A Whole New World

hola from santa teresa, carazo. í´m not going to use caps or much punctuation because i´m paying per minute and it´s a lot easier to type this way. i really am enjoying my time here, but i´m not gonna lie it´s hard. every moment of every day except for when i´m studying, reading, or journalling is in spanish. oftentimes i don´t understand my family´s questions so i really don´t talk as much as i would in english, but each day gets exponentially better. there are two other pc trainees or i should say aspirantes in my little town. in our stolen moments of speaking english we´ve communicatd that we´re all having the same difficulties with communication. my family is extremely accomodating and friendly so i´m slowly learning the customs and language. today during one of our activities julianne (one of the three in santa teresa) had to ask my host mom Alicia about me. Alicia said that she wishes i would speak more so that i could learn even faster. i looked at my host mom and we both laughed a little. she knows its hard for me but its good to know that she cares about my learning. she has had 13 aspirantes live with her in the past, so i guess she knows what she´s doing. yesterday i met el novio (carlos) of my host niece (denisa). he´s from santa teresa but he speaks almost perfect english. it felt so wrong to speak to him in english but it helped clarify some words i´d been wondering about. he said that i spoke spanish much better than many of the past aspirantes. and that after these few months i´d be speaking almost fluently. it´s so hard to comprehend that right now, but each day i am getting significantly more confident. right now i´m in una libreria in santa teresa. i have no idea how much this costs per minute but i´m hoping its not too much. each day during the week i get up around 6:30 and eat breakfast at 7. i usually have bread, some kind of rice and beans, and a fruit. the coffee is good but its made by boiling water and mixing in coffee and lots of sugar. so far i´ve tried everything i´ve been served. most lunches consist of more rice and either beans or chicken and veggies with a refresco (water mixed with super sweet fruit flavored juice stuff). it´s kind of hard to describe but just imagine a smoothie that isn´t frozen. i usually just have water for dinner. oh, another interesting thing is that there is a huge watercooler container with purified water just for me. i feel like i should have to use separate water but its just one of the many peace corps rules. i haven´t written any letters yet because i have yet to find a post office but hopefully by next week i´ll have gotten a chance. my room or cuarto is actually pretty big and i share a bathroom with my host brother but he isn´t there very often because he works in jinotepe ( the biggest nearby town). he has a motorcycle so i´m so upset that it´s another peace corps rule that we can´t ride them or should i say no puede manejar o andar una motocicleta. i´ve met a lot of people in sta. teresa but i´ve been really bad at remembering names so far. hopefully they will start to stick because knowing the community is one of the most important parts of integration. my family makes rosquillas for a living. they look like little cookies but they taste more like crackers. this morning i woke up to the sound of dough being pounded flat and rolled out on a table right outside of my room. it was so cool to be able to witness first hand how they´re made. i guess they´re really popular in sta. teresa. another thing that i always get a kick out of is when my family asks me about something i like and then it magically appears at the next meal. it´s really nice that they care so much but it makes me have to be really careful about what i say i like. when i told alicia that i like hamburgers i made sure to specify that i only eat them occasionally and that they aren´t good to eat all the time. i definitely don´t want them to go out of their way to get things like that for me. my sister julisa and her esposo juan own and operate an ice cream and sorbet shop aka un eskimo right next to my house. actually they are connected as are most of the houses on a given block. picture the main drag of any small town where all the buildings are connected. mi casa is acrossed the street from the park which is in the center of the pueblo. therefore there are always lots of people walking by and stopping in to say hi. right now there is a festival going on for sta. teresa so this weekend we are expecting losts of people from surrounding town. it´s so strange to have a small carousel and ferris wheel right outside my front (and only) door. i attend spanish class from 8 to 12 each morning, return home for lunch, then have more class from 1 til usually around 3:30. the morning sessions are usually more formal while the afternoon sessions involve visiting different places in sta. teresa, meeting important community members, and practicing what we learned in the morning. This week classes are at Natalie´s but next week they´ll either be at my house or julianne´s. anyway i should probably go and get back to attempting to talk to my family. adios!