Back to reality after a week of tropical paradise!

Well, I am forcing myself to update this for my last 25 minutes in this internet cafe because I haven´t for a while and I keep getting distracted by other emails and facebook! Since my last update I was able to recover from my sickness and gain some of my strength back, and some of my weight.. those of us who stayed back, me, another student, our leader and her daughter, then met up with the rest of the group after two days of traveling.

We all headed to the tropical island of Roatan off the coast of Honduras for 5 days for our spring break. It was long awaited and much needed. Our little island cabins were right on the beach, looking over clear water of different shades of blue and white sand! It was gorgeous and so were the sunsets. I did some snorkeling for the first time ever in the coral reefs there and saw some amazing fish with unique shapes and brilliant colors. It was neat to discover another part of God´s wonderful and mysterious creation, although sometimes it was kinda scary because you never knew if there was a baracuda or small shark lurking up behind you! HA!

After that time was up the entire group split up into smaller groups of 3-5 people for a week of free travel. We are allowed to go basically whereever we want in Central America for this week as long as our budget of $50 US dollars a day allows for it. The point is to travel around on our own and learn how to cross borders and find buses and hotels etc while also exploring the countries we visit and learning more about their history and culture.

My group of 4 others (we have 3 of the 4 males in our group.. added security and protection) headed to a neighboring island, Utila, for the first 3 days. It was nice to make a smoother transition and not have to deal with any border crossings or taxis or anything right away. The morning we caught a ferry to that island from the mainland I was kind of hungry because we hadn´t really gotten breakfast. I said to one of my group members that I was craving a cinnamon roll. After a few minutes I started to think that I smelled one. I turned around and much to my surprise the Israeli young woman behind me was eating a cinnamon roll! I was shocked. I asked her where she got it and she said in the cafe in the building across the street. So naturally I ran over there and bought myself a cinnamon roll for less than a dollar.. it was so worth it. God really does answer prayers.

The pace of life on the island was very CHILL.. no agendas, nowhere to go, nothin to do but chill. There were lots of other tourists and Australians with sweet accents who are there for a few weeks or months to learn how to scuba dive. One day we rented bicycles and toured around most of the island.. that was a new experience for certain muscles I hadn't used in a while. Let´s suffice it to say it´s still a little tender when I sit down on hard chairs. : ) Living on this $50 budget has been a fun thing, because it forces us to watch our money and it´s fun to try and save so we can walk away with some extra cash! Yesterday we bought pancake mix and made our own breakfast for $1.50 each and then also bought mac and cheese and baked beans and fruit for lunch and all ate for about $2.50 per person! It was a day of great savings!

This morning we got up at 5:00 and boarded the ferry back to the mainland by 6. We are staying in the city of La Ceiba, Honduras for today, catching up on some homework and possibly exploring a nearby waterfall this afternoon. I think w´re splurging on some pizza hut for lunch too! Yum. Then tomorrow we travel by bus (I´m not sure how early, possibly at 3 am!) to the capital of Tegucigalpa where we will stay for two days. We are hoping to get to a soccer game tomorrow which is why the bus ride might have to be really early. We´ll visit a national park there and some historic sites and then continue our travel by bus to Nicaragua´s capital of Managua in two days (Tuesday and Wednesday) which is when we need to meet up with the rest of the group.

I was a little anxious about traveling on our own without leaders for this week but I have felt fairly safe and confident so far. I trust the guys in our group to protect us and figure out a lot of the details.. Hopefully all of the other group members are safe and will arrive on time and in one piece to Nicaragua on Wednesday. The only time I felt threatened so far was when I almost ran into a huge spider web containing the biggest spider that maybe I've seen in my whole life. It was a close one!

Well, my time is almost up.. this is the cheapest internet cafe I have found yet so I was very productive on it today! Again, I appreciate all your thoughts and prayers. We only have about 27 days left.. not that I´m counting or anxious to get home or anything.. haha. I can´t upload pictures right now of my tropical paradise vacations but just know that it was beautiful and you would probably be jealous! Hope all is well whereever you are this fine day.

