its a short one!!!!!!

Sunday:

I woke up without a hangover! Yeah! T and I came back to site after eating some really good Mexican food. The ride was pretty uneventful, although we were both groaning about stops because, well, beans for lunch wasn’t the best idea. After I got home, I kind of chilled out, read a little, went to the internet café where I posted the last blog. I tried doing a videochat with the folks, but the connection was bad.

Monday:

I went to the office in the morning, and found out that I didn’t have work that day, yeah!, oh wait, I am supposed to be here to work: shucks, tisk, tisk, tisk. Actually, I enjoyed having the day off. In the afternoon, T and I went shopping. We are in the middle of feria now, which is kind of like a fair, but really the only part I have seen is that there are a TON of vendors in the plaza. So, I bought some gifts for friends and family. No, you will not be getting them now, I just thought ahead to buy a few pieces of a time, so right before Christmas I am not going crazy. I even bought something for my niece/nephew, does that make me the first to buy him/her something?! We also tried out a restaurant which I hadn’t been to. It kind of felt nice to be doing something so normal, going shopping and going out to eat.

In the evening I had my first tutoring session here, and I think my tutor and I are going to have to talk a little. We went over the alphabet and what are accents for an hour. Ok, first, this is not my first rodeo as far as languages are concerned, and second, "$%&$, I don´t need to spend a lot of time learning the miniscule details of spanish. I told him I wanted an hour long conversation where we talk, and he corrects me when I make errors. Its all that I want, pretty simple right. See, the thing is, once you get done with training, you are done with spanish lessons, and the average Honduran will not correct you, they will tell you they can understand you well enough, but will never correct you. So, everyone from the bottom spanish levels to the top, are thinking that over the next two years we will develop some really bad habits with spanish because there is no one to tell us we are doing it wrong. I didn´t want to say anything last night because he seemed so happy and had really thought out the fact that we would repeat the letters a million times and I would have to write them out: I have been reading and writing in those very same letters (minus ch, ll, ñ) for a very long time! Ahh. Welcome to life in the Peace Corps!

Tuesday:

We were supposed to head out to the aldeas today to begin another study, but that was before my counterpart remembered the meeting with the funding agency. Its not good to skip those. So, I go in, and learn there is a meeting. I was kind of curious to meet these people, so I said I would like to sit in on the meeting. Four hours later, I was regretting it. Actually, that is a lie, an hour later I was regretting it, we stopped for a lunch break at four hours. Then we went out to lunch. This was a little odd, because I didn’t know if I was invited, and then I didn’t know if I was expected to pay for myself. I don’t normally carry money around, so was kind of like, oh no, what do I do? But it all worked out. We went to this nice and cheap place. I talked a little more, the meeting was about stuff I wasn’t involved in, mainly planning which had already taken place.
Cultural differences:
At the end of lunch, my counterpart asks me if he can ask a question. Then he repeats that (which asking twice threw my brain for a loop) while saying, forgive the question. So, now I am expecting something bad. He asks if I was feeling alright because I looked thinner. Well, I am an American woman, you can tell me I look thinner every day! Later I will explain that in the US, telling someone they look thin or thinner is normally a compliment. Here, you get, you are looking really healthy, you have gained a few pounds! My sitemate has received this, and didn’t take it all that well. Now, for those of you worrying, I think he made the whole thinner thing up. I don’t have a scale here, so I can’t be sure, but I don’t think I have lost weight. The other tried and true way of deducing your weight is the dry pants test: you put on your jeans after they have been in the dryer and compare how they fit to the last time you did it. Well, no dryers around here, so this test doesn’t work; in fact, jeans just keep stretching and stretching and stretching.

Whoa, this computer does not have microsoft office on it, so I had to open my saved file of this blog using notepad, weird. It worked though!