I love mi familia

Ah!! There’s so much I have to do before training is over!!! Tomorrow we are going to start working with our youth group on a social service project for the community. I dont know how we will even fit in time to do this social service with them with all of the training sessions and field trips we have. But we will somehow find a way. Then I found out on Monday that I have to teach a 2 hour English class to 7th graders at the school next wednesday. I think it’s going to be hard because I don’t know the kids or anything about what levels they are on with the English language. I’m just supposed to go in a teach for one day. Then I have to prepare a 50 minute presentation about Youth Assets to present the week after that. And papers to fill out and Spanish to study and a host family to hang out with... And I LOVE my host family! So i definitely want to make sure I get time to hang out with them. I am already halfway through my training and well on my way to being sworn in. Nutz!

Speaking of my host family.... I am so incredibly lucky to have them. They definitely have a lot to do with how happy I have been since I got here. They are just cool. They keep it real. I just feel comfortable with them and we talk a lot. We laugh a lot too. And we don’t just chit chat about the mundane- like I hear a lot of volunteers talk with their families mostly about the weather and stuff like that. I have real conversations with my family. Well mostly just Ceci and my host grandma. They are the coolest. I feel close to them and they are really making my experience wonderful. Ceci goes out of her way to make me comfortable and happy and well fed. And my host grandma is so sweet. She randomly will get up and come across the room just to give me a kiss and tell me she loves me and “guapisima” or “simpatica.” And she smiles and laughs all the time despite the fact she is super old and in pain a lot of the time from what she call “colitis.” She just seems happy. Maybe because she has been free form the chains of her husband for about 20 years now. He is the father of her 8 children and lives down the hill from us. But the family doesnt really talk to him at all. He is a bolo, a drunk and when he was living with the family he was beating my host grandma and all of their children. So good for her that she got out of that. But it is a bit awkward when I am with Ceci and we walk by where he is sitting on the corner and she won’t even acknowledge him. She was really hurt by him.

In fact, many of the women here are single. It seems like the majority are living without a man around. Either divorced or their husband left to go to the states to work. Anyway...My grandma put an apron over my head last night that looked just like her’s. I just left in on the rest of the day. She liked that. It was kind of fun walking around looking like her. :)

Thursday I am leaving for my immersion days.... I’m going to the department of La Union in the north close to the border of Honduras. It’s pretty far away... I was told I’m going to the farthest away place for my immersion site. Of course I am. I was put in the farthest away community for training too. I was also shocked to find out that I’m going with another girl to visit the same guy in the same place. They told us this was us, on our own, independent. And as frightened as I was to be traveling solo on public transportation, I still wanted to do it on my own. Oh well... I have a travel buddy and she’s cool... so I’ll just enjoy the company... I will have plenty of time to travel solo in my next couple years.

Ok time to play UNO with the family!