Until next time,
Linds

Surprise! Some pictures!

So being sick has its advantages sometimes.. I was able to get some pictures uploaded since the doctor didn´t want me traveling with the group to Honduras today.. Here´s a few from our weekend trip and then our service week in the mountains. Enjoy!

Keepin it real during our Clausura - or final presentation - for our Spanish class.

We thought it´d be cute to take a friend picture under the sign : )

Dad, doesn´t it look like they had a mold of this and then just poured foam in? I thought so..

We didn´t seat on the monuments..

Here´s me, standing in front of a really huge ancient Mayan temple in Tikal.

And here´s me, squishing a really small ancient Mayan temple in Tikal.

My friend and I, we´re silly. (And we miss KT Rod)

Look at the pretty sunset from our hotel in Flores!

My host brothers during our Community Learning week in Alta Vera Paz - from front to back: Roberto (3yrs), Pedro (9yrs), and Oscar (5 yrs).

A view of the valley of Semesche (town in Alta Vera Paz where we served for a week).

Lisa! Here´s the steps your cross cultural helped build 3 years ago in front of the Mennonite church in Semesche.

If you look to the right of the big mountain on the left, you can see the Mennonite church way in the distance. This particular day we hiked from beyond that church back there, to where I am standing, to fill bags with dirt for planting trees. Everything is hills and mountains, at high altitudes, so the hiking is not easy!

Here´s a view of my host house from the road. It´s pretty hard to see but it´s towards the upper left corner. The fields and pond belong to my host family I believe. The two really tiny buildings in front of the house are the outhouses..

Here´s the bedroom room.. the family put up a curtain for us to sleep behind (and change behind). We sat all our bags on that table in the middle. There´s corn hanging from the rafters and then also an upper level over half the house where they store all their other corn. The floors were dirt and you can see from the walls it´s just wooden boards with lots of cracks for the cold to get in.

This is the kitchen and dining room and parent´s bedroom. We all sat around that fire in the mornings and evenings to warm up and to watch the women make tortillas (and we helped too).

A cute picture of my host brother Roberto... always had a runny nose :

I let the bed bugs bite... oops!

Well, in my last post I asked for prayers that there wouldn´t be foreign critters because I didn´t think I could survive that.. and surprisingly, the critters were not a problem (except the bed bug bites that I have all over my legs). However, if you combine everything else.. the food, the altitude, the strenuous physical activity, the cold, the wet... unfortunately I wasn´t able to survive all of that. I am back at CASAS for our day of ´recouping´ and I am not in very good condition. I contracted a cold on Wednesday during the week and it only got worse from there. I don´t think I´ve ever felt this sick or weak in my entire life.

Let´s start where I left off last time.. our group left for the weekend to go to Flores/Tikal to see the Mayan ruins and relax for 2 days. The ruins were incredible. It´s amazing all that you can learn about a civilization based on structures that are still standing from their time. I wonder what will be around years from now when we´re all long gone? Hmm.. The hotel and the two buffet meals we had there were wonderful. Our hotel was also on a lake front so we got to go swimming and enjoy a really pretty sunset. It was almost torture having such a luxurious weekend before a tough week, but it was needed.

So Monday the majority of our group headed out to the town of Semesche in Alta Verapaz for our community learning week. It was a rainy and cold day, so our spirits weren´t very high to begin with. We were loaded into the back of a cattle truck with all our stuff and set out on an hour ride through the streets of Coban and up into the mountains where the roads are hardly roads (Dad, remember the infamous station wagon story on that ATV trail? This is the kind of terrain I´m talkin about). We were given our cortes (traditional skirts which are basically 8 yrds of fabric strung on a rope) and then introduced to our host families. I was happy to be put with 3 other girls but unfortunately our house was one of the farthest away and hardest to get to! We hiked there in our rubber boots (the missionary couple helping us with this project provided boots for all of us which came in handy) and felt like we had stepped into a National Geographic Documentary. The area was gorgeous. Mountains and hills everywhere with little tiny houses and farms in the most obscure places. The view from our latrine at night was to die for! HA!

