You're the prettiest girl this side of the Mississippi.

Name that movie.

Today was my last day in Costa Rica before I go back for two weeks for Christmas. It was BEAUTIFUL out. I'm NOT ready for it to be cold!!

Our sweet hammock.
Again. My photographer felt the need for another photo?

Que ricooooo! I definitely got burned today.

The end. Merry Christmas! If you are going to be in or near Blo-No in the next couple of weeks, call me :-)

I believe I can flyyyy!

This was my last week of work before Christmas! The daycare's last day was on Friday, and the high school girls' graduation was on Wednesday. It was a very good week.

On Tuesday, my housemates and I all went to Volcan Irazu with Fray Jorge, one of the friars that lives across the street from us. It was really cool...we were in the clouds....definitely a different experience.


For graduation on Wednesday, I got to hand out some of the diplomas, which was really cool. I got to give all the girls a big hug and congratulations...it's going to be sad without them there next year! One of the teachers that I work with, Oscar, had to read a prayer for the graduation, and he has told me in the past that he is "Catholic" but he definitely is not practicing. So the principal of the school called Oscar and I into her office and was telling us all the things we needed to do to get ready for the graduation, and she said, "Oscar, you'll read the prayer, okay? So just start with a sign of the cross, read the prayer, and then finish with an Our Father and a Hail Mary, since we're in the house of the Virgin." Haha, it was pretty funny, I had to help him to remember the Our Father, and he was super nervous. It went very well, though. :-) After graduation, Isabel, another teacher, asked if I could help her with her English homework, so we went to KFC to practice for her English test that she had on Friday. I'm really glad that I'm starting to make more friends at my work, because I have felt that I've had a pretty difficult time fitting in there until now. A couple of the teachers, Oscar and Alejandra, even came to the Christmas party that my roommates and I had on Friday.

The last day at the daycare was super fun. We had this big elaborate party for the kids and their parents (most of which were moms and some grandmas), and the kids sang some songs, Santa Claus came, and there was a tooooon of food. It was kind of sad, because a lot of the bigger kids are not going to be coming back in January because they'll be starting school! A couple of my favorite kids are not going to be back, which is a big bummer. Also, the woman who works full time there, Magaly, is not coming back in January either, and it was super sad to see everyone say goodbye to her. She's been working there for four years, so I imagine it's going to be hard to leave. I have no idea who is going to be able to take her position, because she is soooo good with the kids. It will be interesting to see how next year goes.

Well, I don't have too much else to talk about, but I do have lots of pictures :-) I'm going to the beach tomorrow! How's the snow treating everyone?

Agustin! He's such a little sweetheart. I was sad that I failed to capture the mohawk he was sporting the day before.
Diego. He's a little flirt.

Isaac. He always says to me, "Y su papa?" "And your dad?" And we'll go through my whole family before the conversation ends.

Jeremey and Allen...sweeeeeetest brothers ever.

Allen again.

Juancho and I at the volcano.

Juancho, Liz, Kinzie, Fray Jorge and me.

Fray Jorge. I was trying to teach him how to blow bubbles with his gum...kind of failed though.

I can flyyyyyy!

It was freeeezing up there!

Charlie, Liz and I at our Christmas party.
Hahahahaha, this picture totally captures the intensity that the kids had while they were performing. It was awesome. That is Camilo, Agustin, Amanda, Engel, and Alexa.

Michelle! She's just precious.

Moises....they made all the kids go in the kitchen for like 15 minutes while they talked to the parents...yikes. About half of them were screaming about how they wanted their mom the WHOLE TIME.

DORIANNNNN. He's sooooo cute.

Nick and I ice skating in a mall! I met Nick last summer when he was a chaperone at one of the CHWC sites I worked at...it turns out he's in Costa Rica, too and lives super close. We went ice skating, got our picture taken with Santa, and ate some Taco Bell. We also played in lots of toy stores...all in all a fun day. :-)

Merry almost Christmas!!!

Random stories.

I don't actually have a lot to talk about, but I have some random things that I want to say, so you can read them if you want, or you can just look at the pictures and call it a day. Whatever floats your boat.

