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.