Vida

i got to talk to my family quickly thursday and my brother asks "why do you have to work tomorrow?" no...thanksgiving is not a holiday here, but we sort-of celebrated with a large dinner at our house (i`m going to estimate 50 people came). with my reflections about thanksgiving i`d been planning a thankful post for awhile (i have a lot to be thanksful for) then when thanksgiving passed and i didn`t have a chance to do it, i was just going to let it slide, but yesterday as i was swinging in a park overlooking 3 soccar fields full of games, the mountains in the distance & the beautiful sky i realized i still wanted to do it. better late than never. I usually love Thanksgiving. I think it`s a great chance to thank people who are particularly amazing in my life so this year i thought i`d send a big shout out through here. i want to thank my family for their support in life. support as i finished college and entered into a new adventure. event if they didn`t/don`t really s

there was an indigenous conference at the parish saturday focused on saving water. i thought it sounded very interesting, but considering my lack-of spanish decided to run in the morning instead of attending the presentations and show up for lunch time with caro. once we got there we started asking around for how we could help and were stationed at the tortilla station. i think i`m still learning what a staple tortillas are in life here and this experience was further proof. apparently they chopped down the corn that they grew in the back of the parish for this occasion and when we got there the dough was ready to go. first i made balls from the dough. it wasn`t too difficult, but i had to pay special attention that they weren`t too big or small. then one of the ladies working the tortilla press (?) said she was going to teach me. at first i was very excited because i always like to learn something new. but that faded rather quickly to a bit of fear. so there were 3 steps to ma

a word that is used very loosely here. i tend to say friend for someone who is REALLY my friend....sort-of. but in comparison to here i use it very little. right now i am really missing my friends at home. after talking about it a lot at breakfast i needed a good laugh. and this laugh came in the form of trash. we heard the bell and desperately needed to take out our trash so caro and i ran out the door with our big trash can and a couple boxes. we stood where the trash truck always comes and waited. we started to get nervous we missed it and decided to head back to the house. then a man on the way home started talking and basically gave us hope again. i thought we should just walk and go find it (as if we don`t stand out enough here...let`s truck around with tons of garbage). i kind-of felt like i was walking in a desert without water and every largeish white truck i saw i thought was the trash truck, until i got close enough to see it wasn`t and then i suddenly saw in the d

(rabbit) the kids were learning about animals today in class and Lucy brought in her rabbit for a surprise. oh man did the kids LOVE it!!! it was so cute. i was writing off to the side, but then i looked up and saw the wonderfulness of the activity and decided i just wanted to watch and completely appreciate what was happening. then i wished i had my camera. then i decided no i wanted to completely enjoy it and i feel when you have a camera you have to step back to be an observer (just something i decided though my photo minor with some articles i read and with experience...) So I sat and enjoyed all the excitement of the kids. All the kids gathered around the cage to get a closer look (obviously leaving some kids in the back where they couldn´t see...13 kids can´t fit around a little carrying cage at once), but they were SO excited. Most the kids kept saying my name to make sure I knew there was a rabbit there...yes i knew. That wasn´t enough for Felipe "ven Lisa ven"

melissa & i started a new program today =) we started a conversation english class. after feeling a little frustrated with the lack of help we could give with jess & caro`s english classes (it`s pretty overwhelming with 4 teachers) and miss geo (the english teacher at work) saying her daughter wanted to practice speaking english we started talking and had our first class today. we were expecting one person to be honest...josue...melissa`s boyfriend (therefore he would be in trouble if he was not there), but 7 showed up and overall, especially for the first day, it went really well. melissa and i are brainstorming of ways to make it better, but right now we`re feeling good about it!!! pat on the back =)

oh what a wonderful 24 hours i´ve had that i want to share with you! after returning to work Tuesday and having a pretty normal day i returned home to find i had TWO pieces of mail. a halloween card from my aunt and uncle and a letter and beautiful magnet from kel. it was wonderful. THEN i went to the parish and received a package from my parents. which i was expecting my scarf (which i promptly used that evening) and hoping for a letter and they included all sorts of goodies for me. it honestly felt like CHRISTMAS! then in the evening i worked on learning a new dance. dancing is so important here and i definitely still need some work. then today at work i just had a wonderful time. yesterday i brought a book my mom bought (it´s in spanish). it works on numbers, which is what the kids are working on right now so i thought i should take it to them. i don´t know if they are just super excited for a new book (that´s all in one piece), but it is a very cute book and all the other b

***Disclaimer*** So obviously I am no expert at dia de los muertos considering i celebrated once, but i want to share what i observed and learned duing the holiday =) They definitely celebrate a combination of Halloween (thanks to america) and dia de los muertos here. For example, the kids (and adults) dress up in costumes-like in the US- but here they tend to wear them for 3 days: Halloween and the 2 days of dia de los muertos (one for kids, one for adults who died). And trick-or-treating isn´t big. I wish i could remember right now what the kids say, but it´s not trick-or-treat. So that´s the cliff notes version read on for my experiences. In honor of their combination of the two holidays i´m going to do my post in black and orange. even though here the colors are not black and orange, that´s what i´m going with. Day of the dead is actually Nov. 1, but my preparations b egan Thursday at work. I was still trying to grasp what day of the dead really is and what it means to people, b