Xela!

Happy Día de la Revolución!

Well world, I´ve been here in Xela for a week and a half, and I´m really liking it (except when I got sick last week- boo)! I´m living with a family here, and they´re absolutely great! Guadalupe (the mom) is one of the hardest working people I´ve ever met- and 6 out of 10 of her kids (all daughters!) still live at home, ages 24-14ish. Also, 2grandkids live here, so it´s quite a full house- but I do have my own private room, so I get privacy (but not much quiet, haha) when I need it. As expected, it´s been a little hard/awkward to find my place with this family, but they´ve been really warm and welcoming, so that´s been great. I´m learning to tortillar (make tortillas), too-- soon I´ll be ready to wed once they´re nice thin circles... but for now, let´s just say that it´s easy to tell which ones Juli made, haha. Otherwise, we also bond a lot over the telenovelas/ music videos that are on TV 24/7. Especially since my 2nd work project has yet to be found, I have a lot of free time to bond and watch novelas- so it´s not a totally bad thing!

My job is great! I´m helping cook lunch and then sit and eat lunch with the ancianos (elderly people) through a program that the Episcopalian church I go to does. It´s a really wonderful program, because most of the ancianos don´t have family, so they´ve created their own there at the lunch program-- and I´m slowly finding my way into it. It´s a really really neat program- the only problem is that it´s only like 3 hours a day, so I really feel like I have time to do another project, too... so like I said, that´s int he works (hopefully).

This photo is of my street and the bus I take every day into Xela. (Don´t ask me about the ¨Car Wash¨-- I have NO idea what that is-- that´s just one of the English phrases that never changed into Spanish around here, and I have never seen evidence of cars being washed there.) The other photo is a random shot in Xela proper, and my feet are in the Parque Central of Xela.


That´s my little update. Hope all are well :)
bendiciones, juli