Monday, July 19, 2010

I got up at 7, got ready, and ate breakfast at 7:30. I had bread and tostadas. I told Sandy that the bread (which looks like a large roll) didn’t have a surprise inside. I had been expecting beans or jam, but there wasn’t anything other than bread. Sandy said that that was the surprise. That made me laugh. I walked to school by myself. I love how friendly most people are here. I must have received ten greetings of “Buenos dias” as I walked ten minutes to school, and I even received one greeting of “Buenos dias, God bless you, and may it go well with you” from an adorable old lady selling fruit juice on the street.

I was expecting Teresa to be my teacher, but Oscar said that Any, whom I had requested since she was Erica’s favorite teacher, was available this week, and so I would be working with her. I thanked him. I met a new girl from Sweden named Filippa. She is living with Edward’s former host family. Any arrived, and we went back to the classroom where Leonel and I had worked. She asked me some questions and then asked me to tell her about myself. She was impressed by how much Spanish I knew. She laughed and said that she had brought her book of picture vocabulary words because she didn’t know what level her new student would be. She asked what I had been working on with Leonel, and I showed her some of what I had done. We went over my leftover homework from last week. I read aloud from a book of Mayan stories. During the break, Any went to buy bread. They have tea now in the school, so I made a hot cup of tea, and it was so good! I have missed tea here, and it is cold enough that tea is really pleasing. After the break, Any and I played Basta, which is a word game where you take turns choosing a letter and then you have to write a verb, an opposite, an animal, a vegetable, a color, and an adjective that begin with that letter. Whoever finished all the categories first says, “Basta,” and the other person has to stop writing. You get ten points for each correct word and five points if you both write the same word. It was hard to think of vegetables and colors, especially. Any had 500-some points and I had 400-some points, which was better than I might have expected. I read some children’s stories aloud from little magazines. They were little leaflets and on the back there were questions and vocabulary words. It was fun to do. I started another Mayan story, but we ran out of time, so she assigned it to me for homework, as well as listing all the commands in the story.

Hussein and I walked home for lunch. We had vegetable soup with big vegetables in it. I had two whole potatoes, half an ear of corn on the cob, a big carrot, and a big piece of oyote in mine. We also had white tortillas. We had lime juice and chili to add to the soup. We also had spaghetti.

I went to the guarderia at two. All the children were sleeping except Rosy Bella who was crying in a crib and Yadira and Arlen who were playing with water in the sink. I picked up Rosy and held her, but she just screamed louder. She really dislikes me. I put her back in the crib, but she cried harder. I held out my hands and she reached out to me wanting to be picked up. I held her but kept her face facing away from mine so she didn’t have to look at my scary white face, blue eyes, and blonde hair. She was really tired. I stood in the kitchen rocking her in my arms, wishing for a rocking chair. After about a half hour, she fell asleep, so I sat down in a little chair in the kitchen. I could have tried to put her down, but there wasn’t really anything else for me to do, so I kept holding her. I told Elisa about my money being robbed. She apologized and said that it must have been one of the older children. I am not sure how likely that is, but I accepted what she said and moved on. There was a church group at the guarderia today putting in a new light upstairs, so they had turned the electricity off. Elisa told me she was going to make manjar. She asked me if I knew what that was. I said that I had had manjar before but I didn’t know if it was the same. She asked what the manjar I had eaten was like. I said it was like dulce de leche, and she said it is the same. She sent Juanita to buy raisins and some sort of anise-flavored alcohol to put in it. I watched her make it. I was really curious because I love dulce de leche! She used some sort of corn cereal, water, an egg, orange extract (because she didn’t have vanilla), some orange peel, some butter, a cinnamon stick, and she would have put the anise flavoring in, but it was too expensive, so Juanita didn’t get it. I watched Elisa cook it. I was more and more sure that this was not the same as what I had had in the past. Finally, Elisa tasted it and said it was almost done. She asked if I wanted to try it, and I said sure. She then wanted me to hold my hand out. She had a spoonful of manjar on the spoon that was cooling, but before she put a sample on my hand, she ducked the spoon under again to put more on. She then poured the nearly-boiling liquid onto my outstretched palm. I tried to lick it off as fast as I could because it was burning my hand. It definitely didn’t taste anything like dulce de leche, and I had a red mark on my palm from the hot manjar. The rest of the children slept until about 4. Elisa changed them and then they sat at the table waiting for their snack. They were all really quiet and sleepy. The children got a piece of bread and some fruit-flavored water that Juanita had made. I got a bowl of manjar with some raisins sprinkled on top. All the children were staring at the adults eating the manjar with spoons. I assumed that the children would get some manjar when they finished their bread, but the only child who got some was Yadira, Elisa’s daughter. I felt bad for them, and I didn’t understand why Elisa had taken the time to make the manjar and used the daycare’s money to buy the ingredients if the kids weren’t even going to get to eat it! Maybe they will get some tomorrow? After snack, we went into the big room and the kids ran around. I played tag with some of them. The walls were the base. It was fun. The kids started leaving at 4:50 and were gone by 5:05 except for Arlen. I was waiting for her parent to come, so I could leave because the gate was locked. Elisa and Juanita were cleaning out the refri. Finally at 5:15, I told them I was leaving, and Elisa gave her keys to Yadira for her to unlock the gate for me. Yadira is four.

I left and went to the internet café for a half hour. I went back home and did my homework. For dinner, we had spaghetti, bread, and black beans. Erica has seemed kind of sad lately, especially at dinner tonight. I washed my dishes (I do this after every meal, I just don’t always write it) headed to my room to write my blog entry. However, as I left the house, Erica called to me from the carport that she was out there, so I wouldn’t be scared. I asked her if everything was okay, and we started talking. We talked for more than three hours! This is more than I have talked to her the entire time I’ve been here! We stood for a while, then we walked to the tienda near the guard house for Erica to buy some more chips, then we sat in the carport. I was getting really cold, so I suggested that we could go in my room. Erica suggested the couch, but when we went inside, the family was watching a movie, so we went to Erica’s room and sat on her bed and continued the conversation. It was a really great conversation about God and life. Erica is not sure what she believes about God. It was cool to hear her story and share some of mine.

I went to my room about 11pm and got ready. Bed around 11:30.