Our house was made our of wooden boards so there was no such thing as insulation. There were two rooms, a kitchen and eating room and then the sleeping room. We were given two beds for the four of us which was fine because we kept warmer sleeping two to a bed. The beds are hardly beds, but rather wooden boards that you lay your sleeping bag on. This means sore hip bones if you try to sleep on your side, and not much sleep for the weary.

All the meals were basically the same.. tortillas, beans, sometimes rice, more beans, cabbage, tortillas FILLED with beans, or something called CALDO (which we all hate now) which is spicy broth with cabbage and a chunk of meat. After the first two and a half days the food wasn't really appetizing to me, and I could hardly handle all the spicyness. I missed the bland Mennonite casseroles I am used to. I didn't really eat that much eat time we had a meal, which was not a good start to the decline in my health.

One of the other factors I mentioned was the cold and wet.. Monday was the worst because it rained. After that it cleared up and the days were mostly sunny but the nights were cold. I don't handle the cold well so I think that's what started my stuffy nose and cough. Tuesday night I had a coughing spell from 3-4 am and woke up with a pretty congested head. On top of all that, we were at a very high altitude and that gave me problems with my breathing. We would have to hike every single day, up very steep hillsides and on muddy roads and sometimes I felt like all I was ever doing was walking. It took a toll on my body. I would have to stop to catch my breath pretty often. The boots did come in handy but also had their pitfalls.. mine were too small and so when I wore my warm socks they pinched me and gave me blisters. For this, I spent one afternoon sitting in my house alone while the group hiked to a cave, because I couldn't handle the pain.

Thursday we had to hike 3 and a half hours to another village (which ended up being a pointless trip) and that was not smart for the condition I was in. I spent most of the day Thursday once we got there resting, as well as all day Friday. Then Friday evening the missionary wife finally took me and Amy (who came along to take care of me but also ended up getting sick) back to the closest town to her friend's house. We stayed there Friday night and Saturday night. All day Saturday Amy and I were stuck in bed, sleeping and occasionally muttering things to each other. I was very weak and could hardly sit up to eat. Even when I tried to eat it was an internal struggle because I had no desire to eat and no appetite but I knew that was the only way I would get better. At one point I managed to get some food down and then went to take two sinus pills and couldn't get them down and ended up losing all the food I had just successfully eaten. This was discouraging. If it hadn't been for Amy I think I would have been worse off, because I was very emotionally discouraged and depressed. I don't think I've ever missed or wanted my mom as much as I did when I was in that bed all day Saturday.

Sunday the rest of the group came back and we traveled back here to CASAS. My professor leading the trip who is also a nurse told me I needed to get some more foods in me that had protein and fat in them. She got me half a baked potato and some yogurt. That was the most I had eaten in about 4 days. My body still feels incredibly weak and it's hard to be motivated to do anything. I have very little energy. I am still pretty depressed because I hate being sick and feeling weak. I just wish I felt normal and could be packing and getting everything ready to travel for the next month. I'm not sure how the next few days of travel are going to go for me.. I'm a little worried. I hope that I will be able to get enough rest and enough nutrients in my body so that I can recover. I would covet your prayers for healing of my body and my mind. I am still very discouraged and always feel on the brink of tears. It's hard for me to be weak emotionally.. and physically.. and right now that's basically all I am.. weak. Perhaps this is a really big huge lesson from God that I need to slow down and depend on Him for my strength more than my physical body which can clearly fail. As Psalm 73:26 says, "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." I'm holding tight to that promise.

Now, all that depressing news aside, there were some highlights during the service week. Clearly my current physical and emotional state taint my perception a little.. but I will pretend I am healthy and it is Tuesday of this past week.. The people of Semesche lead a very simple life. This does not mean they are simple people. Their life is slow paced, but they are extremely hard workers. Meals are always shared together, and family is central. Everyone knows their role.. and corn is their most important crop. The men work the fields to get them ready to plant corn, they plant the corn, tend it, harvest it. Then the women husk the corn, shell it, clean it, cook it with limestone, mash it up, and make it into tortillas. And finally, everyone eats the corn. They plant to eat, eat to live, and live to plant their corn.

