One Month

So now that I´ve been here a month I seem to have a routine down. Wake up at 6:30a, walk about a half mile to the church for work. Work til noon, walk home for lunch, walk back, work til 4:30p walk home. I do this six days a week, except on Saturday, I get off work at noon. After work I take off my work clothes lye on my bed for a bit, then do a few sets of situps and pushups. At this time I put on some sweats and listen to music off my phone and play solitaire on the same phone for an album or so. I have really been enjoying August and Everything After by the Counting Crows, and of course Andre Nickatina lately. I was listening to XO by Elliot Smith for a bit but I found it a bit depressing* so I stopped that. After this I either play guitar or read my GRE vocab, read a book (haven´t had one in a couple weeks), or look up words in my spanish dictionary that I have written in my notebook. I am supposed to have a spanish lesson with the mom twice a week for an hour each time. Its never been more than one, and I think I´ve had three total. She is a teacher, and I think they purposely hold back because they want me to pay. $12 bucks for three hours isn´t a bad deal, but I feel that my forty plus hours a week of work and raising a considerable amount of money for their church** is a good trade off for some spanish lessons. Anyway...On Wednesday there is a family church service at one of the houses, on Friday there is a prayer meeting at the church where they take all the prayer requests then go to the front kneel on the steps and all pray outloud at once. I usually use this time to write down words in my Holly Hobby notebook that I don´t know. On Saturday there is a youth service where the youngin´s sing songs and play games and such. To tell the truth I cant remember if I have gone to this or not, they all run together a bit. On Sunday there are two services, one at 10a and one at 4:30p. I have been sleeping in on Sundays and going to the late one. I went to the early one the first week its not really important, kinda just for the super hardcore. Afterwords I play a bit of guitar or basketball with the kids. Anyone who knows me, knows that I don´t really like basketball nor am I good at it, but here I´m a foot taller than everyone, I can dunk on the 8 ft. rims and its not a big stretch to see why these people love soccer so much***. This of course brings us to dinner, which is usually about 8:30 or 9:00p or later. There are always beans, either black or red, either whole or blended. And lately alot of vegetables, squash and plantains all last week. Lunch is the best usually soup and noodles (lunch is also the biggest meal of the day. I don´t eat breakfast anymore because it is cornflakes everyday, and the powdered milk gets old QUICK! When they remember they get bananas and I´ll grab a few on the go. Otherwise I have a couple 8 cracker packs of ritz througout the morning. They have told me that next week we will go to the city to the ¨big¨supermarket I and can show them what I like. It´s funny b-c I always eat what I´m given, and aside from a whole lime squeezed on an avacado, or lettuce with lime juice the food is the same, just prepared different. and of course WAY LESS MEAT. Also they push the tortillas hard here. Reminds me of the time that three buddies and I went to the all you can eat shrimp at red lobster and all ate more than 85 shrimp, and the most was over 100. The waitress kept bringing rolls.

Last weekend I was tired of only going to the church and the house so I ventured out into the town and found the market and grocery store. I got some ritz, some ramen, and a hershey bar. No peanut butter. I also found a place that looked alright and had a hamburger. It was delicious and I didn´t get sick. They also have pizza, might try it next time. The market is big, all kinds of stuff and people, and alot like a value village on clothes. T'shirts from the new jersey health institute and such. Three is also a nice little park, and a really big catholic church in the city center. There are alot of funerals and the people all walk down the main street with the casket from the church to the cemetary. I think the smallest I have seen is about 300 people. Pretty eye catching. I want to take more pictures of people, but I don´t want to look like a tourist too much and get robbed, or make people mad, like for instance I saw a guy carrying about 6 times his body weight in corn the other day on his back. I didn´t necessarily want to be that guy and ask for a photo op. There are a few dental places downtown that do gold teeth and outlines, and stars and such. I want one REAL BAD, just one tooth. The mom and aunts all have them, and they said they are for show not for bad teeth...It´s definitely the thing to do. It´s like $30 a tooth so the price is totally right. I have to think about it though b-c they said its not reversable.

I do have some more pictures up but no captions, mostly just progress on work.

*Not hard to find depressing being that he definitely was, the theory is he committed suicide by putting knife in the wall and running into it. Gory huh!

**I will be raising some money in the coming months for my work on the internet cafe, so don´t be alarmed if you see something asking for support or possibly selling some coffee or something.

***I am a strong believer in the Chuck Klosterman theory that soccer was perfectly designed for kids who are terrible at all other sports, because all they have to do is run around on a field and there parents can tell them how good they did. 0-0 score. No big deal. Good job!