The WEEKEND!

 It’s the weekend!  When I was a student, I thought I was excited for weekends, but now after full time teaching, boy does it feel good to have a break and some actual time to get good planning done!  I guess the biggest issue for me is trying to balance being active and present with the family, and hiding in my room doing homework.  This semester takes a lot of planning and hard work, but I’m often asked if I was “sleeping” if I’m gone for too long, because no one really understands why I would need to spend so much time alone in my room.  That’s a cause of a little misunderstanding and tension, but we’ll make it work.

Today I slept in, meaning I woke up at 7:30 instead of 4:30, so that felt very nice.  The sun shining through the windows is a pretty great way to wake up in the morning.  I take a peek out the curtains to see a few mountains shining back at me. God makes beautiful things.  Then I did a little cleaning in my room, ate some breakfast, and then asked if I could learn how to do my laundry.  This family is great, but they kind of look at me weird when I ask questions like this.  I can only imagine their thought: “she really doesn’t know how to do laundry?  What kind of girl is this?”  But the girls in the family are kind enough to bring me out and show me how.  Needless to say, my arms are sore and my hands are nice and wrinkly J.  I will never complain about throwing the clothes in the washing machine again!  But then again, I have never seen my socks become so white, either!

Now when the sun starts to go down, my host brother is going to take me to the top of the mountain we live on.  It’s not too far of a hike, and there is a big water reservoir on top, but I’m excited to watch a beautiful sunset up there. He said we need to watch out for snakes (oh great) but other than that we should be okay. 

And then for supper (this is for all my Fricano’s friends) I am donning my apron and making some pizza.  When the kids found out I had worked at a pizza place, they couldn’t stop asking if I could write the recipe down and give their mother a list of ingredients.  So I did, and now we’ll see if I can make it taste okay!  A few things will be different, since there is no such thing as pizza sauce or pepperoni in this area.  I’ll try and take some pictures and show you a few later J. 

Oh, a few fun experiences  for me are as follows:

-I ate my first liche (said just like Leach, so I was a little worried when they first said I needed to eat one)

- I stepped barefoot on the mother of all pricker plants, and am now picking out thorns from my foot (free acupuncture, I guess!)

- I saw the prettiest little blue bird I’ve ever seen, and no one else seemed to think it was a big deal, haha.

- I made friends with a maid who speaks 1 word of English and had a dance party with her in the kitchen to “Call Me Maybe”

Okay, that is all for now, I’ll be keeping in touch!  I love all the comments, keep them coming J