My host family had 3 sisters and 3 brothers and they were all very beautiful people with warm smiles. Monday when we were hiking down to our house the oldest host brother Pedro - 9 yrs, came back and asked to carry my duffel bag. I told him it was alright cause it was pretty heavy and I didn't think he'd be able to handle it down the steep hill. However, he insisted and so I gave it to him, he put the strap across his forehead, and carried it like that on his back the whole way to the house. I was shocked, how strong he was! Another touching moment was when we were walking to our service assignment the one morning and it was a little muddy out. We had to hike a steep hill every morning to get up to the main road. I was carrying my water bottle and also holding up my corte from dragging in the mud at the same time. My second youngest host brother, Oscar - 5 yrs, offered to take my water bottle, so I gave it to him, and THEN he reached out his hand to hold mine to 'help' me on the slippery parts. It was so precious, and even cuter because he ended up being the one that was slipping in the mud, and I was fine. Also, on our 3 hr group hike, we had helpers from all the different families that carried all our bags and sleeping bags and blankets. It's incredible how much weight these men can carry and make look easy. I was very grateful for their willingness to help in this way. I don't think some of us would have made it if we had had to carry our own things.

Well, this is getting too long. I´m not going to have time to get any pictures up, but you can check www.emu.edu/crosscultural and look at the Latin America 7 album in a few days which will have a lot of my pictures from the week. If you don´t see those, you can see mine when I return in 39 days! Tomorrow morning we leave at 4am to catch a 5am bus to travel to Honduras. We'll be there for 3 days doing some visiting of people our leaders know and then we have our SPRING BREAK, finally, on the caribbean island of Roatan. That will be from Friday the 13th until Wednesday the 18th. A CASAS worker and Lancaster native who also loves fishes in the Susquehanna at Wrightsville told me that Roatan will be good for my health and is almost comparable to the Susquehanna.. and he said that with the utmost respect for the Susquehanna.

Again, keep me in your prayers. I'll try to update this when I have opportunities and let you all know how my health is doing. Since we'll be traveling until April 6th I won't have much opportunity to respond that frequently, but you can keep writing me! I always enjoy hearing about life back home. I hope that all of you are in better health condition than I am, and that you feel blessed in your daily activities and relationships. I really do miss you all, and am looking forward to wrapping up this trip and coming home. Perhaps if I wasn't so sick I wouldn't be so anxious to get home to my momma. Who knows!?

Until later,

Lindsey

Time to leave my host family? Already? Really?

Well, tonight it was time to pack up that huge suitcase again. I could hardly believe it.. feels like I just got here a few days ago. And yet, I also feel like I´ve been here for months and months. Weird. This also means that tomorrow I have to say goodbye to Ixi and Pablo for a while. I will see them the day before we leave to come back home in April, because we´re having a celebration dinner for all the families. But it will still be hard tomorrow since I´m leaving their house and won´t be spending time with them again like I have been. I have really grown to love and appreciate them, more than I thought I would. It´s ok to cry though.. that´s what I´m telling myself.

So yes, our group is leaving tomorrow afternoon at 3pm to travel to Tikal - Mayan ruins and jungle here in Guatemala, also REALLY hot there. We´ll be there for the weekend and then travel onto Cobán, in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala for a week of service. It will be rainy and very cold there. And we will be bathing with a bucket, possibly with warm water, possibly not. Our leader for the service trip, Rob Cahill, MCC, told us that if you tell them you have your period you get warm water because the Mayan have a belief that you shouldn´t mix hot with cold and when you are menstruating your body is hot. Weird, but if I have to pretend I´m ¨hot¨ to get warm bathing water, I´ll do it!

