sonrisa!

Last night I was sitting in my new bedroom - not any bigger than my room in New York - and as I was doing my homework (is it wild that I have homework) I was listening to my replacement parents speak to each other in Spanish. They seem to have a nice relationship. The house is very tranquil but the city is not. I hear motorbikes and trucks all the time, and there is a dog on top of the roof of the house next door that barks in competition with the rooster a few houses down. A cat came to the back door to beg but my host mother, Blanca, said she freezes all her trash to keep the cats from coming back. It´s obviously a life very different from my own, but in basic ways maybe not - we all get up each day to do our things and eat three meals (although I think that´s because it´s in the contract between the families and the school) and enjoy other people´s company. The streets are so narrow, the drivers so reckless, and the sidewalks don´t allow enough space for even one person to pass. Each afternoon the clouds descend upon the surrounding mountains (which at the altitude we are already look more like hills) but this simple thing creates such vistas you´d think you were looking at a diorama.

I had the most fun day my first day here. During the orientation in the morning I realized what a good choice I made in coming here - the school´s social activism shines and I know I will learn a lot about the history of the country during my stay. After my morning lessons (I both know more than I realized and simultaneously know nothing at all about this language) I went to my host family´s house and played with the granddaughter, who was proud to show off the extent of her English ´I am Melanie¨ and when I asked her age she replied ¨six¨ while counting her fingers. While she couldn´t tell me how to say ¨hide and seek¨in spanish, we figured out how to play it anyway.

I´m overwhelmed by all the Spanish speaking. The students in their eagerness want to speak to each other in Spanish, but soon it wears off to the more comfortable position of (mostly, anyway) native language of English. I say I´m overwhelmed but I´m getting by decently and it´s not so difficult! Last night my host mother told me a long story about a terrible earthquake in Guatemala City a few decades ago (she knew Indiana was hit last week too! and she knew about the racecars! which is weird).

Later I will tell about my first excursion- the hot springs.......