1 week down.

Wow I can't believe it has been a week... I can't believe it has already been a week... and that it has only been a week. A lot has happened...

It was exactly a week ago that I left for my new home at Ministerios de Amor.

On a "normal" day I...

Help dress the "bebes," get them ready for the day, and bring them over for breakfast. This begins at 6:00 (feel free to let your jaw hit the floor now... at the fact that I am actually starting my day before 6AM!). Then I eat a quick breakfast with them, get my things together, and leave for class. I take a taxi every morning and it takes 20-30 minutes... I pretty much hit rush hora (la hora pica) dead on... If I left about 5 minutes earlier I would be about 10 minutes early for class but if I leave at 7:30 I get there pretty much right on time... once a minute or two late... (I'm sure you really care about my taxi rides and rush hours). After class I come back to the casa CEMAL to do my homework/check my e-mail/update my blog/take a break... and then at around 1:30 I eat lunch with whatever staff is around... then I walk downtown to take the 1hr bus ride back home. When I get there the kids are working on homework because they also just got back from school. So I help with homework and play until it is time to bathe the bebes and get them all ready for bed... Then I... go over and help with the older kids dinner and clean up, or talk to the tias or other people... or do whatever else needs to be done.

Saturday I helped with a variety of different things and met many new people who were around to help on the weekend. On Sunday we went to church. All the children from all of the different houses go to the same church.. Mamí Ceci's church. It was really cool to experience... Some of the kids have older siblings in other homes, and got to see them at Church which was awesome... The church itself was really interesting to me... It was pretty much only Ministerios de Amor(MdA) kids and Staff. Apparently they used to go to some other church... I'm not really sure what the story is though... I think it is awesome that all the kids go to church together and siblings get to spend time together ever week... and it would have to be a good sized church to be able to accomadate like 200 kids... but it is really intersesting if in fact they do have their own church... Ha, I've been busy...

This may be the semester that I actually kick procrastination's butt! I really don't have a much time to do homework while I'm at the house... so I have to be diligent about getting it done in the time I have after class and before lunch... this is sure to be a challenge... In reality I could probably do some homework at night... but I have been way to tired for that. And this is coming from a girl who has no problem pulling all-nighters. Go figure. I knew it would be time of firsts...

The adjustments are coming... I'm understanding easier and easier... the confidence in speaking is coming too, but much slower. I love that I have kids to practice with... we just laugh when we don't understand each other... they probably take advantage of it sometimes... and I think I need to learn all the "bad words" to know when they're saying them... Add that to the list of things I wish I would have learned in spanish class... along with apurarse=to hurry (a word a hear about a million times a day), bien can be used like muy, or "very" (ex:bien deficil...etc), people don't actually say "can I use..." puedo/podría usar...  they ask if you will lend it them... and I'm sure there are so many more... ha. but as it has been my life here so far... things are about to change again, My semester group comes this weekend and my Universal (language school) friends leave. Once the semester group gets here I will be even busier... I will have orientation stuff and who know what else, and then real classes will start. yikes.

Pray: that the comprehension and confidence would continue to improve. That I would be able to build relationships with the people at MdA, esepcially my roommate (we had a couple of good nights of talking, starting with when I walked down to the store with her one night... but it has been uncomfortable again lately...). That all of the semester students would arrive safely and the next transition would go well. That I find a way to end well my time with friends from Universal while living and spending all of my time at MdA.

People have been asking... so here's my address. They kind of adviced against packages... especially through the mail. I know you all really want to send me huge packages of goodies.... haha. Cards and letters should be fine... and UPS/FedEx could be ok too.

J.H. Preciado # 314

Colonia San Antón

Cuernavaca, Morelos

C.P. 62020 MEXICO

Changing sceanery (again and again)

Changing scenery again and again

Well... I started this post about 6 days ago and never finished it... So I'll give you that and then get to the rest :)

¡Feliz dia de los tres reyes!

Today (1/6/10)in Mexico it is el Dia de los Tres Reyes or the Day of the Three Kings. Today they celebrate that day that the three kings (or however many wisemen) brought gifts to baby Jesus. Today is the day that they give gifts (mostly only to children) instead of giving gifts on Christmas. Everyone celebrates by eating this big round sweet bread called rostro and drinking hot chocolate. Each person has to cut their own piece of bread because inside the bread are little plastic baby Jesus toys. Who ever cuts the baby Jesus or gets a piece with it inside has to through a party and buy tamales for everyone in February... we celebrated it at the school and then again back at the house because a travel seminar group arrived that night. They're studying migration.

Which leads to my first change... After spending two nights in the house by myself (the interns and the professor from Augsburg are in the other house... la casa verde). I got kind of used to being alone... then this new group (Aindrea, Brittany, Becky, and Alicia) came and they are staying in the house I stay in... la casa CEMAL(change). Since I hadn't started my practicum yet i was able to join them for some things... We went to the market, learned about the economy of migration, and listened to the stories of people who either went to the US to work or had family that did so. These people also happened to be there host families. After two days of living in the casa CEMAL with me, they stayed with host families for the weekend (change). So I had the house to myself for the weekend. They came back on Sunday (change) and I moved last night (huge and permanent change!).