I´m anticipating this week of service to be a stretching and growing experience. I will be living out of my backpack, with only two different t-shirts and no beauty supplies! Also, they speak a language we don´t know.. but apparently it is easier to learn than Spanish, so maybe I´ll come back fluent in 3 languages! From the pictures we´ve seen the area is beautiful and I´ll be able to get lots of good photos. We´ll be walking among cloud forests and mountains. I am excited for a change of scenery and pace. Also, we will be eating some mixture of beans and corn/tortillas at every meal. I can´t say I´m terribly enthused about this, but I will survive. I stuffed some pringles and smarties in my backpack, just in case. : ) Also, us ladies will be wearing (and get to keep) a skirt made out of about 8 yards of fabric. Basically all the fabric is on a string and you just keep pulling it tighter and tighter and bunching it up around you. I think it will be very heavy. Rob told us that if we didn´t feel fat before, we will when wearing this. I´m pretty excited that I will finally look like every typical Mennonite girl doing service in a Latin American country should look like... native skirt down to your feet, sneakers (of course), a tshirt that doens´t really match the skirt, and hair pulled back in a bun. All I´m lacking is a covering!

Anyways, back to the present. We had our final Spanish exams today and I feel pretty good about how I did. I have now completed 6 credit hours of Spanish! Yay! Tomorrow morning we have our ´Clausura´ which is a party basically where every class has to present some humorous skit or song or story about their semester and what they´ve learned so far. I am excited for that.

Tonight 8 of us sang a few songs at Casa Horeb Mennonite Church for the 25th Anniversary celebration of Semilla, the Anabaptist seminary where we have been studying Spanish and spending all our days. It was fun and I got to wear the new dress I bought here! During the middle of the program (which was long, given that it was in Central America) Pablo came in and wanted me to come outside with him to play. I was glad to. Except that it was FREEEEZING outside. So at one point I told him I was cold, and he wanted me to pick him up and hold him so that I stayed warmer. It was cute. He wrapped his legs tight around me and was laying his head on my shoulder. I asked him, ¨Me vas a extrañar?¨ Are you going to miss me? And he said, ¨y tu a mi?¨ Will you miss me? And I said yes and he said yes. Then he just looked at me for a while, puckered up, and kissed me right on the lips! HAHA. It caught me off guard. I think I was probably his first kiss...

Well, it´s 12:19am here, and I had just finished packing and wanted to update this before I went to bed. Unfortunately, 6 hours of sleep will not be sufficient. Perhaps I can sleep on the bus or plane tomorrow on the way to Tikal, though this is doubtful. We´ll return to CASAS for a day March 9th to unpack, wash clothes, take HOT showers, repack and get ready to travel for a MONTH out of the same backpack (uh oh), so on that day I will check my emails and update this again, hopefully with some pictures from my week. I´ll definitely need and appreciate your prayers this coming week as I will definitely be more out of my comfort zone than I have been so far. But I am going to carpe the diem and make the most of this experience! Having a positive attidute is the only way I´m going to survive!!! Please pray I don´t encounter any strange creatures in my bed at night.. I actually don´t know if I could survive that. : )

Hope everyone enjoys their last two days of February. Seriously, where has the time gone? Today was day 50 so we are exactly halfway done with our trip. Looking forward to hearing from some of you!
Hasta luego until later,
Lindsey

Truth is...

