then headed back. Our bus ride on the way back was much bouncier, it was a long bus instead of a short one like the first time.

Then Saturday night I went with the girls to church, except their church was visiting a church in Camalu that weekend. The Saturday night service is for youth, and we all boarded the church´s big school bus for Camalu. When we arrived at the church there were other youth groups there as well, and it reminded me home. Singing, youth games, and food. It was a fun night-- they all played these games that were hilarious to watch. I wanted to play but knew I couldn´t really understand, so I sat out. The most embarrassing thing was that everyone stood up to introduce his or her self, and so I had to stand up and say "Me llamo Meghan, La Hermosa" (the name of the church I came with). I was so nervous about doing it, i think i said it wrong.

On the weekends I have gone to the library to play the piano that is in there. It is terribly out of tune, but it gives me good practice-- in fact more than I got at home. I was in there yesterday afternoon and Damaris came in to say hi. Her mom came to get her and they invited me to lunch at a nice little cafe on the main road. At the cafe they had coffee table books, and one was of picturesque America (why? I don´t know), but i found a picture of the rocky Oregon coast to show them. They asked if I had been to the beach here at all, and I said no, so Rosa, being the person that she is, said "Vamanos!" and off we went to the beach. It was cold and windy yesterday, however, so we didn´t stick around very long. Between the town of Chula Vista and the beach was some beautiful scenery, so it was a nice drive.

These English lessons I´m teaching are incredibly hard, like I´ve told you all. The first day I tried to teach them colors and they were incredibly cute as they tried to pronounce "purple", which turned out more like "poi poi". I must sound like them when I try to speak Spanish. the one thing they DO know right now, is that "hi" is a greeting, and they do say "hi, Meghan!" to me. Now I´m trying to get them to say it to each other.

I have a set of "Things in My House" flashcards and I go over the most recognizeable things with them and usually have them end up coloring pictures of houses or schools that I have hand drawn for each of them. So we are going over House, School, Window, Door again and again. After hearing kids say these words and try to pronounce them over and over I have begun to realize how funny some of our English words sound. I do prep work for these classes, as my education professor would like to know. However, Dr. Tanner, my classroom management skills don´t really work without knowing the language. I rely fully on Avy for that.

My drawing skills are a lot better than I thought they were. I do a lot of drawing for the girls for their classes. Along with the little pequeños I have been learning colors, fruits, vegetables and the Spanish alphabet. Right now I know that I draw a pretty mean carrot. Which is zanahoria in Spanish. I also drew a tomate, papa and chaluga (?? I think that is wrong) for Avy. I also know the fruits.. piña, fresa, coco, manzana, platano, etc. I also know limon, which i pronounced entirely wrong the first time... emphasizing the last syllable instead of the first, which made it sound more French than Spanish. Ah. I learn. I have made a calendar, helped Avy with a Valentine´s Day display, etc. I am learning that I am pretty good at this stuff and I may have a pretty awesome looking classroom in the future.

There are things they don´t teach you in Spanish class in high school, and that dictionaries and phrase books can´t help you with, really. These phrases include:
´Honey, your hair is too big to fit into this ponytail holder´
´Hey! JoseManuel! Do not take Yoseline´s crayons! That is not very nice.´
´Don´t take the buttons off the phone!!´
"Ulisses!! stop turning the TV on and off and put on your school uniform"
"No, Elizabeth, you already have enough gel in your hair."
I have wanted to say these phrases. One day I was left with all the babies and all the 4 year olds (!!!) and wanted to tell them "Pick up the toys, please, and please be nice to the babies!", but alas, I have not mastered that yet.

Before I left a few people mentioned this trip as a mission sort of thing, or they have mentioned me putting my faith into action or something of the sort. But I´ll be honest and tell you all that that´s not what it feels like. Mostly it is me playing with kids all day, and hanging out with girls my age. I´m getting so much out of this: good food, learning Spanish, a cultural experience, making new friends, etc. And i can´t say I´m giving all that much. I just know that I am really, really loving my time here.

Hey! good questions everyone. Sometimes I feel like I don´t know what to talk about, so questions are very good!

