A blustery bloggish sort of day

So I’ve been warned that the rainy season is coming. I’m slightly confused because we already had storm season from august to November, rainy season from December to February, and apparently it’s back again. Well, March was nice while it lasted. :-) Oh well. The rain is kind of nice. It makes a cup of tea more enjoyable, drinking it hot doesn’t leave me feeling very well when it’s 90 degrees out. And I’ve missed cozying up in a sweatshirt. So, at least this first day of rainy season, I’m enjoying myself. The thunder is one of my new favorite sounds and lightning helps in the evenings when the power is out. :-) Otherwise, life has been pretty normal.

I tend to go through phases and I’ve been through the studying Spanish phase, the exercise phase, the journaling phase, the visiting phase, and recently I’ve found myself in a want-to-play-sports phase. Unfortunately that is not a feminine role here. Women can do pretty much whatever they want that the men do. They can drive their motorcycle through town -- with HIGH heels of course, and they can follow their career dreams. But sports, that’s just weird to them. The girls wouldn’t care to play anyways; in fact I recently learned that flying a kite as a girl makes me quite strange here. Who would have guessed? Anyways, this last week I showed up at the end of a baseball practice and finally convinced them to pitch a few at me promising them I wouldn’t be upset if they hit me with the ball. The look on their face when the bat I was holding actually connected with the ball was priceless. After an adequate number to convince them I wouldn’t embarrass them, they invited me to the game on Sunday. Yay. Who knows if I’ll get to play, but at least I finally have a chance.

I’ve also started to pick up basic French phrases from my roommate Nathalie. For a long time she has been trying to convince me to learn. It’s not that I don’t want to, but English and Spanish has been enough to keep me busy up until this point. But I agreed back in October that when I was fluent in Spanish at Spring break (haha..optimistic thinking) I would gladly learn her French as well. So Spring break has come and gone and now I willingly say funny words like "comment ca va." (how are you?).

Life has been good. My kids now tell me jokes and play on words in Spanish and I enjoy their company. The May 12 deadline seems so far away when I think of how I still miss my family. But knowing that the day I get on that plane I will most likely never live here again, it is coming up way to fast. We’ve finally established ourselves here. The shop at the end of the street knows that I either want a phone card, pear juice, chocolate, or muffin. The girls are my sisters, and the students, those are my kids. I can now zone out during a sermon and still catch most of the topic. I teach high school juniors and seniors as well as my 5th-8th graders and sometimes it’s weird to realize I’ve already and only been out of high school for 2 years all at the same time. I’m a high school teacher not a high school student. I’ve survived in the adult world for almost a year and I think it would be even easier in my original language as an actual adult instead of in this crazy middle role. It will be nice to go back to student life for awhile. And then eventually I’ll be pushed back into this adult craziness, but at least I got a test drive. Those are just a few thoughts I’ve been bouncing back and forth on this blustery melancholy day.

I’ll leave you with my dear Ciro’s joke from English class yesterday. It’s better in Spanish, but here you are enjoy.

I’ve been teaching: what time is it? It is..., etc. One of the terms in Spanish is media which is used for a half hour. So the following sentence: Son las diez y media means it is ten thirty. Many times while I am teaching I’ll use a word I remember from Spanish class just to find that they don’t use that word here. They’ll recognize it enough to correct me because of the context, but I have to learn the new word instead. As I was teaching time, I asked Ciro, "How do you say media in English?" I suppose at this point it is important for you to know that media here also means sock. So that funny little kid that he is said, "Well teacher I think you mean thirty, but here we don’t say media, we say zapato [shoe]." I apologized and repeated the question, "Ciro, how do you say zapato in English?" At that point the play on words caught up with me and we all had a good laugh. Oh well, I’m pretty sure that thanks to Ciro, we will never forget how to say “It is ten thirty” in English. :-)

God bless. Have a great day!