Life here-
My room is soooooo cute. It’s better decorated than if I’d live on my own in the states.
I even have my own bathroom! It’s my first time ever with my own bathroom!!!!
Our house is not heated, so sometimes it’s a little tough to get out of bed in the morning, but we have hot water!
Our house already has a Christmas tree, which is really (in my opinion) all you need to decorate a house for Christmas. (and maybe some lights)
We also have a septic system set up for using toilet paper!!! Yay!!! I didn’t expect this. I expected to have a really smelly trash can full of used toilet paper.
Our water system is filtered so it’s ok to use to brush your teeth, but we don’t drink it.
The girls are fabulous. It’s a joy to talk with them and work on their school work with them. So far, nothing exciting has happened, but I’ll take life that way.
One of my girls C---, is mostly deaf. I don’t know many signs, and she only speaks Spanish, but somehow we communicate. She does read lips though!
We laugh a lot. I make word jokes in Spanish like mixing up choke and car accident, or light bulb(foco) and seal(foca), and the girls laugh at me.
Our orphanage works with Mexican protective children’s services, so that’s how we’ve gotten the children we have.
It’s only rained 3 times this year! So it’s much drier than Costa Rica, BUT there was a gigantic storm the night before I came, and it's rained a ton since, so my house doesn’t have internet or international telephone right now. (it didn't when I wrote this, but now it does!)
We have clay dirt everywhere, so the water doesn't soak in very well.
I guess the kids went mud boarding in the street after the storm. The video I saw looks like it was a lot of fun!
Verizon told me I’d have phone service with expensive roaming charges, but my phone can’t find a tower at all.
I am working on an adult reading program with two of my girls, the sky is the limit once they have finished it.
I didn’t realize how distracting it is to sit with your children in church. I couldn’t listen the whole time, instead I was just constantly alert that they were behaving.
M--- just told me to tell you she’s funny, and a joker.
Mom did a nice thing, and bought me a new toothbrush before I left, but when she came back the new toothbrush was less technologically advanced than the one I’d owned before (a Colgate 360) She claimed that no fancy toothbrushes existed at the store…but I was looking through our extra toothbrushes at my house here in Mexico, and we have 6 of them!
Everyone here is really nice. I like them a lot.
I thought I might have more time living here, but I might start giving piano lessons to three kids, teach my girls how to knit (my “boss’s” mother gave her a bunch of extra yarn she didn’t want a few months ago) and the list goes on and on…
Oh! I had mentioned to Johanne (the head house mom/boss) that I wanted to play piano here, well, she asked around, and there is an extra piano no one is using, so soon, some people are going to move it into my house for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(They gave me a piano for my house, that I'm borrowing, two days ago!!!)
I have four girls in my house, I only cook breakfast for them, although I’ll occasionally cook other stuff too. We are praying that Children’s services gives us two more. (They cook for me, really, I just supervise.)
I hear the flies get worse in the summer, I guess it's because we have a field of cows on the west side of our property.
We live a bit outside of town, but it’s nice. The sky is AMAZING. You can see the stars very clearly. (especially when the electricity goes out, which happened yesterday morning.)
I think I was a little bit drama queeny about not having everything I might need. I brought more toiletries than really is necessary, plus it seems like we have enough connections in the organization that may be leaving for Christmas for a couple days, or people coming down to visit for the holidays, that if I really needed anything, I could certainly ask a favor and then pay them back. But you are welcome to still send me things.
Plus the house mom that lived there before left some of her old toiletries. I’m a sucker for buying different soap and lotion, and there were a couple kinds I’ve never tried(albeit half used) in my bathroom. I can’t wait to try some of them out.
Johanne has offered to me to come home for Christmas for a couple days, I’m not sure how practical it is, and I would love to experience it “Mexican” style. But I’m thinking about it. Part of me feels bad for not spending Christmas with my new family and the other half of me feels bad for not trying to get home…
One of the books I brought to re read (practicing the presence of God by brother Lawrence) was quoted in church on Sunday.
There is a painting of cosmos above my bed. Cosmos are one of my favorite flowers. And there are some cosmos growing outside our house. :)
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Thursday was our first disaster. We had a toilet on the second floor overflow. And it came through the ceiling. GROSS! So we spent all day cleaning. It was crazy. It was my mistake not to oversee the plunging of the aforementioned toilet.
Saturday morning was our second one. The girls were listening to inappropriate music on their radio (and I think they had been listening to a soap opera the other day, but wasn’t sure), and so I took away the chords to plug them in. So they’ve been upstairs singing songs we already know LOUDLY all morning. It is kind of a nice change, because they discovered that I had Jesus Adrian Romero’s cd, and we’ve listened to it ALL week, and I’m sick of it.
They all speak loudly all the time, but I think it’s become a custom because of our one deaf girl. Pray that my ears don’t fall off.
I haven’t had much alone time this week, besides early in the morning, and after they’ve gone to the bed. Johanne has offered me more “rest” time, and I’m not sure how to take advantage of it without being anti-social. I do want to get to know people here intimately, but that takes a lot out of me, and needs to happen gradually.
I've been eating spicey food almost every day. My girls know that I don't prefer spicey food, so they make jokes about that too. I asked for the chiles, and hot sauce to put them in the fridge yesterday while I was cleaning up after lunch and they said, "It's a miracle, she wants the chiles and hot sauce!"
I had forgotten how moody teenagers are. One second they are enemies, the next second they love each other.
We run our driers with gas for the heat and electricity for the tumbling, but last night the gas ran out. :(
This morning, early, one of my girls went, and restarted the clothes I had in the drier without asking, so then when I went to check on my clothes, they were already dry!!!!
THEN one of my other girls surprised me by folding one of my loads.
This is the latest I've been up in a while.
So I need to get to bed.
Although this post is disjointed, I'd much rather put it up than not...
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