We have cats. I don't know why, but we have cats in our yard, and they make very, very strange noises at all hours of the night. I'm pretty sure they are living in our roof now. That's good, right? I just hope they don't die up there, because when I was in Florida for Catholic Heart Work Camp last summer, we had a possum in the ceiling of the room we were sleeping in, and it died. I think that all of the girls on my CHWC team would agree with me when I say, that is not a stench that I wish to smell again.

I'm watching that clay rudolph movie on CBS right now...and I have to say...I'm pretty sure I've never actually watched this. I know it's been on every year on my TV, but I don't know if I've ever actually paid attention. I'm now a fan.

The other day, I was walking down Paseo Colon (the main street I walk on for about a half hour each way to and from work every day), and I passed this guy selling lottery tickets (the lottery is crazy here...there are people selling tickets on every corner I think). As I passed him, he looked me up and down, and shouted/sang, "HEY JUUUUUDE!" And that was all. I was too busy giggling, but all of my roommates said that I should have sang back to him. I've also gotten a, "NICE!", a "Hello baby, how are jou?", and "Hello, blonde." I'm pretty sure people see me, see that I'm obviously from the United States, and use the only English they know. It's pretty entertaining, and slightly offensive, but I always get a good chuckle out of it.

So for Thanksgiving, we went over to our friend Charlie's house, whose mom is from Guatemala and whose dad is from the US, so they do Thanksgiving dinner every year for his dad. I had to frantically make 4 pumpkin pies in about 2 hours right before we went over, because Liz was going to make them, but got extremely ill the day before Thanksgiving, and was that way for a couple of days after. It was very sad...she couldn't even eat a Thanksgiving dinner. But I made the pies, and they turned out edible, so that was good. It was super fun being over there, and it made me not quite so homesick to be with friends and to eat delicious traditional Thanksgiving food. Kinzie has pictures on her camera, so once I get those, I'll put them up.

This weekend, John, Kinzie, Gabe and I went to Gabe's family's house and we went with his cousin to "Monte de la cruz" or "Mountain of the Cross," and we hiked a bit, walked under this freezing waterfall, almost fell about 5000 times because it was so slippery, and finally made it to the top of the mountain where there was a huge cross (surprise!). Apparently, according to what I understood of Gabe's cousin said (which often is not much, because he speaks SUPER fast), there are 3 crosses in Costa Rica, and this is the top of the cross....So the three crosses make one big one or something? Okay, maybe I should talk to him about this again....haha. Anyway, so then we hiked back down, saw a little lake, got a big bruise on my thigh from climbing over a fallen tree, and then played a pick up soccer game (I know. I do NOT play soccer. It was funny to say the least) with some random high schoolers. Then we went back to Gabe's family's house and ate some delicious authentic tortilla soup (probably the only Costa Rican dish I actually enjoy). And to top off the day, Liz and I went to see New Moon that night. IT WAS AWESOME. I'm also excited to see it again in the United States with delicious movie theater popcorn. I definitely enjoyed my Saturday :-)

Yesterday was my night for prayer, and I decided that I wanted to spend some time together decorating our house for Christmas, so we had a blast decorating ornaments and wearing Santa hats and eating M&M cookies with frosting. I couldn't find any sugar cookie mix/didn't want to put in the work to make them from scratch. They were still really good. You should try it. Really. Betty Crocker M&M cookie mix. Delish. Enjoy the pictures of our Christmas celebration :-)

We decided to do a pensive pose. It took like 5 tries....and we still didn't get it.

Corny, but funny.

Juancho has a lot of guts. He's lucky I did not notice what was going on.


The famous "John's dad pose."

A few of our awesome ornaments!

Working on the ornaments.

Liz and me working hard.

Juancho was showing me his ornament, and said, "...and then here, I put FC Eleven, for FrancisCorps 11, and here--" And then I cut him off and said, "Wait. Isn't that a 6?" We're going to go over his roman numerals soon.

My four fabulous friends. Haha, I was going to say roommates, but then I got excited about alliteration.

