so two of the guinea pigs had babies. and they're pretty much adorable. and totally edible.... i will be sure to let you all know how that meal goes down. on a related note, we had chicken again today, because a cat got into the hen house....
i met today with the teacher i'll be teaching english classes with for the rest of the semester. she is young, sweet and eager to teach. i think it will be a really good experience. the school is called st. francis of asisi and it was really funny to see little monks with bald pates cut out of construction paper on the front of all the elementary classroom doors. i'll be helping to teach the lessons to classes of 40 4th graders, and especially helping with pronunciation. kind of intense to be "the example" on how to pronounce a language.
i got my bip escolar yesterday (yay for 25 cent fares because i'm smart and po). on a whim i got off the bus about halfway to try to find a bookstore that sold pocketsize maps of the city. mission accomplished and now i no longer have to pull out my comically large full sized map when i need to check a street, which should come with a giant sign on the back that says "i'm lost! please take advantage of me!" i also walked the rest of the way (about a mile and a half, i think) to my destination, which was very pleasant. there is a sense of accomplishment that comes from recognizing your way around a city that was previously a jumble of similar looking streets and indecipherable systems. as i noted my progress in my now discreet pocket map, i thought about other cities i'd like to conquer. and how to travel to them since i'm going to be pretty broke for the next few years. any suggestions would be welcome : )
i'm loving my new family. the only problem is i only know about half of their names, because the 93 yr old aunt calls everyone "hijita" (diminuative of daughter) and the mom and the maid refer to the aunt as "la tia" or "abuelita" ("the aunt" "grandmother") and the mom refers to the maid as "senora." the husband calls the wife "corazon" or "amorcita" (my "heart" or "little love") so i know neither the aunt or the maid's name, and i wrote down the mom's name somewhere... the husband's name is william (billy for short) and he works up north during the week as an agronomist, so i only see him on the weekends (which is why i know his name, he is talked about in the 3rd person). and artur is the 3 yr old. he gets reprimanded enough that i picked his up too. he is pretty adorable, but have 8 younger siblings makes me less than susceptible to the charms of a 3 yr old. he knows this. he can sense my rebellion to the authority of his winsome smile alternated with menacing frown. i will NOT give you my cookies. NO. MINE. okay. the only reason you got the cookies was because your mom came in, and i cannot politely override her unspoken assumption that i will give you my cookies because you are 3 and you don't know any better than just to take them. but i am soooo on to you. i saw that gleam of victory in your eye. it's on. i am going to hide my cookies way better next time.
the maid is great - she's a wonderful cook - i almost never have to put salt on anything and i always clean my plate. its all very fresh and well-seasoned (whereas i think the only spice chileans are really familiar with is salt). she also is a marathon talker. i think she utilizes circular breathing during our "conversations" because i can get in a word about every 10 minutes. which is fine, because sometimes i totally lose the thread of comprehension and the entires plot-line takes a dive for about thirty seconds until i pick up some context again - oh so we went from the time you got robbed at knifepoint which is where that scar came from to the new chinese herbal remedy for something that you heard about on the discovery channel - i have no idea how that happened, but you are smiling, so i'll smile too... she's super sweet though - always making sure i have enough to eat - she doesn't want me to lose my "watita" (little belly) on her watch. i'm going running again tomorrow morning...
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