Hey everyone. It´s my last day at the home of my liaison, Lorena and her husband, Victor. It´s cooler today than it has been, which is a sigh of relief for my poor gringa armpits. It doesn´t seem like anything has happened in the last three days, but I guess a lot has.
After my last post, I went to church with Lorena. I continue to not understand the value of that ritual. Yes, it is a nice community gathering, a place to meet people with common morals, and a way to spend time together as a family. It is not, however, a useful place for piety or reflection. Just as it is in the states, my thoughts are stolen by the off key singing, loud children and drone of fans as I sit cramped against strangers, sweating together in the pews. It doesn´t make sense to me to give thanks to a paternal entity in a group, or inside for that matter, anyway. I feel most at peace with God when I´m rowing in the eight on the Huron, surrounded by nature and serenity. It´s then that I truly appreciate life and this beautiful world we live in. ...Religious rant aside, at least it serves as a useful vocabulary lesson.
On Sunday, Victor, Lorena and I climbed into Victor´s monster SUV, and we made our way to Las Gambas, or The Roots, for a natural excursion. I really enjoyed myself there. We learned about all the different plants and their uses. There was one plant that our guide kept trying to explain to me, but I couldn´t understand, so finally, frustrated, he sighed and wiped his butt with one of the leaves. ...Oh, gotcha. Our guide was a really cool dude. He had two Lord of the Rings-y pieces of jewelry that he made himself out of gold he sifted out of the waterfall. They were gorgeous, I´ll post pictures later. We made our way down to a beautiful waterfall that crashed down over smooth black rocks. I changed into my suit and happily played in the fresh water reenacting all of the waterfall-postcard poses I could think of, and sun dried on a rock. It´s just too beautiful here. It doesn´t seem like this place could be a home. And it is my home, so I´d better get that worked out. When we finished out hike, the guide´s relative cooked us comida tipica in a rustic open air bar. All of a sudden a woman clicked on the TV and speakers, blaring US rap and near pornographic music videos. I am really self concious about the way people here must think about the US when I see the sources of their information. Somehow ridiculous reality shows like Dr. 90210 and Denise Richards (colon) It´s Complicated it across the boarder, but I can´t find a channel playing anything intelligent from the states... wait, is there anything like that? I´d give up my gallo pinto for a month to see an episode of Arrested Development.
I was telling my friend Scott that no one understands that I´m weird here, yet. I´m this normal, polite, pleasant exchange student. It´s awful. I don´t have the knowledge to be perverse or sarcastic or anything besides normal. Thanks a lot, Spanish 5AP! We spent a year on the subjunctive tense, and no one ever even bothered to teach me the equivalent of a that´s what she said! joke. Oh well, all good things will come with time.
I move back in with my family today, which will be a good change. ´m excited to become part of the Reyes family. Everyone is so nice. I went to the school where I´ll be working today, and attended classes with my sister, Katerina. It´s my second day of doing that. I have a lot of contact with my bosses, the nuns, but they keep sending me to class instead of putting me to work. It sort of seems like I don´t have a job. My AFS friend, Asger, is in the same ¨predicament¨, but as far as I can tell it´s not really a problem. I´ll just find useful ways to fill my time. Victor said something about maybe getting me a column in the local paper to write about my experiences which would be really cool.
Anyway, all the kids in the senior class at the school were really nice to me. I helped them practice English in their class and we joked around a little. I hope I´ll make friends with them while I´m here. I HAVE to start doing something with my period from 2 to 10PM, or I´ll die.
I hope everyone is well and maybe even enjoying the first of the fall colors.
Much Love,
Elaine
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