Wait, it's Thanksgiving on Thursday?

The weather is really throwing me off. Don't get me wrong--the weather has not been awesome here lately by any means...it's actually been a bit chilly (like 60s), but it's not cold weather with leaves on the ground like I'm used to around this time of year. Thanksgiving should NOT be this Thursday. It's weird. It's really surprising me how fast my time is flying by here. I can't believe I'm coming home for Christmas in less than a month! Eeek!

Also, I haven't updated this in a loooong time it seems, so this could be an extra-long entry, or I'll forget about everything I wanted to talk about and it'll end up being rather short. We'll see how it goes.

Everything has been going really well for the past few weeks...the school year for the girls ended on Friday, and now I am working half days at the school helping out in the office (with grades, preparing for registration, all that), and half days at the daycare. Soon I will be working full days at the daycare...which I am kind of looking forward to, but I kind of think I'm going to get sick of it really fast. I really like it there, but the days are soooo very long with so little rest.

Speaking of the daycare, a couple of weeks ago, I was working at the daycare in the morning before I went over to help out in the school for the afternoon. We were outside with the kids, and they were having lots of fun, running around, chasing the rabbits (for some unknown reason, there are like 3 rabbits that are pets of the daycare, and they are always out of their cages when the kids come outside to play, and the kids ALWAYS chase them around and try to pick them up or just touch them, and the three of us who are there ALWAYS have to tell them to leave the bunnies alone....why on earth do they have these bunnies???), swinging, hitting each other, stealing toys, etc. Ah, what fun they were having. Anyway, it was time to go inside for lunch, and I was trying to get some of the kids to go in, which is always quite a task, because of course, no one actually wants to stop playing and go inside. So I decided to make it a game, and I was chasing some of them around and we decided to race to the door that led inside. Wellll, as I was running, I was looking back at the kids, sort of laughing, sort of saying, "VAMOS!"....and I may or may not have run into a tree. Needless to say, the kids just started laughing and pointing. It was super. Haha, so anyway, I had to go to the school right after that, and I realized that I had this big scratch on my cheek from running into this tree....and I had to face a bunch of high school girls. I was considering telling them all these different stories about how I got into a fight or something like that, but then I realized that wouldn't be a very role modely thing to do, so I decided to go with the truth. The whole day, people kept saying, "Kelli, what happened to your face? Are you okay?" And I would have to respond with, "Yeah....I ran into a tree...it's fine..." while shaking my head in shame/trying not to giggle too much. It was a pretty funny week...everyone kept making fun of me for running into a tree....I'm pretty sure I deserved it, though :-) Don't worry, there should be a picture below or above? of me and my scratched face.

That same week was the last week of classes for the girls, so I decided that in English class, we would learn about/celebrate Thanksgiving (since it's obviously not something they celebrate...). So the week before, we learned all the vocabulary and meaning behind Thanksgiving, which was pretty fun, and then the last week, we had a "Thanksgiving Feast," which involved eating some pumpkin pie (which I cooked! I even made the crust from scratch...Sara Storti is proud in Germany), and making some old school turkeys out of our hands. I had them write their name and three things they were thankful for on their turkey. It was pretty fun. Then, with the help of some of the girls who live in the school, I made their turkey hands into a bulletin board downstairs in the common room in the school, and I was pretty darn proud of it. There should also be a picture of that somewhere in here.

The girls had their final exams last week, and I had to proctor some of them, which was God Awful. I'll tell you what....I'm not a fan of the whole disciplining part of teaching. That's like 90 percent of it, so that's good, right? Hmmm....

