San Pedro familia!

We`re having a great time here in San Pedro! We`ve been living with a family for a week and are loving it! We had asked to be put in separate families, thinking that it would be better for our spanish, but the school put us together. And it`s actually been nice, because we have separate rooms so we have some space, but we`re able to walk to and from school together which is a good thing because our house is on the outskirts of town and a bit of a long walk.

Our family is great! Our mom, Melida cooks us the most wonderful food (and a few strange things) and is feeding us way tooo much! Our dad, Domingo, is a bus driver and gets up at 4 or 5 in the morning and works really long days, so we don`t see him much. We have a little sister, Melanie who is six years old and a RIOT! We`ve been spending a lot of time playing with her. Today, I painted her nails and then played follow the leader all the way through town on our way to the beach! It was raining when we walked back, and so we played in the rain and puddles and were a soaking mess when we got back home! We also have a big brother, Henry and he`s been really fun to hang out with too. He`s a student at a university in Guatemala City, but the students have been on strike for almost two months so he`s been back in San Pedro. But some sort of agreement has been reached, and so he goes back to school on Monday. We`ll be sad to see him go because we`ve been spending a lot of time with him too. He taught me how to make different types of bracelets, and spent a lot of time teaching me slang words in spanish! And Thursday night he came out with Tara and I to meet up with a couple other friends from school at a bar, and he taught Tara how to dance! And if the rain lets up, I got him to promise me that he`d take me fishing tomorrow- although I made sure not to tell him how scared I am of fish.

No one in the family speaks an english, and so we`ve gotten lots of practice with our spanish. I get made fun of (in a friendly way!) a lot because I know lots of spanish words from studying the dictionary, but have NO grammer. And, I`m only able to speak in the present tense, which I think is probably confusing. Translated to english, most of my sentences are like: ¨Henry teach bracelet! Yesterday I go beach! I like swim! Dog bark! There is rain! mmmmm Fruit good!¨ But our family is really patient, and have had lots of other students live with them and are used to speaking slowly and using simple sentences. The other day, Henry told me that I should paint my face white, because I`m such a good mime!

Other than hanging out with our fam, we spend lots of time at our school, either in class or doing some sort of activity. Wednesday night, we went to salsa class and actually had a blast! I wouldn`t say that we`re particularly good salsa dancers, but what we lack in talent we made up for with enthusiasm! And Thursday night we had a teacher/student soccer game which was hilarious! It was only the female teachers and students and I`ve never heard so much high pitched screaming in a soccer game before! Because all the teachers are tiny little Mayan women, we mixed up the teachers and students and the game ended in a tie! Next week though, our school will play another spanish school from San Pedro. Our school lost the last game, so hopefully things will be different this time around.