My friend Beth and I have been trying to make an effort to remember things that are normal to us, but not normal to every American. After living here so long, I understand the culture and the little everyday quirks. My walks to Spanish school the past few weeks, have opened my eyes 'again' to my differences. So I'm going to recap my day. I wake up to roosters crowing when the sun comes up at 6 every morning. There are no dark curtains anywhere, so naturally, I wake up. Its normal now, and I don't get upset for the lack of sleep. Its nice, not having to rely and dread an alarm clock. I get ready for the day, check the coffee pot for bugs (I haven't always had this problem, but up here in the woods during rainy season, it is). Then I start my walk through the dirt hilly roads. I don't really know how to describe this, I guess picture a dirt country hillside road, but smaller with little red, three wheeled taxis (but not when I need them!!) My walk is probably about 2 km (it takes about 30 minutes there, and 40 minutes back) downhill there, uphill back! Along the way, I pass groups of men sitting on a bench making comments at people that walk by. I pass a mother and her kid going to school or to work. I pass students walking together. Rarely I see a car. And when I do, then comes the dust!
Every day for the past week, I have had the joy of listening to the same conversation from all these groups of people. All I ever seem to hear is "2 metros?" along with a bunch of other guesses at my height. Its really funny, because they don't know that the other people have been having the same conversations, on different parts of the road; and they don't know I understand them.
Other normalcies, bugs, no power, and no water. Today in my class the power went out for 2 hours, its normal. Always talking about the water supply, or running out, its all normal. But I realize I don't talk about it, so no one in the States knows what my normal life entails.
I'll try to think of more, but these are just a few. These are a few pictures of fruits here. The round one is called a 'mangostine' Its a sweet fruit, you eat the inside. The inside looks like cloves of garlic, but the individual cloves are soft and sweet.... definitely NOT garlic! The bright colorful fruit is called a 'marañon' They do not smell very good, and we did not have high hopes for the taste. Then we were told we could make a juice out of it. We did, with lots of sugar and water.... and it was good! So then, as a team, Beth, Tristan, and I, we decided to simultaneously taste the smelly mystery fruit. We ate together, gagged and made a face together, then spit it out together! It was very bitter and gave you the instant feeling of a very dry mouth. It was strange, but the juice is good.
In other news, today at Spanish class, we had the opportunity to visit a kindergarten, for me to tell a story in Spanish. I chose the story of Noah. It went well, and at the end the teacher told me my Spanish was really good. It was a good experience, I just need to work on the commands :) Like be quiet, listen, sit!!!
Another compliment I received about my Spanish was when I asked my teacher what I should put on a questionaire they had given me. "my current level of Spanish" Of course I asked, and to my surprise with the choices: beginner, intermediate, and advanced; she told me advanced and I just need to practice more for it to be natural. But communication is great, I just need to practice more the random, less used tenses!!!
2 more days of Spanish lessons. Monday I leave for the states.
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