I love youtube. I'm currently listening to Hanson's Christmas CD (if you can name it and you are not in my family, I'll send you something special), and it's so wonderful. Putting me in a holiday mood :-)

I have a number of favorite kids at the daycare, but I really try not to. It's difficult though, some of them are just so sweet, and some of them are just so....not sweet most of the time. Anyway, Moises, one of my favorite kids, is just so loveable and is always coming up and playing with my hair or asking me, "What is this? What is that?" He's so very sweet when we play together one on one. However. Sometimes, when other children are nearby, something comes over him, and he just will go up and bite them, pinch them, or smack them. Still not sure why he does it, but until last week, I had simply asked him to apologize to the person and told him not to do it again, but it was getting out of hand. Finally, I told him, "The next time that you do that, Moises, you are going to go to the high chair. Do you want to go to the high chair?" The high chair is where they go for time out, and apparently Moises is TERRIFIED of it, because he immediately said, "No, no!" And shook his head. So I assumed that would be the end of that at least for a while.....but two minutes later, he went up and bit another kid, so I had to put him in the high chair....he was just sooooo scared, he started screaming bloody murder, and did not stop for at least 15 minutes. It was AWFUL. It is not fun to punish children. I've had to put him in the high chair a few times since then, and I do not like it one bit. He is always slightly scared of me for about a half hour after I let him down, too....which is just heart-wrenching. I'm positive I can never be a mother. Another reason why I cannot be a mother? Today at the bus stop, I was sitting next to this woman and her child who was SCREAMING at the top of his lungs for at least 15 minutes. Without stopping. Sometimes I think, yeah I could have kids someday, I like them...they are cute. And then there are times like today at the bus stop, when I think, what if my child is like that? I will not like it....I mean, him or her. That's probably not good, right?

So, I've talked about Gloria before, the cook at the daycare, who is like my favorite person ever here in Costa Rica. She's just very sweet and personable, and she cracks me up. For example, the other day, apparently, my other favorite kid's (Dorian) mother told the nun that works there and Gloria that Dorian could not have any fruit. Still not sure why that is, but this is what Gloria tells me. So for snack, Dorian got very excited because he loves bananas, but he wasn't allowed to have one. Gloria is explaining to me that Dorian can't have any fruit, and then the nun left the room. Gloria said, "Shhh" and gave Dorian a half a banana. She said, "Go over there, Dorian so Sister doesn't see!" Haha, I started cracking up, and then Sister came in another door and saw him with his banana. She sort of condescendingly said to Gloria, "So you gave him a banana?" And Gloria said, "Sister, he just loves fruit! He must have just stolen it from another kid..." Then she whispered to me, "Shhh, look how happy he is!" And it's true, he was quite happy. I love Gloria. :-)

Alright, I'm pretty sure that's all I'm going to babble about...sorry if it's disappointing...but hopefully the pictures will make up for it! Enjoy!

Uh...yeah. Kinzie and I went to the Jade museum in San Jose, and it was basically just a bunch of artifacts from looong ago or something, and we found this one. We're pretty mature.

Flor, one of the 9th graders who is graduating.

DORIAN! He's your favorite, too, isn't he??

David...cutest smile ever. However, he really enjoys screaming A LOT. Usually because he's acting like some kind of jungle creature.

Moises! Haha, he cracks me up, and he is in the high chair for snack, so he is not scared of it here...thank goodness!

Sor/Sister Carmen Maria...she is like the mother of the 40 girls who live at this school. Even though is rarely available to answer my many questions, she is a wonderful woman. She's awesome.

The 7th and 8th graders put on a little show for the 9th graders on their last night at the school. Most of them were crying....one of them was rolling her eyes. Irk. Still very sweet though.

I helped Sor Carmen put together all the end of the year gifts for the girls, and while they were at an afternoon mass, I set up this lovely display for when the girls returned.

This is my example turkey for the classes where we celebrated Thanksgiving :-)

This was one of the better turkeys, even though I don't think it has any English on it....some of them didn't get the concept...

....like this one, for example. She drew a turkey in the middle of her hand, which she gave green finger nails. Also, you may note that on the thumb it says, "my fathers" as something that she is thankful for. In Spanish, father is "padre," but parents is "padres." I'm going to guess she wanted to say my parents? I'm a really good English teacher.

Ta-da!

The 7th and 8th graders made these for the 9th graders who are graduating. Each girl received a one with her first initial. They were super creative...I was quite proud!

Helping Raquel with her homework. I'm not very good at being candid. Is that the right word?

