First Day, or, The Longest Blog Post Ever Written

Greetings. I have had my first day of classes and first night with my family. I cannot find the apostrophe on this terminal, so no contractions today. And to be honest, my brain is so fried right now, I am not even certain apostrophe is the right word.

How to tell you about my family...

I will pick up from the time MRM left. I started crying. I tried really hard not to, but I had been trying hard not to for about 48 hours, and as soon as her shuttle pulled away, I lost it. I wandered around for a while, at the Parque Central and through some of the streets in the center of town. I did not have the energy to face an entire evening with my family, and since it was Sunday, all the bookstores were closed. Bookstores are my go-to destination when I am feeling lonely, because so many of my author friends are there, it makes me feel better. So I tried to find two bookstores, and both were closed. I wandered through a market and did not find anything to buy, and finally I decided to head back to my new home.

I got there and started unpacking, and took as long as I possibly could doing so, but even so, it only took up a half hour. But the act of taking things out of my pack and putting them "away" heartened me some. After unpacking, I read my phrase book cover to cover, another half hour. Then, not wanting to delay the inevitable any longer, I grabbed my huge English-Spanish dictionary and headed to the dining room. I am not sure what to do about using names here. I do not think there are any privacy issues, but just to be safe, I will not think use their full names. So, K. is mi casa mama and A. is the 6 yearold daughter and M. is the older daughter. Though, to be honest, I have no idea if M. is related to them because she calls K. by her first name, which seems really strange.

I sat at the table with K. and A., who were working on a homework assignment for A. They built an ark from newsprint that was sailing on a sea of styrofoam (Duroport! Thank you, MRM, for knowing that word.) surrounded by plastic animals. A. immediately became my little maestracita (sita?) and began talking to me very slowly and clearly. We ate animal crackers, but not before giving the Spanish and English name for each cracker. We did the same thing with her animals for the ark, she taught me the names of them and had me repeat them back to her over and over again. Then, she got out her fake money, kind of like monopoly money, only it was a reproduction of actual quetzals, and we practiced counting in Spanish and making change. After the ark was complete, we did 3 puzzles together, a Winnie the Pooh puzzle, a Disney princess puzzle and a Strawberry Shortcake puzzle. She called Strawberry Shortcake "Pasita Fresita" which is my new favorite phrase. While doing the puzzles, I learned colors and clouds and rain and various other vocabulary.

When I got back to the casa, I had my leftovers with me from the Indian meal MRM and I had the day before. MRM had taught me how to say, "I have dinner, so you do not need to cook for me tonight" but evidently I butchered it, because K. thought I had purchased dinner for everyone, and surprised me by serving my leftovers to all of us. But they loved it! I was so happy that their first taste of Indian food was from the best Indian restaurant on earth. We had naan and dal and saag paneer and K. also made these egg and onion fritters which I could not eat fast enough. Since that meal, K. has told 4 people all about it and how good it was, so I think I will bring it home several more times.

After dinner, my lessons continued. And I must add that even though I was having a wonderful evening, it was still really stressful. I had my dictionary, A. and K. each had their dictionary and I was looking up every other word, trying to make sense. But somehow we got through it. Once dinner was over, A. got her Spanish vocabulary flashcards and laid them face down on the table, 12 at a time, and would announce a letter. I would then have to choose the correct card and we would go over the 6 words listed on that card. I would tell them what words I knew, and then they would act out the others and I had to guess what it was in English. I taught them the English words for "butterfly" and "ladybug" which they loved repeating. Oh, before that, A. asked me if I liked to read, and if I liked to read stories or books. I did not understand the distinction until I realized she was using the word for fairy tales. I told her, yes, I loved fairy tales, at which point she went and got a copy of Little Red Riding Hood ("Caperucita Roja") for me to borrow.

I am paying USD 150 a week to live here and take lessons. Included in that 150 is my homestay, which guarantees me a safe and clean place to live, as well as 3 meals a day, 7 days a week. What my family gets out of that 150 is 35 bucks a week. I can easily spend 35 bucks on one meal. I am carrying more than that on me right now, and usually carry more than that on me at all times.

Before I had come home last night, I had made the decision to move back to small, beautiful, quaint Antigua, and spend the summer with MRM at the gorgeous McDonalds courtyard. All I could think yesterday was, "I cannot believe I have 3 months here." On my way to the internet cafe just now, I was thinking, "I cannot believe I have only 3 months here."

Around 8pm last night, a family friend came over, who also happens to be a nurse. It took me a stupidly long time to realize that she was not sitting down because my books were lying on the only other available chair. She joined in on the vocabulary game as well and helped A. and K. act out words for me in our very own Spanish charades. Around 10pm I began to worry that she had not left yet, because K. told me that it was safe in our neighborhood, but you should not be out alone after 10 or 11. Finally, she got up and I assumed she was leaving, but she headed to the back bedroom and then was seen brushing her teeth. So she lives with us, which makes us a family of 5, and I am the only one with a private bedroom. A. and M. share the room next to me. K. and the nurse share the room across from me, which is so small that you cannot walk around their two twin beds, but have to climb over them. When I got here, I thought my room was kind of crappy, but it is luxurious to me now.

