Digging In

OK- I can do this. It may not be glamorous, and the work may be somewhat trivial, but damn it I signed up for it and I´m going to stick it out.

That being said, I´m dying for a cheesburger and a steak. I have pretty much been on a vegi diet since I got here- and not by choice. For a couple of reasons, first of all, we eat almost all of our meals together in the house, and second almost everyone has gotten sick at least once on the visit and they usually think it was bad meat. Personally I just don´t think anyone can bring themselves to ask the butcher at the local market to slice up the carcass he has hanging and bleeding in front of them. And given that the market is outdoors, and its about 80 degrees here, it is a little gross- and possibly not sanitary.

I can´t help but wish I was just traveling carefree accross the country seeing all of the sights, staying in hotels, eating out, and making friends along the way. There will be time for that at the end of my trip though. It is still a shock though, going from such nice living conditions to this. I can hardly stop myself from going out and renting a hotel room- especially since they are 5-10 dollars a night. You know, everything is so insanely cheap here- but the volunteers who have been here for a while have sort of adopted to the system, so to them- paying 3-5 dollars to eat out at night is outragous when you can cook for 10 people in the house for that much money.

The good news is I will be getting to travel along the way as well. Part of the budget can be spent on weekend getaways- which I will absolutly take advatage of. Today we took the kids to the arcade and helped them with their homework. Try doing word math problems en Español! But the arcade was fun- we were there for an hour, and I kept this kid, faustino´s streetfighter game full of tokens....and I spent just over 1 dollar! This kid keeps talking to me about Barack Obama- its hilarious! In fact I have heard a lot about Barack- he is, it seems, some sort of international hero- and it doesnt help that I´m from Chicago ( !I guess its better than being known for Al Capone¡). For better or for worse, the world is expecting a lot out of him- and us.

Anyway, I think I can stick it out. Most people are only here for 2-3 weeks. 2 months will be a challenge- but I keep reminding myself that is why I came down here. And after all the sun is shinning and I have a spot on the rooftop to soak up the afternoon sun in between work shifts....oh and I´m in the mountains- which I still love to gaze at and constantly dream of climbing. Which I no doubt will one day do, but I must be carefull as that is where many of the coca farms are, and I hear they don´t take kindly on strangers wondering onto their farms!