(Thursday, June 24, Day 8)

“The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps.”

Phrase of the day: Tu amigos estan muy alto y blanco... Your friends are very tall and white

Thank you? …I was showing my host family a few pictures of friends and family that I brought with me. And by few, I mean like a 150. They really loved the pool at the Inn at Perry Cabin. Just wait till I break out my computer actually!

People here are extremely straightforward when it comes to certain things…

How much money do you make?

How much does your cell phone cost?

Do you have a girlfriend? Why not?

Why aren’t you married? (what? I don’t even have a girlfriend!)

Really, I have no problems with anyone’s questions, I just don’t know how to respond always, in Spanish no less. They were pretty funny though… especially because I only knew some of the people who asked me for like 3 minutes.

For the past two days we have all been meeting in a neighboring town for health and security training. And by "all", I mean all 66 of us. (That’s right, we’re down to 66. One of the girls in Health program decided this wasn’t for her). So far I’ve learned that I will almost definitely get some sort of worm (treatable with medicine) before I leave, and most likely get something stolen from me at least once… how exciting, ha.

Lunch here is huge. Usually soup (my favorite, ha), rice, potatoes in some form, and some sort of meat. Yesterday we ate at a “kiosk”… definitely not like a kiosk at Springfield Mall. (You can see the back-side of my head where we were sitting down to eat, so almost a shot of me!)

The town we are in is really nice, and definitely more like a place I was hoping to see. I went on a walk today during lunch and took a few sweet pics! (I forgot my wallet at home, so I figured I’d just walk around. Yup, I could have borrowed money from someone, but then I wouldn’t have learned my lesson, would I?. No worries, bubs, I eat huge breakfasts now… mostly because Peace Corps is no home or KAF… we get $3/day for lunch, so I better fill up whenever I can with my host family!)

Today we also played soccer after class on the field behind our school! That was probably the best trainee hanging-out time so far for me. (Less talking and more playing outside!) We of course played with some Ecuadorian kids who were pretty great, as well... and we also ended when the game was tied 2-2... Priceless. Some kids were pretty competetive, but it was fun for sure. In a few weeks we're actually going to have a tournament between our 13 trainee groups!

Oh, I’ll take pictures this weekend of people (including myself) for sure… there is some sort of Horse festival on Saturday, and on Sunday my little “sister” is dancing in another festival. This is the month of festivals… I’m not sure what happens the rest of the year on weekends???

Have a great weekend!