Coffee. Café. Vida.

I love coffee.  And caffeine.  I eat it by the spoonful (don´t worry about it).  And, as such, I never enjoy it.  Because I drink it copious amounts, like water, as if it were free (because oftentimes it is) and bountiful (because it always is).


Enter South America.  And Nescafé.


I mean, I´m used to it... and I abuse it, I´m sure. It´s just hot water and VIOLA!!  And so I´m not doing so well with number 15 on the list, which is "Start using coffee for good, not evil. This means no more pouring it into my body in an attempt to stay awake. No no. This means enjoying mi café"

But today. Today I did.  I did very well. We went to a café after our service site today, and I got a coffee and a strawberry juice.  It was an americano, sin leche, y con un poco de azucar.  And it was delicious.

Mission partially accomplished.




Anyway! Today is Friday, and I´ve finished my first week at the guardería (day care - - - http://cristodemiravalle.org/ ).  And it was a hard week.  I know what working at day cares is like, I´ve done it before.  I work with kids constantly...it´s my jam, ja know? So I knew the days would be long and hard, and that my Spanish vocab isn´t really perfect for what I´m doing, if that makes sense.  But we ended up being a little disappointed with the site, which is incredibly selfish, and I know that.


The deal is that this is for sure a community development center, but all we were doing was watching little kids.  And I´m fine with that, but I really wanted more of a community and cultural experience.  So we spoke up to our program director, and we´re rearranging our site for the next few weeks.  We´ll work in the guarderia in the mornings, and then a few afternoons a week, we will accompany them on the home visits to learn how they screen the families that then are able to access the services the organization has to offer.


I´m so much happier about this.  I´m sure they need our help in the day care, but a lot of times, there were things I couldn´t do and it was obvious that I was just an extra body, twiddling my thumbs.  There are two things I really can´t stand: feeling useless, and not learning.  This is a service learning trip, and I´m glad that we were able to rearrange things without offending people and being too rude.  So.  That´s a plus.


And now it´s Friday.  And I´m kind of tired.  We went to Quito last night to meet up with some people that our program director knows, which was really fun.  I like having homestays, but I also just love love love spending time with everyone in my group, and part of me (ie- all of me) wishes we were just living together so we could spend more time together.  


This post is too long.  I´m going to end abruptly.  


And I´m also going to apologize for not really responding to emails and FB posts and stuff.  I´m really only on the computer for about 30 minutes, every 3 days or so!  Just so ye knowest.