Saturday, February 26

This morning before getting out of bed I gave myself a mental food pep-talk. “I can eat it!” As soon as I left my room I was given a huge plate of rice and beans, port and tortillas. Yikes! No one else had nearly as much food on their plate, and hopefully my slow eating showed my appreciation and level of fullness.

We went to buy tomatoes and peppers at a nearby farm a little while after we ate. On the way we passed the river where many people in the community bathe and wash their clothes. It was a beautiful walk and we ran into a herd of cows cooling off in the river. Right when we returned with our produce, Trevor and Javier came to see how things are going here. Santa Elena gave us all plates of fruit. It was delicious, but my goodness! I'm going to explode! Trevor and Javier gave me directions for Tuesday when we leave our home stays and then left to visit the other students.

We spent some time just hanging out and I saw parts of Titanic for the first time! Later, we broke out my coloring supplies, clay and jump rope. The toys attracted quite a crowd and we spent the whole afternoon playing with kids from the neighborhood. I tried to teach them the colors in English, but the pronunciation was really hard for them. Its interesting to note the sounds in each language that don't exist in the other.

Just as we were cleaning up, Rachel, who is staying with the pastor of my church here came to visit. My host mom and sister took Rachel, her host mom, and I to the river. I swam with Santa Elena and Luz Marina while Rachel and her mom waited on shore. Some of the neighbor kids came to see me swim and Santa Elena worried that it was too late for me to be swimming. I told her I shower at night at home, but she worried that swimming was different. It took a while to convince her it was alright, and we swam for a while before getting ready for church.

There was a lot of singing at church and the congregation asked us gringos to share some songs. Jake and Courtney had songs ready to go, but Rachel and I scrambled to come up with something. Eventually, the four of us sang a song together. Luckily, judging from the other performances, quality of voice doesn't seem to matter here and I'm grateful that's all we had to do. The rest of the service was much more enjoyable than that part ;)

After church we came home and watched part of Mama Mia in Spanish before bed. During commercials I tried to explain to Santa Elena that I never eat so much food in the United States. This revealed that she was convinced that Americans only eat fast food, so the conversation turned into a big explanation of what we really eat, and I'm afraid my point was lost. Hopefully she at least gets that I don't eat McDonald's every day.