back from US

note: this is a delayed post because i haven't had a chance to post in a while

Aug 5, 2008

Well, my trip home was great. I’ve been back a little over a week now. While home, I was able to visit with almost everyone, although I did miss a few people I wanted to see. It was so nice talking to people; the hardest part about being away is that I miss everyone. I thought it would be really weird going back to the US after a year, but I got used to things really quickly. Mostly, I was impressed by how clean and things were. It was fun going places, seeing people, and eating. I ate a ton, I really think I gained at least 5 pounds in the one week I was home. I had to eat everything I’ve been missing. Going into stores was kind of overwhelming; there was just so much selection and everything is so big. I did a lot of shopping, since I was really in need of clothes. I also got some little presents for my friends here, which they enjoyed. My neighbors recently got a puppy. He’s sooo cute so he’s going to be partially my puppy, too. They said I could take him on walks and play with him whenever I want. So I got him some chewy toys and flea collars. The little boy next door named the puppy Dogny, or something like that, which doesn’t mean anything, isn’t Spanish or English, and no one knows how to pronounce it. So I just call him either puppy or perrito, but I’m going to start calling him Doogie; that’s better and it sounds similar to whatever his name is.

Anyway, I had a really good and busy time in the US, and it’s kind of tough being back. I’m happy to be back and everyone here missed me and they’ve all been asking how my trip was and how my family is. But still, now I miss everyone and everything at home more than before, because now it’s all fresh in my mind. And it’s not like when I first got here and I missed everything because then being here was new and exciting. Now I miss everything and it’s no longer as exciting being here, it’s just life. But it’s ok, I’ll get over it soon. The next year will probably go by really fast and I want to make the most of it.

I haven’t had electricity in my house since I’ve been back. The problem is that this house has never actually been connected to the power line; it was somehow connected to my neighbors’/landlady’s house. Because of this, I don’t have enough power to run my electro ducha, which is this small thing you connect to your shower, where the water comes out, and it heats the water. If this sounds dangerous, connecting an electric heater right where the water comes out, you’re right, it kind of is dangerous. In some showers, when you touch the water tap to turn the water on or off, you feel a slight shock. Not everyone has an electro ducha, but a lot of people do. It’s the only way to have a hot shower unless you heat water on the stove and have a bucket bath, which I do sometimes. So anyway, to fix the problem of not having a strong power supply, my landlady told me that while I was gone in the US, she’d get the electric company to come hook my house up to the power line. When I got back last week, my house had been disconnected from my neighbors’ house but not yet reconnected to the power line. The electric company said they would come in 2-3 days, which I didn’t believe for a second. It’s now been over a week, but supposedly they’re coming Friday. So we ran a super-long extension cord from my neighbors’ to my house, which I’ve been using, but I don’t want to plug too much in it. Also, last week, the power went out in the whole region for a day, and this week it went out for 2 days.

Throughout town, they have been digging ditches along side the road so that the rain and sewage water doesn’t ruin the dirt rocky roads, which have just been repaired. (Repairing these roads means that they dump a lot of rocky dirt on them and roll over it to pack it down, which actually makes a big difference) Now my house has a big ditch in front of it, which turns into a creek when it rains, so this guy made me a little bridge, which is really just a plank of wood. I really like it, I feel like I have a moat in front of my house. My house is really secure. I’m improving the inside, too. I’m having the carpenter cut me four planks that I’m going to put on the wall to make shelves and keep everything less cluttered.

I’m not sure if I already wrote about this, but I’m going to do a workshop with one of the woman in our town market to teach her to make cookies and bread and things like that to sell. She recently bought a large oven, so she can make all kinds of things in it. People here don’t really bake cakes or cookies or anything really; they don’t usually have electric ovens, and if they do, many don’t know how to use it. Some people have big wood-burning ovens outside. They’re kind of dome-shaped and made of concrete, I think, and they make different types of cookies and bread to eat with coffee, but they all taste pretty much the same, and are usually really dry and crumbly. I make banana bread and cookies a lot, to give to people, and they really like them. So it’ll be fun if this woman actually starts baking and selling.

That’s about all for now.