Yeah, you can't see my scratch from the tree very well here, but it's the only picture I took of it. That's Felix with me...he's sooo excited to be hanging out with me, don't you think?

The end! :-)

Ello, poppet!

This week was awesome. Awesome.

First, Kaitlyn Tretter answered that random question that I asked at the end of my last post. That made my week as it is. But other good things happened, too. :-)

The daycare was awesome on Monday...the kids were so good, and I don't think Hector beat anyone up the whole time I was there. I had a talk with Sor Carmen about what I can do in the afternoons at the school and how I can get the girls to respect me more, and I think she gave me some good advice, and it seemed to help the rest of the week. The classes that I taught went super well, and all of the girls participated very well. The class that has really been giving me the most trouble loved the game that we played so much that at the end of class when the bell rang, they were all shouting that they wanted to keep playing because the game was tied. I took that as a good sign. Next week is my last class with each section that I teach, because the week after this week, the girls have finals, and then they are done for the year! I decided that I wanted to teach them about Thanksgiving, so for our last class, we are having a Thanksgiving feast (AKA I'm making pumpkin pie) and practicing using the vocabulary that I taught them dealing with Thanksgiving. We will also make turkeys by tracing our hands, 3rd grade style. I'm pretty excited about it. I also think I'm going to be doing some activities with the girls this week in the afternoons, which I think will be super fun. On Thursday of their last week (finals week), we are going to watch Elf, and I'm pumped about that.

On Thursday and Friday of this last week, the girls had a spiritual retreat (8th graders on Thursday, 7th and 9th graders on Friday), and Sister Carmen asked me to go with them. I was kind of skeptical of how well the girls would do with the retreat, because they are always way too cool for school. At the beginning, they were all saying that they didn't want to be there and that they didn't want to do anything, but by the end they were all participating and having loads of fun, and when a couple of girls who were leading the retreat gave their testimonies, almost everyone was crying and hugging each other. Pretty good for a day long retreat I would say. It was very interesting to get closer to the girls in that way, and I think a lot of them are going through a lot more than I expected, and I'm so glad that I am here helping this group of girls. I just sort of felt on the retreats that I was right where I was supposed to be, and I haven't felt that since I've been here, so that was an awesome feeling.

So this weekend, Gabe and Kinzie weren't here - Gabe went to his family's house and Kinzie went to a finca with one of the women that she works with - so it was just John, Liz and me here. On Friday, though, someone that John met in Guatemala when he was studying there this summer contacted him and said that she was passing through Costa Rica, so she decided to come visit for a couple of days and stay with us. Her name is Hester, and she is from England, which was AWESOME, because I got to enjoy a British accent all weekend. However, I had to really try very, very hard not to speak to her in a British accent as I did to my friend Tom that I met in Guatemala, who told me my accent was "piss poor." Anyway, all four of us went to that dance class, and I had a blast, and I think I'm actually getting better...and maybe gaining some coordination? Crazy, I know.

Finally, Liz is at the movies right now, and she called me to tell me that they are selling advanced New Moon tickets for the movie that comes out in 2 weeks (you know, that one about vampires and werewolves)....so she got us some tickets. I made her read the book a couple of weeks ago, and now we are both very excited for the movie. Nerdy? Perhaps. Don't judge us.

JimBro!

Well this last week was rather eventful, so get excited. But not too excited, because I can't remember about half of the things I was going to write about...hopefully they will come to me.

Last week at the high school was a rather rough one....on Tuesday, I had the worst day of work EVER! One of the classes that I taught was just absolutely terrible...I've never been disrespected like that before in my life. I won't go into a lot of detail, but I am no longer certain that I'm cut out for the whole teaching thing (and don't you worry, I'm not basing it on that one day). I am really struggling defining and keeping separate the two distinct roles that I have at the school. In the mornings I am an English teacher, and in the afternoons, I am a mentor. Basically, I hang out with the girls and help them with their homework or just chat with them. When they see me in that role, it's hard for them to see me as an authority figure or as someone that they need to see as a teacher. Needless to say, I had a little chat with Sor Carmen (the nun in charge if you will), and I think that things will go better from now on. I think I will also be doing some more fun activities with the girls in the afternoons which I can plan, and I am very excited about that.

