Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Wow, I am really far behind. Again. That is what you get traveling every weekend and spending the weeks catching up on homework!! Anyway, I’m going to stay up to date day to day and catch up the last week and a half when I can. The next three weeks are going to be busy with the end of classes and everything being due and I won’t be traveling, which means boring which means easy to blog!

Anyway, I woke up today after a nice 9.5 hours of sleep still red as a lobster. I had no desire to eat and still felt a little achy, so I’m thinking I had a touch of sun poisoning. From about 11 am to 2 pm I worked on the Tuberculosis presentation I had to give at Nuestra Casa while Olga took care of me. She was convinced I was sick, again, and brought me some fruit for breakfast, then cold towels to place on my stomach, then after advice from her husband, she brought me a slice of tomato to rub on my stomach! She placed a towel underneath me, telling me it had a lot of history. While she rubbed the tomato on my stomach nearly the same color, she told me that the towel is 44 years old that she used it at the beach when she and her husband were dating!

I had some veggies for lunch because I couldn’t stomach anything heavier, despite Olga’s encouragement to eat something more substantial. Around 3:30 I headed out to Nuestra Casa and was again warmly welcomed. Tamara, another volunteer who I’ve written about before, helped me edit my presentation and then I hung out and talked with everyone. Magdalena, Alberto, Maluca and his wife, Maria and everyone else was there as usual. Alejandro and Christian (I think that is his name) showed up later. At 5 I finally did the Tuberculosis workshop. 5 people came, plus Lauren and Tamara to help me out. This one didn’t go quite as well as the AIDS/HIV workshop because no one knows anything about tuberculosis so they couldn’t participate as much. They said they understood me, but I’m not sure how much. At the end they all said they learned a little, so I figure it was some what successful.

Lauren did an English workshop on how to give/get directions (turn right/left, go straight, subway, bus stop, etc.) and had little game to go along with it. I don’t know how much they actually learned but we had fun and joked around. Most of what they asked us was song lyrics that they didn’t understand. One new kid I met name Christian, who is only 22, asked me about song lyrics from ABBA and other 80s music. He laughed and told me that even though he doesn’t understand the words, he loves the songs! Oh Chile and their obsession with the 80s.

When the Trampolín closed I walked back to the metro with Lauren then home. Olga and I had dinner and chatted for a long time. We decided we are going to have our “Fiestas de las Frutillas” (Strawberry Party) on Saturday. I’m going to invite 5 or 6 friends and we are going to have once and strawberries and Olga is really excited! After dinner I started on my homework/catching up on emails. It’s almost midnight and I still haven’t actually started my homework for tomorrow. Boo…