Settling in... (Oct. 31)

I'm doing pretty good. I have some of those uncomfortable mements with culture, but so far they haven't caused problems. My family has been awesome, I have two brothers (Kevin and Alfredo), two sisters (Yea Jin<also known as Rocio> and Kely), and karsten. I'm getting more used to Santa Cruz itself also, I took a micro yesterday by myself to downtown.
So I'm enjoying my time. I have had the one or two days when I just wanted people to just speak english or just transport to and english speaking zone, but It never lasted long (one ocassion was after a very frustrating session of teaching english, not to successfully). But I'm starting to feel very comfortable (used losely) in my spanish. Some days I feel like I understood everything said to me (Sometimes with lots of repition, but I understand what they say). At the same time everyonce in a while I (and I've found others feel this too) I just can't understand anything said to me no matter if its simple. Sometimes brains just refuse to think in another language I guess. But with all the Spanish practice my english is declining a little bit, hehe. I just typed "sed"(which means thirst in spanish but is pronounced "said") instead of "said" and had to correct it.

Here are some pictures for you to see = )
 This is my album that I should be updating regularly??? though I might put it into more than one album if there are lots of pictures.
Octubre By Kim Kim Kim (Friend) Don't know if this is public? Most of these pictures are from the birthday we had for the kids a Tajibos. Project IDI (Korean, Food for the Hungry) celebrates birthdays in groups. So on wendsday this week we had a birthday for like.... 500 Kids? I should find out the right number... But I have some pictures that I will link RIGHT (not done yet, it will be blue) HERE of the same event that I have on my camera... once i get around to it of course. =D

Gloria Showalter's Bolivia Pictures  I'm pretty sure these are public.

Work and a New Home (Oct 11)

Well yesterday after church I went home with my new host family (the one I will be living with for the rest of my time here). The house is nice, its actually sorta two houses, but thankfully I will have internet while Im here though no WiFi, which means I will have to borrow someone elses computer to use. Currently I am at the "Price of Peace" church. They have four computers here. This morning first thing when I arrive at work they tell Karsten, Carlos (Karsten is a hard name so we are changing it), and I that we will be teaching english to children. It freaked me out at little bit initially because I feel very incompetent when it comes to english(classes, I feel comfortable speaking obviously). Though after thinking it over it is only the very basics, like abcs(Spanish keyboards dont let me use apostrophes) and greetings. So the more I think about it the more comfortable I feel.

La Tejerías (Oct. 6)

The past two days we went to tejerías (a church out in the country) to help work. After our jam packed Spanish lessons (were covering every thing from hello to complicated verb tenses I can work without) in the morning we packed 6 people into a pickup truck and had three more wedged around the work supplies (we both painted and laid cement to hold a slide and some swings). After getting stopped in a police checkpoint and having to explain that my dad HAD his license renewed but just didn't have it with him we eventually made it. the first day we painted the whole sanctuary which had a white coat over it that was looking old and was chipping through to the concrete walls. The second day, today, dug holes, mixed up the cement and put the slide and swings in to keep them sturdy. at the same time as that another group painted and cleared debris out of karsten's to-be room. (karsten will be living with me but will be working much farther away than I am. he will need to take a micro (small bus) all the way out there which would be a long trip for every morning and every night, so he has a room being made in tejerías.

I hope to upload pictures some time we will see how my internet is in my host family next week.

Gloria has some on facebook already if you want to look there.

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