Day 6 – Settled In
10:15 am (yes, I'm technically at work. I was an hour late because of my breakfast chat with Joanie, but no one really cares here -people come and go and no one really pays attention or knows where everyone is all the time. Going to spend my work day studying Spanish, judging a drawing contest that they had at the elementary school for what should be printed on the public garbage cans that they'll be getting soon, and going to the internet to send some stuff to the CUSO office in Costa Rica)
My English is getting a lot worse very quickly. I was trying to write out an explanation on my “return ticket” (a printed email from the travel agent) and I was having trouble remembering whether to use “is” or “are” in my two sentences. Ay ay ay! So excuse the awkwardness.
Last night was the first night where I went to sleep without being really sad. Woot! I think reading Francis's blog and getting messages from Dave and Leslie helped me to feel more normal. It's great that we all went at the same time so we're going through this together. I've sucked at getting back to people and emailing, so I apologize, especially for all of the facebook messages! I saw them, I'm just trying to be efficient with my internet time. When I'm doing my Spanish lessons in San Andres, I'll probably have internet almost every day so I should get more messages out there. Know that I'm thinking about all of you, though! And thanks to everyone who comments on the blog, too! These are ridiculously long, I know, but right now, in the beginning, everything seems interesting and notable!
Joanie and Annie don't really know how much it costs to use their phones, they just buy credit, use it up and then buy more. I attempted to look up the rates online yesterday. I couldn't find the regular rates on the Claro website, but they said that it's only 0.5Q (less than 7 cents!) a minute to call Canada after 7pm and on weekends! This brought my spirits up a lot since it means that I can talk to Jeffrey every night, basically, just like when I'm in Toronto. My phone budget is going to be pretty high ($50 probably per month), but it's worth it for my sanity.
Slept 10 beautiful hours. Had a wonderful dream about buying McFlurries with my parents and Jeffrey :) Really random since I've had one McFlurry in like 5 years. Blizzards are so much better! I don't even like ice cream, but, as Joanie said this morning at breakfast, “It's like medicine, sometimes, when you're here.”
My breakfast ended up being an hour and a half of talking to Joanie over good coffee (which is hard to come by here, surprisingly.). It was extremely therapeutic. She talked to me about some of the problems she had on her first placement, which was in Peru. I talked to her about how a lot of the preparation and advice that we get is really pointless. I've broken tons of the rules/advice. If I actually avoided taking public buses, I would lose my mind! I'm a city girl at heart and being out here in a community of like 100 people is not healthy for me, every day. Everyone here at the cooperative wears shorts, tank tops and capris, which is basically everything I was told not to bring or wear. (I know the cooperative is an exception.) Joanie's going to take me shopping tomorrow for some clothes. I need to get loose pants, tank tops, dresses and probably some capris. They tell us not to having standing water because of mosquitos, but the pilas (kind of like sinks) only have water running until
I feel a lot closer to Joanie now. It's great to have someone here who really understands what I'm going through. She's going to be here the whole time I'm here, probably. I'm glad to have her as a friend. She likes practising her English (which is pretty good) so I'm sure we'll have many conversations. When she went on her first placement to Peru, her Spanish was really spotty, too. So she really understands the frustration of not being able to communicate with anyone. She's very realistic about things, acknowledging all of the great things but aware of all of the problems and downfalls of being here. For the first 9 months or so they had internet here, so she remembers that. Unlike Annie, who hates technology and the city, she's like me and really likes having the internet. Especially for her job, improving the tourism here, it's annoying not being able to advertise and communicate with potential tourists via email. I'm sure we'll be doing the happy dance when the modem gets fixed. The cooperant who was in her house before her had a cable hooked up to get the internet at home. Buuuuut...in true Guatemalan style...the cable got chewed up by a horse. Seriously. So whenever the internet gets fixed, she wants to get a new cable. Maybe I can use my jumbo roll of duct tape to try to dissuade the horses.
Apparently the tarantulas here don't bite. And if you use cockroach Raid, it paralyses them and then you can pick them up and throw them out of the house. She's only seen a couple in the year she's been here, though. And only one snake and one scorpion. Lots of other bugs, obviously, but I'm already pretty used to them. My mosquito net is definitely in my top 5 things that I own, just so I can sleep without the stress of being crawled on.
Okay, back to Spanish. Hasta luego
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