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"

MASH

So this week has not been all that eventful, but I actually have a little bit of free time on the computer, which is rare, so I thought I'd write something. :-)

So, I'm teaching English at this boarding school for girls, and on Tuesday I had a pretty good lesson planned for the eighth graders. I cut out some pictures from a magazine and the girls were going to have to talk about what the people were wearing and what they looked like (okay, maybe it wasn't that good). Anyway, the music teacher came right before I was about to go teach, and she stayed until about 20 minutes before my last class ended. Although I did not get to teach my super awesome lesson, I did get a chance to learn some awesome praise and worship music in Spanish! For some reason, the music teacher thought I was a student, so she made me sit with the sopranos (I could have told her otherwise, but I kind of wanted to sing). Now, other than 8th grade chorus, I really don't have much experience with singing, but I enjoy doing it when nobody else is around. Well, after putting me with the sopranos and giving me a sheet of paper with the lyrics (no music to read), she then decided it would be a good idea to try to make me harmonize. So there I am, attempting to harmonize to a song I've never heard before without having any music to read, and suddenly, the teacher decided it would be a fabulous idea to shove the MICROPHONE in my face so that everyone could hear. Haha, it was very awkward, but I enjoyed every minute of it.

So far this week, I taught some of the girls how to play MASH (Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House), which they thoroughly enjoyed, and I also sang a little Celine Dion and Bryan Adams for them. All in all, I'd say it was a successful week.

Tomorrow I have a day off from the daycare so that I can be a chaperone for the girls at the amusement park! I'm pretty excited about that, and also scared that the girls I am in charge of will run away. Wish me luck!