Hello Week Four.

I really need to stop making such massive posts - even I get bored reading them when they get this long. Maybe pop up some popcorn for this one?

This week has been a roller-coaster of emotions for me. Wednesday was a struggle. Now that I’ve nearly defeated homesickness my new enemy is the spanish language itself. The tricky part about this battle is that I can’t really hide from it. I was just going through some standard panicking about not learning enough, not knowing enough and not practicing enough. I wasn’t really sure what “enough” was, I just knew I wasn’t there. I pretty much broke down that night and turned to the one thing that has kept me sane here: the B-I-B-L-E. Yes, that’s the book for me. [VBS shout-out]

Thursday morning I was still feeling the after-shocks of the night before, which made my Spanish Conversation class pure torture. Everything changed for me that afternoon though: I went to my first day of volunteering at the orphanage. All week I’d been hearing terror stories from other students and their experiences so I was umm.. terrified. When Lacey and I got there we were placed in a room with 4 girls, ages 12-15. I was elated. These are my people. For the next hour we danced, made fun of my spanish and had girl talk. It was amazing. I really hope I can continue meeting with them and develop a relationship with them.

Later in the evening my program had a tango party. The greatest and worst moment of my trip happened that night. I was mingling and awkwardly avoiding having to dance - the boy to girl ratio is crazy here so it was middle school dance status where the boys chose the girls. Right, so then we formed a massive circle which I assumed was so we could be shown the next steps. Next thing I know a man’s hand is in front of my face. The instructor then proceeded to take me to the middle of the circle as an example of what we had learned. Mind you I had learned nothing during this time. I ended up tripping around for a few minutes until he gave up on me. Mortifying? Sure. Once in a lifetime awesome story? Yes.

By the end of the night we also became friends with two Rosaritos and ended up going out to tea with them till 2 AM. It was so great to be able to talk with people my age in spanish. Although I do a lot more listening than talking it’s still kind of neat to be able to understand even if I still can’t formulate sentences fast enough. Baby steps?

After an exhausting night, on top of my current sickness, I was not amped to get up early on Friday morning, but I did it anyways. 5 of us from the program had a meeting with a local Catholic school principal about volunteering at his school. While we were there the ultimate jefe [boss] showed up, which I think is something like the superintendent. Anyways, turns out he’s actually kind of famous for the work he’s done in the schools around here. So, cool points for me in getting to meet him? I’m going to start working there on Fridays serving lunches to the students. It should be an awesome experience.

I spent the rest of the day being exhausted... I attempted to go shopping but quickly decided I can’t shop here unless it’s in a grocery store. All the stores here are like boutiques with insane customer service - I don’t even like that when I understand the language. No need to worry though, I did find some things at La Callega, the local supermarket, including Pasta de Mani [Paste of Peanut]. I snagged one of 3 overpriced, dusty, sticky jars hidden under mountains of Dulce de Leche on the bottom shelf. Naturally it is actually completely different than USA peanut butter but it got the job done. Lacey, Morgan and I spent the rest of the day hanging out and being lazy. This also included dubbed Happy Days. I wish I could bring that home as a souvenir for all of you.

As I found out Saturday morning though, US peanut butter may be worth waiting for. During the course of the night I became good friends with the porcelain king in the bathroom. Marta now has me on a strict Argentine diet to combat the sickness. Kind of one of those times when you wish it was your real mom taking care of you though.