Also at work, the food is awful. I'm pretty sure I've talked about this already, but the cook at work knows very very very little English, which is fine, because I know Spanish, so we just speak that. But she, whenever I tell her that I don't want something (like a vegetable, or a salad, or some sort of spinach pie...yes spinach pie...), she says in the most condescending way possible, while shaking her head, "Oh my Gooooood!" And I stand their awkwardly and giggle, hoping that she's joking. Anyway, the other day, she said that at least 5 times, and then she finally said she would bring me my drink in a few minutes and that I should go sit down and eat (in a different room). So, I'm eating my lunch, which wasn't that horrible that day, thank goodness, and in walks one of the nuns with my drink. I tell her thank you, and expect to be left in peace, but she sort of just stared at me for a while. Finally, she says, "The cook says you are not eating." I motioned to my plate which was quite full with rice, 2 weird fat hotdog things (YUCK), and a large potato. (Time out - Alanis Morissette is singing the national anthem at the world series? Where has she been for the last 10 years?) I said, "I eat a ton! This is a lot of food! .... Don't you think?" She gives me a stern look and says, "The real problem here is that you are not eating salad." I tried explaining to her that I usually like dressing on my salad, and that I cannot eat lettuce and tomatoes plain, especially when I don't even like tomatoes! She just sort of nodded disapprovingly (sounds like an oxymoron, but boy would you be surprised) and walked away. We will see if they force-feed me veggies this week, but I promise you, I WILL vomit.

In other news, I saw a sign at the daycare with detailed cartoons about how to "hacer pipi" (go peepee) and how to "hacer popo" (go poopoo). I had a nice chuckle about that.

This weekend, Brother Jim, or "JimBro," (as Russell-the-king-of-nicknames once called him when I mentioned him on Skype) came down to do a fall retreat with the five of us and to be here for the final vows of 3 new friars on Sunday. For our retreat, we went to this beach house that the friars here have on the Pacific side. It was AWESOME. We were right on the beach and we had a pool in our back yard...it was so cool. It was very relaxing and a great environment for reflection. We all talked about our community and how we think everything is going so far, and I think we are all doing very well for the most part. We talked about what roles each of us fill in the community, and people said that I was the most loveable of the group, which I found very uplifting and quite the self-esteem booster. :-)

While at the beach, Father Mike, who came down with JimBro, said mass for us, which was really nice as the sun was setting beautifully over the ocean. After his homily, where he talked about giving things up to God, Brother Jim had us take these little fancy paper bird like things that Jeff (one of the Syracuse members) made for us and write something what we wanted to give up to God on it. Well, apparently, this fancy paper is fancy because when you light it on fire, you are supposed to throw it and it does something sweet. Wellllll, we weren't sure what that was exactly, but of course, I was the lucky first one to try it, so I lit my paper on fire, and threw it. Yikes. A flame about as big as my head appeared for about 2 seconds and the wind seemed to blow it back toward the group, so we were all pretty sure that we were going to die, but immediately, it went out and disappeared (I guess that was symbolic or something). Anyway, that is the story of how I almost lit myself on fire. It was rather exciting.

Yesterday, we came back from the beach and went to the mass for those friars who were taking their final vows, which lasted for TWO HOURS. It was like the Easter Vigil except I was totally unprepared. The Litany of the Saints (that's what it's called, right? You know, the Saint blahblahblah, pray for us...?) was at least 20 minutes long, and the whole time, there was this woman who was not even a little bit on key that kept starting the "pray for us" part a little too early. Haha, Kinzie and I couldn't stop laughing for a while.

After mass, there was this fabulous feast that was by far the best food that I've had in Costa Rica--chicken, salad (with dressing!), rolls, and, wait for it....CHEESY POTATOES!!! That's right. It was awesome. But then the cake they served was just wrong. It was some sort of flan that I was pretty not okay with. But I had cheesy potatoes, so life was good.