Well... when it rains and the kids have to stay home, the parents most likely do go to work, but the kids probably run around like the rest of the camp kids. Most families whose parents work in the fields live in camp-like settings on a few acres of land and each family portions out a small area. I don´t really know who or how they pay for that area. Most homes are built out of cardboard/plastic/plywood and have dirt floors. They are also usually just one room. I´m sure that they just cook outside, but I could be wrong.

Because these camps are set up as such there are usually extended families and some older women who can´t work, who stay around the camp. If the parents are off at work and the kids stay home they will probably just play around by themselves. Many times older kids (say 7, 8 and 9 year olds) take care of babies. I don´t know everything about it, and I´m sure all families and situations are different. The banos are outside, like outhouses, so consequently it smells a little like that. Also food and everything. These kids are very dirty, however, and their playground is whatever they can find. As a result, I´ve seen that characteristic come out while they are at the daycare. Little Rosa went exploring in a shed through some old roofing shingles and other tools. To her it was just another exploration, but for someone like me, I´m standing there saying "no, no. basura! yech!" Great Spanish, huh?

This morning I walked into the center´s kitchen to find a lot of strawberries. Now, last week, on Wednesday, we had a lot of strawberries. But today... oh no, today we had a LOT. A lot as in 30+ full flats, I´m not even kidding. Someone had donated them yesterday. Needless to say I spent most of the morning unstemming, cutting, washing and storing tons of strawberries. I was in the kitchen from 10:15 until 3:30 today working with strawberries. Some people would come in and get a bag or two of strawberries, we sent a bag each home with the kids, and I put three ziploc storage bags full in my freezer for that strawberry shortcake (I told you those ziploc bags would be handy for something, mom!). I wondered where I would get strawberries from for that shortcake (i don´t think you can really buy them in the stores), but now I don´t have to worry.

I had my first day of boredom on Saturday. I woke up and cleaned my little apt, then went to see what I could for the girls, who were in their classrooms doing stuff. I was with them for about two hours, and then they left. I had the time from 12:30 until 6:00 (when I went to church) by myself and I all of the sudden just got very bored. I had stuff to do, but after a while you don´t want to do the same things you´ve been doing for the last two weeks. Sunday was a little bit the same, although I did come to the internet cafe (and couldn´t get the internet to work), and hung out with Ruth Ann. Boredom makes you creative, though, and so I have a little project I´m working on for some people back home.

Last Thursday when I came to the internet cafe it was my first time out alone, so I was a little scared, but everything went fine. I even ran into Maribel, from church, and said hi to her. It was almost like I am getting a little established. I am also here alone today. Saturday night church is a youth service, and I go with the girls. Kids were asking my name this time, etc. I even gave ten pesos to be entered into some kind of drawing. With my understanding though, I´m not even quite sure what I win, if I do. Aye.

The hardest part about learning Spanish is the past and future tense. I have a lot of verbs and nouns down, but saying that I went somewhere yesterday is hard. If I wanted to say that I went to the store yesterday, I usually end up saying something like "ayer, yo voy a la tienda", which literally translated says "yesterday, I go to the store". I have a whole new appreciation for people who are learning languages, especially english. Yesterday after work I was walking with the girls ("the girls" being Brigida, Geno and Avy), and someone said something. I immediately responded with "¿Con que?" ("with what?"). The girls broke into applause over my brilliance of knowing what to say. Earlier Brigida had said that my intelligence was large, but I thought she had meant that my brain was big. So after saying "¿Con que?" we all agreed that my brain was large.

I have noticed that I have begun to talk a little differently. I have gotten so used to speaking slowly, haltingly, and with a question mark that I have begun to do it even while speaking perfect English to Ruth Ann. So watch out when I get back.. I may be a horrible English speaker.

I can´t remember if I have said this already, but I am supposed to be teaching an English class some afternoons to the four year olds. Not only do the four year olds make fun of me and my Spanish, but I don´t have many phrases to tell them to stop being bad (as they often are). "No Mas!" (no more!) and "alto!" (stop!) are about it. The cutest things is that I was trying to teach them colors first and I said purple, and they repeated "puh-puh!". The hardest thing about teaching them is that they don´t know many objects and things in Spanish, so it´s hard to teach them the basics in English. They are still learning to identify colors and numbers in Spanish, and still don´t know their alphabet. So I´ve decided to just move on to familiar things like what is in a house, and how to introduce themselves.

I´ve written a lot today! Man.