Truth is...
...coming into this semester I was expecting a great life changing event that I´d come away from with a new passion or a new confirmation that I should keep studying photography and ESL or that I would learn something completely new about myself. And maybe I will.. but probably not until I´m looking back on it. And that´s ok.
...I have seen a lot of new things that have at least challenged my way of looking at things or how I´ve always believed what I´ve been told in History about the US which really isn´t the WHOLE story.
...I´ve gotten a lot more attached to Ixi and Pablo than I thought I would. I knew the time would fly and I would only be here for a little. And I wasn´t trying to put up a wall of defense or not get close to them.. I just didn´t feel like we´d hit it off at the beginning. But slowly, without even realizing it, I´ve grown to love them and the thought of leaving in one week is CRAZY. I´m glad she works at CASAS so I will still see her every time we come back through there..
...the people I´ve encountered here have opened their homes to me and accepted me and loved me just as I am, without knowing hardly anything about me. And that is powerful.
...We´re only 44 days done out of 100, and it feels like it´s been forever, and I kinda wish I could take a jet plane home for a weekend.
...I knew there was a chance of getting sick off the food but I always assumed it wouldn´t happen to me. Well, I just got pretty sick last night and today, I think food poisoning, and that made me really miss my mom.
...this is probably the hardest cross-cultural academic wise out of all of them at EMU.. and part of that might be our leaders. I used to resent this and complain about all the work, because it is an enormous amount. But now, I feel confident that somehow it will all get done in the end, and even if I am stressed, I will appreciate all I was required to do later on.
...sometimes it feels like we´re getting so many new experiences and so much information that it´s just all bouncing around my head and I don´t know how to process it all. For this reason, I think I will have a lot of processing to do when I get back home.
...I´m looking forward to traveling to the other countries in a week but not to living out of a small duffel bag for a month with limited internet and laundry access. This will be a stretching experience.
...(for the Grosh family) on Valentine´s day I ended up playing air hockey and pool with my host mom´s brother and his girlfriend. The dancing and drinking would have been later in the night, in Antigua, but even they didn´t end up going then. Phew!
...it´s hard being away from my family and friends, but I think it´s been good for me to have been stripped of my physical support system and been forced to rely more on God and the prayers of those back home, rather than their physical presence.
...I´ve still been able to entertain my OCD habits of plucking my eyebrows every 2 days, and counting things. I don´t know what I´d do if I couldn´t.
...I´m excited for what the rest of this trip holds and I thank you all for keeping me in your thoughts and prayers. I need em!

Feel free to send emails ANY TIME! I love hearing about things back home.
I hope that everyone is healthy, safe, and happy.
With love,
Lindsey

The lake at Santiago Atitlan, where our group went for a weekend.

Sweet pants Amy and I bought in Santiago Atitlan that are really comfortable. I had my rolled up cause of dusty roads.


Our spanish class singing a spanish love song to Loren and Pat Swartzendruber - the president of EMU who came to visit for a weekend. I was only pretending to play guitar..

Our spanish class won the Valentine´s Day card competition! Our card was pretty simple looking compared to others so we were shocked. We won cause of participation, and use of grammar. The inside was a love poem I wrote. Maybe I´ll put it on here and translate it sometime. Our prize was a box of chocolates... gross!

The ring I bought myself on Valentine´s Day shopping with Amy!

My bedside stand, complete with roses I bought myself for Valentine´s day.

Bec, tonight Pablo came into my room and looked at this picture and started singing, ¨Estas enamorada! Estas enamorada!¨ which means ¨You´re in love, you´re in love.¨ And I said, ¨No, that´s my sister.¨ ¨Porque parece como hombre?¨ (Why does she look like a boy?) I told him it was cause he couldn´t see your hair. I had to laugh a little though. Sorry!

Thanks for the roses Jake! HA, syke nah, bought them for myself. : )

This is my little brother. He´s pretty hard core, and I love it!

Waste of space

Today at the mall I observed something new about Latin American women..
It seems that generally speaking, if there´s extra room in the legs of their pants (if they are baggy at all), it is a waste of space. They like pants that FIT.. really well.
And that is all.

Story time!

GOOD NEWS! I finally found 100 (and 101 too) on a license plate today. This is extremely rare, especially that I find two in one day, because there´s only 3 numbers on each plate.. so I got lucky. I had been looking for days.

Ok, this post is going to be lots of random little stories.. mostly humorous ones.

The other night at a church meeting I was playing with Pablo outside because he was getting antsy and disturbing our mom. We played all kinds of things from Pato, Pato, Ganzo (Duck, Duck Goose), Power Rangers, Pikachu, freeze tag (kinda hard with two people), and Veo, veo (I spy). Earlier that night I kept hearing Ixi say ¨Fijate¨ to Pablo and then he had been saying it to me. So I asked him, ¨Que significa fijate?¨ What does fijate mean? And he responded, ¨Cuando tu mueras y vas al cielo, Dios va a decirte que significa fijate.¨ When you die, and go to heaven, God is going to tell you what fijate means. HAHA! So he wouldn´t tell me. It was a pretty clever response though. He´s always making me laugh. I did later find out that it means pay attention or look here.

