The Little Engine That Could

First let me say how awesome it is to read the comments that everyone is leaving, its really helping me through this and keeping me in touch with the world back home. On that note, emailing is proving to be more expensive than I thought since I have so many things to check when I get to the internet cafe. (gmail, bellsouth, blogger, etc) I think my blog will be my primary form of computer communication, with exceptions of course.

This past weekend my ¨famly¨and I went to Valle de Angeles for a day trip to visit some of the extended family. The bus ride there took about 45 minutes and went straight through the mountains. Along the way we passed random homes on the side of the road, which seemed unbelievable to me since there were no towns that close by. Just when I thought I was in the middle of nowhere soaring through the mountains on a yellow school bus, Michael Jackson tore through the speakers and huge advertisements for dorritos littered the boulders on the side of the road. The sights and sounds defintely brought me back to reality. When we arrived to the main village North American tourists were everywhere! It was pretty unexpected, especially when they would look at me with a look as if to say, ¨I wonder if that guy speaks english?¨ From the village we took, what could have quite possibly been the smallest taxi I have ever seen. My host sister, two kids and I climbed into the back seat praying that we would make it all the up the moutain. As I couldn´t help but feel partially responsible for the slow ascent, I expected the ¨taxi¨ to slingshot up the mountain if I were to hop off. Once we got there I met my host mom´s entire family, including her seven simblings and mother. I quickly learned that the trip to the valle is a bit a right of passage within my host family, since my host mom has hosted several volunteers in the past...either that or because I have a digital camera and my host mom needed pictures of the newlyborn grandchildren to send to family in the states. I´m gonna pretend that its the latter. Around four we made our way back on a bus that stuffed to the brim. Instead of enjoying the picturesque views, I was more concerned with who was touching my thigh and why there were so many chickens on a bus. All in all the trip was a bunch of fun and very well needed. Getting out and about has really distracted me from missing home, as well as having to watch Dragonball Z with my host brother who is OBSESSED! I won´t lie...its fun to watch.

Today we were placed in our respective spanish classes according to speaking level. The levels go from novice to intermeidiate, then advanced, and finally superior. While I wanted superior I knew that there was no way I would get it. Within each level there are three classes, low, med, and high. Not to toot my own horn, but I was expecting to be in Advanced high with other native speaker, but alas I was placed in Advanced med. Everyone seemed pretty surprised with placement decisions overall, so we will see in the next few weeks if people get shifted around. Other than that the day pretty much flew by. After class some volunteers and I went to get some coffee, alfajores (known as el chileno here), and milojas pastry. It was fun and a great opportunity to get to know some of the 46 volunteers that are here.

On a completely separate note I need to say that my 4 year old host brother ends every meal with: ¨gracia a dios, ya comi. Amen!¨ Which translates into ¨thank g-d, I already ate. Amern.¨ Its awesome.

I love you and miss you all so much