July 9, 2013

I got up at 6:40, although I had already been awake for a while. The earplugs are helping a lot with the birds in the morning. We had oatmeal with bananas for breakfast and lemongrass tea. We got ready and headed to Hermano Pedro. When we got there, they were cleaning up from breakfast. We helped clear the dishes and then we dried them with Gladis after Ana the nurse washed them. When the breakfast commotion had wound down, we asked if we could paint the ladies' nails and if they had nail polish or nail polish remover there. The answers were yes, no, and no., so we asked if we could leave to go get the supplies. We went to the supermarket because that is where Elvira had told us we could find nail polish. We did find it and bought two colors and nail polish remover. We decided to quickly look at the outdoor market for a new watch because my trusty orange and black watch that I bought in Hong Kong 7 years ago is not doing so well. The band ripped in two places on this trip and it sometimes does not keep the correct time. We have been carrying around my alarm clock so we can know what time it is. However, the only watches we could find in the market were children's watches with pictures from Card or with the Disney princesses. As Christiana pointed out, wearing one of those watches would be more embarrassing than having to discreetly check the time on our alarm clock! We decided to keep looking later. We did see nail polish for much cheaper than we had bought it for in the supermarket. We bought one more because it was a prettier color and super cheap.

We returned to HP and helped dry the pitchers. Then we asked Ana to give us some cotton to remove their old nail polish (which she had already said he would give us), but she never brought it to us and then it was time to take the ladies to escuelita. We went with them and walked around interacting with them. There was a group of about 8 people who came in with big fancy cameras and started taking big group pictures with some of the residents and everything else. It was a bit excessive. Some of the people were introducing others to the residents as if it was their first time there. It was very strange. After escuelita, we brought them back to their ward and helped serve lunch. I fed Lita who ate the regular lunch, she just needed it to be cut into small bites because she does not have many, if any, teeth. We helped clear the dishes and then it was time to go. We left at 12:40 so we had time to walk home for lunch.

We had chicken soup with vegetables (which I helped serve) and flautas which were like chicken tacos and quite delicious. We had juice made with pineapple, orange, and lemon. We got ready and headed to school. I felt like it was warmer in the garden today. There was a big lunch at the school and people were still eating. I was glad that Christiana had opted to eat with Elvira instead of at the school. The students were very loud which made it a bit difficult to start class. We began by chatting about what I had been up to since class the day before and then we learned some more idiomatic expressions with verbs. I read some children's stories that were not very good and a short biography of Rigoberta Menchu which I enjoyed. We also did some oral drills with verb conjugations. We finished class at 5:30 and I quickly checked my email. Then we headed back. It was cooler than earlier but I jumped in the shower so my hair would have time to dry before bed. Christiana let me use her hair dryer which also helped. I did my homework and started my blog post.

For dinner, we had black bean soup with feta cheese on top, scrambled eggs with tomato, and fried plantains. The tea was cinnamon. After dinner, I finished my blog entry and read for a while.