hasta que el dinero nos separe...

Sarah, the girl from Hope who lived here last semester, was here visiting this week, so she slept in my room and we shared stories. A group of 10 students and a teacher from Hope had arrived earlier in the week for a two-month summer program. I saw them for the first time on Wednesday. I talked to some of the students, two of which are actually living in the same area as me, and chatted with the professor too. I believe that I will end up going on a trip or two with them, so I’m pretty excited about that. My second class on Wednesday was cancelled. This happens quite often, but it’s always a nice surprise.
Thursday after class I had coffee with a friend. I always cringe when someone invites me to coffee when they mean actual coffee – I’m just not a fan. However, this was café de olla, which means coffee prepared in a pot, and it’s prepared with piloncillo, which is obtained from the boiling and evaporation of sugarcane juice. It was delicious, probably because it tasted nothing like coffee.
The weekend wasn’t extremely exciting, but I was still trying to catch up on sleep from last weekend. Saturday I went to one of the markets in town. I didn’t buy anything, but it’s always fun to look. Also I had the best horchata I’ve had down here. I took a delightful two-hour nap, and later in the night one of the families that comes over for the weekly card game came over. The boy, Edgar, is 8 (I think) and he never has anything to do. He showed me the toys we bought, and then I asked if he wanted to play a game. He showed me the program on his dad’s phone to make music, and then the program to take pictures and edit it. I got my computer and played in photo booth with him. He absolutely loved the effects, and Maria (his sister, who’s around 13) came over to see what all the laughing was about. We spent the rest of the night taking pictures while the adults played their card game.

Playing with the effects:

Sunday mis padres invited Laurel and I to come to the church. They go to the first mass and stick around for the next two to sell tamales, waffles, fresh orange juice, and atole afterwards.

They were leaving at 7am, so they had their friends pick us up and take us at 9. We ate waffles (mine had cajeta, chocolate syrup, and strawberries with cream…so good) and then went to the ten o’clock mass. It was the kid’s mass, and it was different than any mass I’ve been to in the US. The songs were more modern, and were performed by a band (I could see about 7 guitars, 2 tambourines, and 4 singers, but there might have been more instruments). The kids all gathered at the front for the sermon part. There was a puppet and it was more of a asking questions sermon than an actual message. For communion, it wasn’t dismissed row-by-row, rather whoever wanted to go up went up. The adults went first, and no one took the Eucharist in their hands, it was placed in everyone’s mouths. The kids went up next, and they got real bread.
Later that day Pierre invited me to Starbucks. It was a nice sibling bonding experience. We chatted over delicious drinks.
This was the first week I actually felt like my speaking has improved. I still stumble over my words, so it could be that the change is completely psychological. Either way, I’ll take it.