Colegio!

Today, was an exciting day. In language class this morning we went to some local markets, and at the first one I had to interview someone using a survey we were given. I was nervous, because so far in my experience, people in the community are much harder for me to understand then those I have been speaking with daily. The lady that agreed to answer my questions was incredibly nice, and I understood every word she said and was able to stray away from my list of questions just a little bit. After that, we went to another market and had to find someone who would identify some of the fruits and vegetables we had on a list, we ended up finding two women who were incredibly helpful and showed us all kinds of stuff. They were wonderful. Later on, we had to go to a store around the park and interview someone and ask them about their daily routine. The other questions were easier, this assignment we just felt kind of dumb doing. Fortunately, my partner and I went to the store known as the "peace corp" store, because during training volunteers frequent the store and they have earned the reputation of being incredibly nice to us and helpful, and the women was that!

In the afternoon, for our technical training, we went to a local highschool and had to work with the students on a few of our training techniques we will be doing once we are in site. We actually arrived during their recess, and the kids went crazy! I was approached by a group of boys with their english homework, so I did it for them! Probably not what I should have done as a peace corp volunteer, but I definitely earned some points among the kids for doing their homework. Some of the kids were extremely affection, giving us hugs over and over, they all loved to have their pictures taken. It was funny, because we joked about how illegal it is to walk into a school in the states and start snapping pictures of children, but here it doesn't really matter. The other day we also saw a white, windowless van with the word for school on the front, and one of the guys commented on how someone in the US driving and unmarked van with no windows and school written on the front would definitely be taken away to jail!!!

The school itself was very bare, the classrooms were very colorless and there wasn't really much of anything in them other then chairs and desks, it would defintely be a boring place to go to school. But the teenages are exactly the same as in the US, taking advantage of chatting and acting up a little because there was someone new in the classroom, they draw all over their desks with white out! And the all hang out in their little cliques, and when the cute girl and class went up to the board, all the boys started whistling.

Part of our project was to see the differences between what the boys and the girls do, the girls said in their spare time they put on makeup, look up fashion, shop and help around the house. The boys said they get to know the girls and sleep a lot! It was funny!!!

Later, on my way home, I stopped and talked to my host grandpa in the street, he knew about my cold, word travels fast around here. Once I got into the house, my family was outside my room doing laundry, I sat and talked to them for awhile and I really feel like i'm finally getting somewhere with my language. Although I did keep my dictionary close to me while is sat there for words that I get stuck on. Since we don't have a living room, I am starting to find these opportunites to spend time with them and talk and get to know them better, so tonight was great! They ask me all the time if I am doing better because last week was so tough for me. I told them that I feel like a new person and I'm lucky to have them as my host family. They are so good to me! They also like to gossip, my host mom informed me that the married couple across the street (they are volunteers) are also very sick! I had no idea, so tonight a few of the other volunteers stopped by the house to see if I wanted to go walk around and two of them were the married couple and I informed them that I found out they were sick. Turns out that they are!

So no Lima until Monday now, with the elections this weekend they have told us that Lima is to dangerous for us to go to tomorrow or Saturday. Too many people, bad traffic. So I guess I'll just have to wait. I hope everyone has a great weekend!!