Okay, maybe someone can help me out here. Liz and I have been trying to figure this out. When I was at home, I can't remember why, but I had this random flash to this episode of some TV show or part of some movie from either the 80's or early 90's, and I cannot figure out what it is from. Here is what I saw in my head, minus the faces of the actors: This family who was kind of poor has a daughter who wants to go to the prom, so they buy her this pretty dress from a thrift store, but it has a big ink stain on the hip, so they cover it with this huge flower (lucky for them, this was stylish then). Prom comes around, and the daughter dances with the hottie of the school who the evil, rich, popular girl has a crush on. So this evil, rich popular girl goes up to the poor girl and tells the whole school that she has her old dress on and she RIPS off the flower to prove it! That's all I remember, but Liz and I cannot seem to figure out what on earth this is from, and it's driving us crazy. We tried googling dress with stain show/movie....didn't work so well, as you can imagine.

Home, weird dancing, and tuna fish.

Well it's been a while since I wrote on this thing, and that's because I went home last week! My great aunt/godmother, RoRo passed away after her long battle with cancer. It was really hard to be here through everything going on at the end of her life and not being able to go see her or be with her, but I was very blessed to be able to come home for the visitation and funeral and to spend some time with family. It helped a lot to see everybody, and I got some puppy love, which was great. Matt and I got to spend some time together, and I got some delicious food that I have missed so much. It was a very good week at home considering the circumstances. :-)

And I said, "Romeo take me somewhere we can be alone..." Sorry, Taylor Swift and my housemate, Liz are serenading me. I had to sing along. Just like my old roommates, she just proposed to me at the appropriate time. I miss my old roommates! Anyway, coming back here was really good...Gabriel, his uncle, and Kinzie picked me up from the airport with lots of smiles and hugs, and I really appreciated that. Then we went over to Gabriel's family's house where they had some food ready for me and were all ears wondering about my trip home....not that I was able to say much...a week of English kind of got to my Spanish (especially because it was about 11:00 PM by then), haha. Then when we got back to our house, Liz was here with her friend Frank who we have hung out with a couple of times and there were more hugs and smiles. It was really good to come back to all of that...very comforting, and reminded me that I missed everything while I was gone.

On Sunday, I went to mass, had lunch at the friary, which was great as usual. I love those friars. They crack me up. I'll have to take some pictures of them soon and put them up here :-) After lunch there, Kinzie, Liz, and I went to el Teatro Nacional to see this dance show called "Bailando en el pais del silencio," or "Dancing in the country of silence." It was modern dance, and it was really cool, but I did not understand any of it. Haha, we all tried to come up with explanations for what was going on, and none of us were really sure, and none of us had the same explanation, haha. We decided that the dancers started out as caterpillars (how on earth do you spell that word?), and then turned into butterflies (they started with these pillow things on their backs and hoodies, and then they "shed" those and started flapping...makes sense I think?), and then they were talking about sand storms and how if one aspect of the storm changes its course, it changes the whole storm. We couldn't figure out how those two went together, but it definitely is a metaphor for life we think. Right? Then the second act was all about love and how it comes in different packages and there were two men dancing together and two women and interracial "couples"...I really enjoyed that part. Then for some reason it ended with a slide show of pictures of the dancers now and them as babies? Set to that sweet version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" that is in those Rice Krispies commercials. I love that song, so it was okay with me that it was kind of a weird show that I didn't understand. And yes, you definitely know what song I'm talking about. With the ooooooo oooooooooo ooooos.

Today I ate tuna fish and cut up tomatos for lunch. Those are two of my least favorite things to eat. Terrible. The cook at work is always trying to make me eat more, and says that I never eat, which is kind of true around her, because I just never like the food that she makes...she's a very good cook I'm sure, I just don't like her choices! She's the sweetest woman, though, and we always chat it up while I eat lunch...and I always try to take a little more than I want to make her happy :-) I'll have to take a picture of her soon so I can put that on here as well.

