Journal #2

Monday, August 07, 2006

Well, we awoke today at 6:00 a.m. only to see it still dark outside. Both of us woke up with Mosquito bites this morning. Our breakfast consisted of a mixture of cereals, fruit, black beans and French bread. Then, at 7:40, we were off to our first Spanish class.

We arrived at the school in about 7 minutes. We walked in and told the receptionist who we were and she said, “We were looking for you.” We felt very glad to know that they knew our names without having to check their records. We were given some folders consisting of some paperwork we had to fill out and immediately introduced to our teachers. Chad’s teacher’s name is Carlos and my teacher’s name is Lucy. We both really feel very comfortable with our teachers and learned a lot the first day.

We both were given a test to check to see what Spanish we knew already. Chad stopped at question #5 after guessing on the first 4 and so his teacher began with “Buenos dias” (good morning.) I had to stop on the 3rd page. It was getting too confusing, so my teacher graded what I had done and we began with the verbs ser and estar (both meaning to be). These verbs are the hardest for me because they mean the same thing only you use them in different situations. We had class until 10:00 with a break to get water, tea or coffee at around 8:45. The teachers showed us around the school during the first hour also. That was good. Chad’s table is upstairs and mine is downstairs, so we are separated, but in the same building.

At 10:00 they had an orientation for new students upstairs. The lady told us all about Antigua; from where to get money to what to do with your toilet paper after wiping. She was really funny. She had some visuals if you can only imagine. Then, because of the orientation we did not get a break, so back to learning. We studies until 12:00 and then spent the next hour e-mailing family and friends. That was so neat to see how easy it is to stay in contact with others. We would send an e-mail, begin another one and before that was done there was a reply from the first one sent. It was crazy. We finally had to leave to go to our house for lunch at 1:00.

We walked home and had lunch. It was so delicious. We had beef cooked with onions and tomatoes, steamed broccoli and carrots, white rice, guacamole, tortillas and a mixed fruit with cream sauce for dessert. It was soooo good. After lunch we went to our room for a little while for Chad to rest a few minutes and I started on my homework. Around 2:00 we, even Tristan, went back to school to e-mail some more. We were only planning to be there for a few minutes and when we finally left it was 4:30. Once again it was amazing to see how quickly we could talk to folks back home. While we were at the school, a girl came up to us and was petting Tristan. She has her Yorkie here and she was telling us about a vet just 2 blocks from school that does grooming and bathes dogs. That was neat to learn. Now Tristan can have a bath and haircut in a few weeks.

When we left school, we went to find a coffee shop that our friend from Houston was telling us about. It is called “Higher Grounds.” It is owned by Christians and every Thursday evening they have a Bible Study and then serve all you can eat nachos. We are going to try it out this Thursday and see what it is like. We then took our daily run to “Super Wal-mart” to purchase OFF and some mosquito eliminators. We are so eaten up with bites. Hopefully these will help. Chad has sprayed our beds with OFF and we will light the mosquito things at bedtime.

We now have studied for 2 hours straight. We both did our homework and practice pronunciation of so many words. Chad is really learning a lot. I feel right now that I am getting a huge review. That is very much needed. Tomorrow’s lesson looks a little more difficult. We also now have post-it notes all over our room where Chad has labeled everything in Spanish.

We wore Tristan out so much today that we had to include some pictures of a tired little puppy. We came home from the store and he practically died. He is eating well which is surprising since he fasted most of the first week in the apartment protesting moving. He must feel better about moving around now. We are going to try to input some pictures but will have to do it after supper. Maria is calling for us.

Supper was very light, but very good. We had some yummy pasta soup flavored with carrots and bay leaves in chicken broth, black beans (of course), bread and fried bananas. It all was very good. The best part about this meal was we had a terrific conversation with Maria’s son Manuel and his wife Ana. They are teaching us Spanish also. It is great to get to learn from them and they are so willing to help us. I am sure they want us to be able to speak to them in their language instead of our crazy Spanglish/sign language.

We have had an adventurous day today and we continue each day to pray that the next day will be even better. Please continue to pray that God will work in us and that we will be a light to all that we meet. He has truly blessed us in this endeavor. We know He is with us.

Shelly