By American standards, this place is a dump. That is a really harsh word, but it is true. I can remember a few years ago being in Compton/Inglewood with my friend James, seeing the apartment he used to live in and thinking, "OMG, I could never do this." But his old apartment in Inglewood is a lot nicer than where I am currently. Here, there is hardly any furniture, nothing on the walls, no "living room" to speak of, only a single bureau that serves as everyones closet as well as the linen closet. But the place is so flipping clean and the people who live here are so incredibly patient and warm and generous and accepting of me, that it took me hours to realize what is not here. There is not a single chair in the apartment. There are 5 seats in the apartment, and they are 5 cheap plastic stools that we use to sit on at meals, or use as tables when A. and I are making clay animals in the courtyard, or to put the radio on in the kitchen, etc. In the kitchen, there is no runnning water. In fact, there is not a sink in the kitchen. Or a microwave. Or an oven. Or a refrigerator. The kitchen is a tiny room with a wooden bench in it, and balanced on the bench are 4 stove eyes that are connected to a can of kerosene in the corner. There are 2 small metal shelves that hold the food and dishes, and oftentimes both. K. makes food and then covers it and stores it on the shelf. The rice that we did not eat last night is now covered on the shelf, and part of todays lunch was a pot of mashed potatoes that had been sitting there for an unknown length of time and were reheated with milk and butter. The milk is not kept cold, nor are the eggs, but I had both for breakfast and they were delicious. I told the school that I do not eat meat, and I am really glad I did, because even though all the meat she serves is cooked, I feel better about eating bread and veggies that have not been refrigerated than meat. The stove is so low that you have to kneel to cook at it, although it is the perfect height for A. who was helping make tortillas this afternoon.

Outside the house there is a large stone cement sink that the dishes soak in before they are washed. There is also a "pila" which is where the laundry is done. The pila is a stone sink with a slanted, ridged bottom, that you rub your clothes on to clean them. Then you rinse them, wring them, and put them on the line. I hope my cheap-o Old Navy clothes can withstand this. The only sink in the house is in the bathroom. It is tiny, about the size of a magazine, and only has a cold water faucet. The bathroom "cabinet" is a red plastic basket nailed to the wall beside the sink. In the shower (which is huge, yay!) there is also only one faucet. So my heart fell this morning, envisioning 3 months of shaving my legs in cold showers. But not so! It was warm, actually only barely hot, which is how I like it, because hot showers make me nauseous. I cannot tell you how happy that warm water made me. Before I left the States, I got used to turning the water off during the shower except for rinsing off, so it seems natural now. I am trying to use as few of their resources as possible.

The whole week in Antigua I laid awake at night in the hostel praying -- begging, really -- to be placed with the perfect family for me. But also, I secretly hoped they would be rich. In the few hours that I have been here, it is evident that my prayers have been answered. It is almost like, Hey, God knows what He is doing. I am already in love with these incredible people who have opened their home and their lives and their hearts to me, who have so little, but offer it so freely. There is so much love and warmth and affection between them all, it is such a pleasure to experience. I am humbled and honored to share my life with them over the next 12 weeks. I think I will learn so so so much from them. And perhaps Spanish, as well.

And speaking of... School went really well. Which is to say that it is exhausting. This morning there were 6 other students. In the apartment above me lives another student with her host family. So we walked to school and back together today. When we got to school we all met in the kitchen and introduced ourselves and then were paired with our teachers. Mine is named Helen, and she is wonderful. Although I feel bad for her. I hope she makes a lot of money teaching. I do not think I would last an hour having to listen to students like myself bumble their way through the language. I had to take a placement test, which, even though you cannot techincally fail a placement test, I did. We worked in the basics, indefinite and definite articles, present tense with regular verbs, interrogatives, etc. One hour in, I was thinking, At least this will be over at noon, and then I remembered that I signed up for 5 hours of classes and we would not get done until 1pm. At our break, I walked Erin, the student who lives above me, to the pharmacy, because she has been sick with a head and chest cold. We did not find exactly what we were looking for, but I was able to recognize the main ingredients in Sudafed and cold medicine, so she bought that. Hope it works...

After the break, we again gathered in a circle and had to introduce ourselves again, tell one thing me like and one thing we do not like. I said I liked my host family and did not like hot weather. And actually, today was perfect. Overcast and cool. I burned really bad yesterday, so it was a welcome reprieve.

Helen did not assign homework to me, and when I asked for some, what she gave me seems pretty easy. I like easy. For now, at least. Tomorrow we begin integrating Medical Spanish into my lessons. I really want to throw myself into these lessons and learn as quickly as possible so I can begin volunteering at the clinics. Although, to be honest, I am so profoundly exhausted still that I cannot imagine working a 5 hour shift at the clinic on top of all this. Part of me really wishes I was not committed to school in August, and could spend the summer learning Spanish very well and then spend the fall/winter simply working in the clinics. I guess Xela is not going anywhere.

Thanks for reading, and for your kind words and thoughts and prayers. I appreciate them!