Also at the daycare today, my favorite kid (Dorian, the baby) kept pushing people and biting people! He is learning so very quickly from the other kids how to fight and be a brat, and I do not like it. So I'm trying to stop it while he's young (yeah, obviously my one day and a half that I'm there a week will work wonders on him), so I was making him look at me every time he did something like that and told him no very sternly. However, he normally laughed at me and then hit me or bit me. That was unfortunate. Finally though, he bit this other pretty young girl on her arm for no apparent reason very hard for a very long time, and she was screaming and crying, so I decided that the best way for him to understand that he was hurting other people and that he shouldn't do it (since he didn't seem to get it from the crying and screaming) was to bite him and see how he liked it. So I bit a child. Yikes. Not very hard of course, just so that he would get the point. He kind of just looked at me with a painful/confused expression, and I told him that is how other people feel when he does it to them. He seemed process that. He didn't bite anymore kids for the rest of the day! Success. For now. We'll see how he's doing on Friday. Perhaps I should not tell too many people that I bit a child? Hmmm...

That reminds me, I also learned the word for "boo-boo" today (like when a kid gets hurt and they call it a boo-boo)....it's an "ayayay"...how fun is that?

El amor de dios es maravilloso!

This week was pretty relaxed at work, because the girls at the high school were preparing all week for a show that took place on Friday. They were celebrating "el dia de la gratitud," or the day of gratitude, and they put on this big play/musical like thing. It basically was the story of Sister Maria Romero's life (the school was founded in her name), and there were some excellent dance numbers. Anyway, all week they were rehearsing for that, so I didn't have much going on. Whenever I would try to hang out with the girls in the afternoons, they would have things to be doing, so I just watched them practice all week. However, it was totally worth it, because on Friday, I got to see the production, and it was AWESOME! They all did a really good job, and it turned out really well. On Fridays, I'm actually supposed to work at the daycare, so I thought I was going to have to miss the show, but the kids actually sang a little song right before the show called "El amor de dios es maravilloso" (The Love of God is Marvelous!). It was pretty funny though, we got the kids all dressed up and ready to go, and they have been practicing singing this song and doing motions for at least a month, and they got up in front of everyone and stared at the audience for the whole song! Haha, I think that Magaly (the woman who works at the daycare full time) was pretty embarrassed, but I thought it was cute. Anyway, I got some good pictures of the whole event, so enjoy those! I also am putting up some pictures from the amusement park with the girls :-)

Hmm...what else is new? I also attended my first dance class (yikes) and I'm going again this week! I'm terrible at dancing, but I had a good time. When John and I first got there, we started doing stretches and stuff like that, but then it turned into a full on aerobics class for the first half hour or so. Everyone was dripping sweat, and then we started learning dance steps. Haha, it was definitely a surprise, but I totally loved it. Hopefully they can teach me some rhythm while I'm here! :-)

Oh, so the other day it was raining, and John, Liz and I were at our friend Charlie's house, and as we were leaving, he said, "Hey be careful, the stairs are super slippery." Well. Even as I was fully prepared to walk carefully, I was wearing Old Navy flip flops (not a good call in a rainy country), and I may or may not have almost wiped out TWICE. I never actually fell, but I think I about kicked Charlie in the face as I was slipping and grabbing on to the railing for dear life. I have a nice bruise on my leg now from hitting it on the railing. I know...it's impressive. Anyway, enjoy those pictures!

Amanda was sleepy after her performance.
The kids and their small part in the play with the high school girls.

Sherling, Stefanie, Yahaira, Johanna, and Danya...aka "the missionaries."

The Virgin Mary and Sister Maria Romero with some angels dancing in the background.

The angels again.

My camera didn't want to take a good picture of this :-(

Raquel, Angelica, and Elda (the three on the right are students at my school, the one on the left goes to the sister school across the street that is not a boarding school).

The scenery.

How cute are they?

Monserrat, Jeremy, Amanda, and Isabela getting ready to sing.

Rosario, Yendry, Andrea, Maribel, and the bumper cars worker at the amusement park.

Melissa and Datalia in line at the amusement park.

A video of the kids "singing"