The language school keeps changing too. When I first started there were only a couple people there... Taylor and Ben from Rhode Island (they had been there a week before I got there), Mike (the social work prof), another woman in his class, and a woman from Canada... and that was about it for students. Then a huge group about 20-ish people from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD aka RIZ-DE) came and started taking classes, then the next day the four girls in the travel seminar started taking classes, and this weekend a group of 14-ish from Pennsylvania came... We also change classes every week. So yesterday I started a new class with Taylor, Ben, a girl from Pennsylvania named Rachel (she's going to be here for a while!), and a girl from RISD named Laurel.

Icm sure you're all wondering what I did this weekend all alone in the casa CEMAl. right? but I told you I have friends... remember? haha. On Friday after the other girls left... I watched a little OTH and went to bed. Haha. I was exhausted... and no one was doing anything. on Saturday I went to church with Christina... ate lunch, went to visit the house with stephanie,

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I don't think I told you all what I am going to be doing for my practicum/fieldwork/internship (whichever word you prefer). I'm going to be working for a place called Ministerios de Amor (http://www.ministeriosdeamor.org.mx/ in spanish). They have several homes for street kids and orphans... what I was told is most of the kids have some sort of family but for some reason or another they can't live with the... whether they're in jail or something else... I am going to be working in the house for the little kids and babies. It is also the place where I a going to be living!

--------resume---------

went downtown to eat Pizza with Mike, and met Taylor and Ben on the walk back... I literally turned around and walked right back where I came from. We ended up at a bar with a couple of RISD girls... with out of even meaning to... but 3 soon turned into 10... and then even more... we stayed there for a while just hangin out... and then we went to a club and stayed there way to late because we left at 8am for an excursion with the language school the next day... this left me with about 3hrs of sleep before climbing the pyramids. We went to a place called teotihuacan, I have pictures but not time to post them... here's the google images version...http://www.teotihuacanhoy.com/teo/upload/imagenesnotas/teotihuacan0eu.jpg . It was a really fun, beautiful, impressive place... with lots of really interesting history... ask me about it later...We also stopped a really interesting tourist trap... and learned about all of the things you can make out of this one cactus (soap, paper, needle, fibers for weaving, and a drink) but... If I don't move on now I wont have time to talk about anything else... and I rambled a lot already! The other girls came back on Sunday we went out to eat.... New class on Monday... and then... repacking and moving in!!!

Stephanie took me out there around 4... we talked to the Tia (which means aunt... but is what the women who work there are called), I think I met about 500 people and remember about 5 names... then I helped two girls with there home work... who were much more interested in this strange new person than their homework... I hope I didn't get them in too much trouble... after homework time I helped bathe (well, dress after they were bathed) and feed the littlest ones and then went over to be introduced to all the other children and helped with supper... then I the girl (16-ish) that I am rooming with showed me the room and made room for my things... then we went back to eat a little something, watched part of a novela and part of some movie on TNT, returned to our room, I did some homework and passed out because I was exhausted and had to be in the Kitchen by 6 to help with breakfast... Then I went to class this morning... it is sure to be an eye-opening and interesting experience... I'm sure I will have many stories to tell... so far I feel pretty lost there... I don't know what I am supposed to be doing most of the time... I was pretty confident in at least my spanish comprehension skills before I went there... and last night and this morning, I felt like they could have been speaking french... I know that will come though...

Well... I think it is about time for lunch... I'll update again when I have time... You can pray for the transition to living out there and that comprehension would come quickly.

I'm here!

So, I made it!

I arrived on Sunday night around 11 in Cueravaca after...

- a plane that was delayed 2.5 hrs which led to...

- a really long layover in the lovely terminal 5

- a 4 hr plane ride with no movie!

- lots of airline people that thought if they repeated themselves and yelled louder that you would know what they meant... in both languages!

- a restaurant/meeting place in the airport with a new name

- a very lost, non-Spanish-speaking Swiss boy that my driver kindly brought back to Cuernavaca which resulted in...

- an hour-ish bus ride of translating for my new Swiss friend (Ben?) even though the driver Ismanuel knew some English but spoke only in Spanish be because he liked that I could understand him :p

I got about 7 hrs of sleep after a very long and tiring day of travel and yesterday I...

- had class at 8AM with the best teacher Rosario

- met new friends Ben y Taylor who had Rosario for their last class and are very jealous. They will be here for only a couple more weeks... but they will leave around the same time the rest of the group will arrive. Don't worry... I'm not lonely here. :)

- ate lunch in a small restaurant near our houses with Cristina and one of the other staff (I can't think of her name)

- went to "el centro" or downtown by myself in the afternoon... to start get to know the area and just see what was there

- saw the cascada (waterfall) with Cristina the Intern who is one of the few people that is already here

- went to dinner with Cristina and Mike (the Social Work prof from Augsburg) at a restaurant downtown

- and moved rooms about 3 times...

Today hasn't been to eventful so far... I went to class and had a meeting with Stephanie who is in charge of the internship stuff. I should be starting that at the end of the week I think.

Well, that's all for now...

Last moments in the states

I am sitting in the Chicago airport in terminal 5 waiting for my flight to leave for Mexico city. For those of you who have flown through chicago before, terminal 5 is not like the rest of the airport. It is very small, about 4 restaurants, and you better eat before going through security (thank you check-in lady!)
So It begins... My semester in Mexico starts today and I'm so excited. I am going to be studying abroad in cuernavaca, Mexico. I'll be taking social work and Spanish classes and doing a social work internship there.
I can't wait to tell you all about my experiences!

PS
Last meal in the states... McDonalds. Yuck, but maybe appropriate...