Saturday, April 13, 2013

Cookies, Sancocho, and Rats

April 11, 2013. I'm actually kind of cold right now!! Woo! It's raining again and when I said that I almost couldn't cross the road to my Doña's house yesterday? I had no idea what I was talking about. It's completely flooded up to her house and my Toms are caked in mud now; there was no other way... Keegan came up with an incredible idea to have stakes for the bridge but have it connected with rope so that the bridge will rise with the water and won't get washed away. I also talked to Raini and she said I could use her truck to transport materials whenever I find them. Cory also thought to cut grooves with a machete (there are plenty of those here!) to help if the wood gets slippery. I talked to my host mom today and she said it's possible but I think she thinks I'm crazy lol. Oh well! This weekend, I'm gonna hike up in the woods by the Multi Uso and look for wood. Oh! Raini also said that she passes a mining place on the way back to the city and she will stop there sometime soon and ask if they'd be willing to give us big rocks that they don't want. That way we can have stepping stones on either side of the bridge since it's just mud. Granted, it's now covered in water but it'll at least be better for the majority of the year. That, and they shouldn't move at all with their weight so hopefully it'll be sustainable. I'm pumped and wish I could start now. But I have a feeling the rains are going to hold up progress for now. And lord only knows how long it will take for all this water to go away. Also, my Doña showed me all the places that flood in her house when the rains are bad and it's already started to do that... She said it can get so bad that her entire house will be flooded... Wish I knew how to fix that too...
Anyways. Today we implemented the standardized test with a child at the school. Susan proctored it while I kept time. It was awful. The boy is in third grade and he couldn't read most of the letters let alone words, and he struggled with sounds of letters as well. He tried so hard though. And got really excited when I would simply say things like, "Great job!" Or "Keep it up!" Even though it was when he was wrong... We didn't even finish the test because the last two sections would have been impossible for him to complete and he had already looked defeated earlier in the test. There was no point. So we stopped, I read a story for him which he enjoyed, and I gave him candy haha. Ugh. I just wish we could have had a day to hang out with the boy, develop rapport and not have our first encounter be a test. We're going to be working with him more and I just hope this didn't put a bad taste in his mouth for our days together. A lot of other people had the same experience though in that none if the children could read. I may have mentioned this already but here, you can't fail a child until the 4th grade. So even if they are supposed to be reading by the end of 1st grade and they're not, they still move to the 2nd grade. By the time struggling students are in 4th grade... They're exponentially behind the rest. I'd love to know who came up with that brilliant rule and where they live.
After that bit of a frustrating morning, I was rewarded with two things. First, COOKIES from my grandmother!! Aye Dios Mio Gram, you're insane!! It cost you a fortune to send those and while I'm currently mad at you... I cannot tell you how happy it made me. I shared the graham cracker ones with everyone at the training center and they LOVED them. All of them are still good, a month later!! Can you believe that?? The banana cookies are broken up a bit but sooooo rico. My host mother also loved them and I told her she has to like them because I need help eating them all. haha I told her that tomorrow I'm opening the other two kinds and she said, "Good, because I need to try those too." Haha And Gram? Your cookies are more valuable to me than any object that costs $1,000,000. And while I love your cinnamon rolls, please don't send those. I wouldn't have a way to heat them up! And I'm spoiled and don't like eating them any other way but perfection :). I love you, Gram. Thank you. Oh! And how the hell did you know I needed tissues?? Lol! Genius!
Phew! And second, my host mom made me Sancocho, a super popular dish here and I now know why. I'm not exaggerating when I say it's my new favorite meal here. I told my Doña that and she gave me more for dinner haha. Though like always, she said that I didn't eat anything after both meals.
Spanish was good and actually, I got some pretty exciting news. Lillian, our language director, came and held informal interviews with each of us individually. So during Spanish, she pulled me aside and we chatted for about 5 minutes. In that time-frame, she was somehow able to tell me that I was now at a level 4! I moved up one in a little over a month and I've got one more to go before May 15! Haha that felt pretty good, I guess :)
We actually beat the rains today on the way to the Multi Uso so this time, I was soaked in sweat instead of rain (ewww). But as soon as we got there it started to downpour again (hence the river next to my house now) and se fue la luz about an hour later. We made our way back home and that was when I talked to Raini about the bridge. And when I got my Toms muddy.
After dinner I worked on some homework, got to talk to Jen (!) and then got a text from Andrew saying, "So guess who switched host families?" Andrew, I hope you don't mind but I'm totally going to share a bit of your story here... Though by the time you see this it'll be too late anyways (Mom, you might not want to read this next part). Haha oops. So apparently his Doña's house had a rat problem. Two nights ago she had asked him if the rats bothered him to which he said no, because he hadn't seen many. That very night he saw two, one was absolutely gigantic and fat. He went to bed and had a dream about them. And then no joke, when he awoke at 2:30am, there was a rat on top of his mosquitera. I'm freaking out just imagining this. He kicked it off but then heard tons of rats running around his room (the floors of his house were tile so it was easy to hear). Yea, no sleeping that night. He brought this up with our training director and they sent someone to check it out. He had to sleep there that night again though but didn't hear as much. The next day there was evidence of the rats being there. He then opened his drawer to get pants and they were chewed through a bit. His shirt was peed on. And then he saw one. Which apparently it's bad to see one during the day because that means all the spots where they normally hide/sleep during the day are taken. Oh. My. God. He moved today and is so happy now. Ugh! I can't even imagine. And Andrew? If you're reading this, I completely admire you for surviving that and still maintaining your sense of humor. And I'm so happy for you and your new and better living conditions. What a story to tell future PCTs during their first few months in country ;)
Well, now that I've officially creeped myself out retelling that story, I'm going to head to bed. Yet another day has passed that could have been two with how much stuff went down. But such is life here and you guys get to suffer reading through it all ;) Buenas noches!

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