July 12, 2013

I got up this morning at 6:45 and got ready. It was cold and rainy. I wore a long skirt which was slightly warmer than a short one. We had pancakes with strawberries and bananas for breakfast. When we go to Hermano Pedro, I do not wear my jacket because HP is kind of dirty between doing the dishes, feeding people, and getting coughed and sneezed on. We helped fold laundry when we got there and then did our usual dish duty when we got kicked out of the bedroom so they could change people. When that was finished there was not much to do so we took pictures with some of the ladies. It quickly became a popular thing to do. We gave the nail polish to Matilde and Gladis and told them to share with the other ladies and ask volunteers to paint their nails. Gladis was not feeling well which was sad for our last day. Christiana had bought marshmallows to roast at the volcano but since she decided that she did not want to go, we asked Juliana if the ladies can eat marshmallows. We said yes so we left to walk home and get the marshmallows and use the bathroom. On the way back, we stopped and got ice cream at Pollo Campero. We switched flavored and today I got strawberry and Christiana got caramel. We found a dry bench in Central Park (it had stopped raining during breakfast) and ate our ice cream. Then we returned to HP and helped wipe the mattresses with cleaner and put new sheets on them. Then we helped in the escuelita. Christiana talked with Oscar the whole time. I got spit on by my friend that I play a bead game with. We brought them back and helped with lunch. I got angry because I was feeding a woman with no teeth and a worker came up and started adding food off the tray into her soup. Rosalie had told me that she did not want tortilla in her soup so I did not put any in. The worker however tried to force her to eat the meat patty from the tray and laughed when the woman clamped her mouth shut. She has trouble swallowing soup let alone a meat patty! The worker threatened to put a tube in her nose if she did not eat. She then added all the rice off the tray, two tortillas ripped into pieces, and the meat patties to her soup. It became very thick mush which she had trouble eating. The worker then walked away. I felt really sorry for Rosalia. We gave the ladies marshmallows and said goodbye. I returned our lanyards and got two of the HP magazines for us to take home. We walked quickly back home.

For lunch we ate a soup with vegetables and beef with a side of rice. We had crepes for dessert. They had meringue and pears inside and a fruit that is similar to tiny grapes and looks like blackberries. Elvira said it grows in Guatemala, but it is hard to find and very expensive. After lunch we got ready and headed out. We went to the Popsicle store and we each bought two, one for us and one for our teacher as a thank you/goodbye treat. I bought coconut and avocado. My teacher chose avocado, so I ate the coconut. School was kind of frustrating. I felt like my teacher had kind of checked out and did not want to be teaching on Friday afternoon. We talked about nothing for an hour even though I kept obviously touching my homework. When we finally started working, she had me translate a paragraph from a book into Spanish. When I read my translation aloud to her, she checked it in the back of the book and laughed at me when I phrased things differently from the book. I got frustrated because there was too much for me to correct. She laughed at me and said that I did not use the correct words. I said that I did not think she would use the exact words from the book if she translated it. She took a 10-15 minute bathroom break, leaving me with nothing to do. It was freezing in the garden, even though I was wearing jeans, socks, tennis shoes, and the heaviest jacket I brought. It started raining and we moved to a different table under the roof. A the school they have an after-school program for poor children. It is cool that they do that. There are about ten children who come every day after school. They are there when we arrive at 2 and stay until 5ish. After school, I checked my email and we walked to the bakery where Christiana went yesterday. Christiana bought a blackberry little pie and two tiny sugar cookies. I got a large cinnamon roll with icing. We took them back to the house and had a little snack as it was still an hour before dinner and we were hungry. We lay on our beds and talked until dinner.

At dinner, it was just us, Dan, Elvira, and Enrique. I enjoyed having a smaller group. We had a good conversation about lots of different things. We ate boiled plantains, hot tea made from the water that the plantains were boiled in, refried black beans, and eggplant and bread, of course. We came back to our room and talked. I ate the rest of my cinnamon roll and wrote my blog post for the day. We got ready for bed and I read for a while.