I have several blog posts written about our weekend, but they are typed on my iPad and I can´t get them to sync with the computer. I am going to try again tomorrow when we are at school and have wifi. The short story is that we had a good trip!
Today we got up at 6:40. I slept better because I wore earplugs so the birds wouldn´t wake me at 5. We had omelettes and papaya for breakfast. Afterward, we walked quickly to Obras Sociales Hermano Pedro where we are going to volunteer. We went to the volunteer office and got our badges with our pictures on them, and then we were escorted to the ward for the older women. We chatted with the women and helped dry the dishes and put them away. There was another English speaking volunteer there and we talked a lot with her. She moved here from the US and doesn´t speak much Spanish. Her name is Diane. We sat around a lot and talked to the women who live in the ward. I have two favorite friends so far. One of the women, named Florencia, reminds me a lot of Fung Tai from Hong Kong. She doesn´t talk but she makes noises sometimes. She has a baby doll that carries around like a real baby and wants people to hold it. My other friend is Gladis. She is only there because of her physical limitations. I feel sorry for her because she doesn´t have many people to talk with. She told me all about her life (she was an orphan) and about the other women in the unit (She´s crazy, she talks to herself all day, etc.). She likes to feed the birds pieces of bread that she saves from her meals. We helped take some of the women to the ¨school¨ that they have there. The people in the school do crafts and other activities to help them with their fine motor skills. Not all of the women go. Then I helped bring them back to their ward and folded laundry while we waited for lunch to arrive. I spoonfed a woman named Clara a bowl of soup. She didn´t really want to eat it and she kept spitting it out. Eventually, Juliana, the woman in charge of the unit, came over and took the bowl from me. She proceeded to quickly spoon the soup into her mouth and choked poor Clara three times so badly that Clara´s face turned red. When they had finished eating, we helped wash the dishes and then realized that it was one already. We said we had to go, and we walked quickly all the way home. My watch had broken this morning so we didn´t know what time it was. We had to speed walk home and we were still 20 minutes late for lunch, which they hadn´t served yet (I hope it was not because of us!). We had little meat patties with gravy, lettuce salad with radishes and tomatoes and lime juice, white rice, and apples with cinnamon. Christiana went to lie down for a few minutes before class. We left for class at 1:50.
Spanish School went fairly well. I spent some time chatting with my teacher whose name is Cesy (SAY see). Then I read some pretty easy stories about the sun. Then we had a half hour break. I was freezing and had not brought a jacket so I decided to walk home and get one. Christiana came with me. It is nice to go to school so close to the house. For the second part of the afternoon, I studied phrases using the verbs dar and haber. It was a good thing to study. I would like to get the book that she is using, but I don´t know if it is still in print. After class, Christiana and I walked to the internet cafe near our house and checked our email and I tried to upload the blog posts I had written on my iPad. No luck, but I will try again tomorrow.
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