Monday 11/3/08

What a day, what a day! Generally a day with new beginnings is a day full of crazy stories and today was one of those days (so a pre-apology for today’s novel). I woke up at 4:51 (random fact: I never set my alarm for a normal time, e.g. 4:45 or 4:50, always an odd number you wouldn’t think to set an alarm to). I ate a quick bowl of Corn Flakes, said goodbye to Mami and headed to the bus terminal via taxi. Immediately upon arriving at the station I realized that I had left one of my most important items at home. I left the three envelopes LASP had given me for my trip. One that included the money I needed to give my new host family, the second with money for any emergency purposes and a third that had my evaluation sheets I was to give the director of the school. I called Mami and Papi (feeling terrible knowing that I was walking them up) in a panic and Papi kindly raced to the station as fast as he could and brought me the envelopes. Luckily, due to Papi’s crazy driving, he made it in plenty of time before my bus’ 6:30 departure. Calling Mami and Papi in a panic made me really feel like a daughter and made me realize what a relationship we have build over these last few months. The bus drive was amazing yet at the same time felt like my death bed. The windy and insanely narrow road that is not adequate for a bus our size was full on the amazing sights (huge waterfalls, big beautiful green hills, cattle, cute small towns, etc), but also extremely dangerous. At one point we thought we were going to have to turn around due to a terrible mudslide. We had to wait forever for things to get cleared up, but luckily didn’t around and head back to San Jose as everyone in the bus was encouraging the bus drive to do. Due to the unexpected waiting I arrived in La Virgen later than expected but was soon greeted and led to the director’s office. I met the director, Maria Elena, who will be my advisor for my internship. She then introduced me to Maria, who will be my host mom for this part of my trip. Maria works at the school as the cook. Every kid in at the school gets a free lunch. Maria gave me some fruits to munch on as she served the kids lunch. I’ve decided I really don’t like papaya and it is a very hard fruit to “smile down”. I headed back to the director’s office and we discussed what I’d be doing for the next few weeks. I’m going to be working with Junior, one of the two English teachers. I’m going to be working with grades 1-3. He was at a conference for the day, so I won’t start working until tomorrow. I went to an assembly and was introduced and expected to give a short introduction in front of the whole school. After the assembly I headed back to the cafeteria with Maria and she served me a nice lunch of arroz con pollo and a salad and papaya juice (once again, difficult to “smile down”). At lunch I met Jose Manuel, the youngest of my three new brothers. I headed home with Maria at 1 (when she gets off) since my co-teacher wasn’t there for the day. Never in my life have I felt more comfortable in someone’s home. She showed me to my room and I spent the afternoon with my oldest brother Miguel (17), his cousin Elisa and her 3 month old daughter Luna. I got to hold Luna all afternoon and Maria and Miguel seriously made me feel at home within a matter of minutes. Even though it had only been a few hours I was beginning to feel like I was going to like the way of life here a little better than the way of life in San Jose. As Ticans would say it is much more “tranquilo” (literal translation: tranquil) I took a quick power nap since I was exhausted from the stresses of a day full of change and the unknown and started on my homework (yes, even though I’m here doing an internship, I still have homework, readings and three papers to write). After homework, I met my host father who everyone calls Licho and my middle brother Andres (14) and we had our first dinner together. Other than mystery chewy meat, the meal was great. I was especially happy with how well the boys have taken me in as part of the family. When I originally found out that I would be living with three teenage boys I was a little worried how the situation would work out (since it’s taken me months to develop a relationship with David, my brother in San Jose). Here in the campo (country) life is much different, especially how people open up. The entire family wouldn’t stop encouraging me to do whatever I want around the house and simply live as if this was my own house. Maria was so cute. She put all 3 forms of silverware by my plate because she wasn’t sure what silverware I used for specific foods. After dinner we spent the evening getting to know one another while watching the news. I can already tell these are truly going to be a great 3.5 weeks, as my family is so nice and live a life much different than what I’ve become accustomed to in San Jose. After a good few hours of conversation about anything and everything with all 5 members of my new family it was off to bed. If you’ve made it through this novel, I’m seriously impressed. I promise I’ll keep it shorter in the days to come.