When I ask Pablo questions like this, he always says ¨Tu no entiendes nada!¨ You don´t understand anything! and lets out this huge sigh. Oh well.

That same night, while playing pikachu (a chinese action figure), I pretended I didn´t know what pikachu meant. And every time he said the word pikachu I´d say ¨salud¨ bless you. He was getting really annoyed and kept saying ¨NOOO.¨ I thought it was funny though.

Lots of Pablo stories.. the other day we were waiting to leave for school and we were looking out the window at cars and he yelled ¨CUCARACHITA!¨ COCKROACH! and punched me! I looked and saw a VW bug. Apparently they play the punch buggy no punch backs game here too. Cause every time we see one he yells that and punches me.

He´s a very curious boy and every day on the way to school he asks his mom different questions about what stuff means (kinda like me), and one day he asked her what ´person´ meant. It was cute. He was also asking about turn signals and when Ixi explained it to him he said ¨I´ll understand when I´m bigger, right?¨ : )

Sometimes Pablo is correct in saying that I don´t understand anything. The other night I had gone to the University here with my mom´s brother and his girlfriend. They are students there and showed me all around which was a really good experience. I found out it costs them about $12 per year here for school. Did I already say that in another blog entry? I forget. But I was shocked when they said that. And likewise they were just as shocked when I told them what my schooling costs. Anyways, they took me to Burger King afterwards and were asking me random questions. His girlfriend, Ligia, asked me ¨Te gustas pintarse?¨ And I thought she was asking if I liked to paint... since I´m a photographer major and artsy kinda. So I told her ¨No, not really. I´m not that good at it.¨ and she asked, ¨What about anyone in your family? Your mom? Sister?¨ and I said, ¨No, not really. My dad a little. He´s pretty good at it..¨ Well she gave me a strange look and didn´t say anything for a little. Then she explained that she meant ¨maquillarse¨ which is make-up. So apparently here when they say pintarse they mean to paint yourself, and I had just told her that I didn´t like to wear make up but my dad did a little and he was good at it. OOPS! Sorry dad! At least I know now..

Ok, two more stories. Tonight we were about to leave my mom´s parents´house to go to her grandma´s for our weekly tradition. I was putting my purse on my shoulder and the strap was caught on some of my hair. So I went to pull my hair out from under it and felt something strange in my hand. I didn´t look right away so I grabbed it a little tighter to pull whatever it was out of my hair. Well, I have no idea where it came from, but when I looked at my hand I realized I was holding a cockroach. Uhh, yeah. I immediately flinched and dropped it, managing to keep my shock and disgust inaudible. I kicked it to make sure it was real.. it was. BUT, it was dead. Which made me feel a little teensy bit better about the situation. But still.. GROSS! And where did it come from.. ick.

Lastly, while we were at her grandma´s house eating dinner they were talking about new shoes Ixi´s sister had bought today. Ixi asked me a question and I was having trouble understanding what she meant. I knew it had to do with shoes and me.. so I thought she was asking how much they usually cost in the states. I told her it depends but usually around $20. Well, everyone kinda reacted strangely and then she explained that she meant what shoe size do I wear. I had told them I wear size 20.. gotta love those confusing language situations! We got a laugh out of it though.

Well, those are all the stories for now. Oh also, whenever I need some comic relief here or get tired of reading my boring history books, I turn to my buddy Patrick McManus and read about shooting canoes. I´m very thankful I packed that book last minute! Well, it´s 11pm here and I still haven´t started my two page essay on migration that is due tomorrow.. written in spanish. Some things, like the fact that I procrastinate, never change I guess. To all the Groshes - enjoy butchering weekend! I pulled up my butchering project website from last year and showed my mom and her boyfriend all the pictures last night. Can´t say my mom was too enthusiastic about the whole thing.. especially the ones with red blood. But now they know a little bit more about me! I´m sorry I can´t be there. To everyone else - enjoy your Valentine´s day, while you´re NOT butchering.

Love to all,
Linds