Week 1:

What do I miss most? The internet. We have to walk a long distance (about a kilometer or more) just to get here and then there is always someone waiting to use it after you.

The weather actually warmed up today thought it was extremely cold yesterday. There was some sun and my family had a bbq with a charcoal barrel type bbq (very fancy) so I spent a lot of time out there just warming my hands.

I went to church. They had only a Liturgy of the Word because it is a small chapel and the priest can come to say Mass only once a month. It wasn´t bad but I didn´t understand much. When we came (I was actually driven to church by the other daughter and her husband who seem very involved in the church ¡¡ in fact they stayed after and conducted a catechism class ¡¡ I walked home because it wasn´t raining and it really wasn´t that far. It also gave me a sense of where I was. They even prayed for me when they did the petitions. But as I started to say, we arrived and there was ja service going on. At first I thought that we were late. Then I thought it might be a Mary celebration. Turns out it was a funeral for a day old baby )they are called angelitos if they die before they are a year old). I couldn´t see much but I thought there was ja doll in the casket. Then after the funeral, all the kids carry the coffin. They take the lid off and one little boy carried that and the rest come along with the baby in the coffin. Very sad. I couldn´t identify whether the mother was there or not.

We are studying a lot of Spanish and a lot of the culture. When I have time, I´ll tell you all about how to make mate tea and how my house mother loves to put all sorts of herbs in with it. I still drink the regular black tea but she boils my water in the same pot that she throws all the herbs in. I think she wants to make sure that >I get all the benefits of mate even if I won´t drink it. After her daughter graduates from college she wants to go back and learn how to be a nurse practitioner. She will be great.

That´s it for now. Think Granola bars.

Love, <michel

(By the way, this keyboard is not my favorite way to type).