What's new?

So... I left home almost a week ago and have been in Santa Rosa de Copan for five whole days now – I can’t believe that it has almost been a week already but at the same time it feels like I have been here forever.  This past week has definitely been a learning experience to say the least.  I was finally able to talk to my family yesterday.  My dad asked what was new, and the only thing that I could logically say as a response was "everything."  

This past week I have:

·         Eaten more beans (in various forms) and corn tortillas that I have in my entire life.

·         Learned that I can communicate in Spanish (not well).  I typically understand about half of what is told to me and the other half, well, I nod, say okay, and hope that the half that I think I understood is in fact what they said and I can, for the most part, piece together what is being told to/asked of me. 

·         Gotten used to taking cold showers and am in fact very thankful that I have a working shower that I can use on a daily basis.

·         Swept outdoor patios on a daily basis.  I suspect that I will have broom calluses on my hands when I return home. 

·         And many other things that I’m forgetting at the moment.

That being said, Honduras is AMAZING!  The girls here are incredibly loving and have accepted me with open arms.  Often times it feels as though there are here to help me out rather than the other way around.  They are continually helping me figure out what I’m supposed to be doing at any given time, or leading me to where I’m supposed to go, because, as I said before, I really only understand half of what is told to me.  There is such a feeling of love here!  The girls are continually giving each other hugs, holding hands, and walking with linked arms (and of course I’m included).  Although a majority of the girls only got here on Monday, they already appear to be a family – and new girls are arriving on a daily basis and are welcomed immediately into the family.  There are now 18 girls here (and I can name a majority, SCORE!  as 1. I never have been very good with names and 2. their names are all Spanish).  I was told when I first got here that a lot of the girls are from the campo.  However, the part that I didn't understand about this fact is that when you are living in the campo, there aren't really walls... there aren't houses as we know them.  So while I am absolutely in awe of the open air courtyards in the middle of the school where I am literally outside after I walk about 10 feet outside of my room (Friday night after the girls and I watched 101 Dalmatians, I happened to look up into the sky and have never seen so many stars, not even when camping!)  So while I am in awe of the open spaces that I find, some of these girls feel trapped by the walls in addition to being homesick.  I can't even imagine!   

The sisters here are all hilarious!  Their favorite pastime while we are eating together is to ask me how to say various things in English.  They attempt to repeat what I say, butcher it, and then laugh at each other’s horrible pronunciations or the shape of someone’s mouth or how they stuck their tongue out in a certain way to try to produce the word.  (In Spanish, they don’t have a whole lot of dental sounds, so for example, this evening while eating dinner, Sor Virma was trying to say the word “Thursday” and when trying to produce the beginning ‘th’ she stuck out her tongue, but she had rolled it as well.  After she butchered the pronunciation, Sor Rose proceeded to stick out her own tongue and made various faces all the while laughing.  One of the sisters actually started crying because she was laughing so hard!) 

Classes for the girls start tomorrow, which means that I’ll really have to start teaching English… YIKES!  We will see how that goes.  I have a lot of ideas, but not sure how to put them into cohesive unites that I can test the girls on… I know it will work out, but I want to do it right, and I’m not quite sure how to do that yet. 

I guess that’s all for now… talk to all of you soon.  Keep me in your prayers – you are forever in mine.