One week!! Woo Hooo!!!

Okay, I have official been in Santa Fe for one week! And guess what, I am still alive. And even better, I am starting to really like it here. At first I must have been experiencing some intense Culture Shock... I started to want to go home and visit and to stop speaking Spanish for parts of the day. But as our favorite phrase goes, Poco a Poco (Little by Little).

I have been meeting lots of people and am being very well taken care of. Everywhere I go I am offered food and asked if I like it here. Everyone tells us that we are welcome in their home and that they are here to serve us, funny because I thought I was here to serve them!

The Guarderia is going really great now. At first I wasn't quite sure how much help I was going to be but each day the "maestra" gives me more and more to do. Although I will admit at one point on Tuesday I was nearly in tears and about to leave after the teacher left me with the kids for an hour and it turned into mass Chaos. And when I mean mass Chaos I mean hitting each other, throwing things, yelling, playing with anything and everything they could find, etc. This would have been somewhat manageable if I could speak their language! At one point I thought, maybe I should just start yelling in English. Luckily the past two days have been significantly better and I am figuring out important phrases in Spanish such as, "Don`t hit each other" and "if you want to go to recess you better behave and finish your work." The teacher Adianna is in her 20s too and is really nice. She is helping me and mostly laughs with me when I say stupid things in Spanish. She is going to be gone 2 days next week and I am going to teach the class all by myself. You bet your bottom dollar I'm going to practices my classroom Spanish this weekend!

We have also been helping out with some of Caro and Jess's English classes which can be a nice break from Spanish. I've also been going to Zumba classes. Zumba is a kind of exercise dance class that uses salsa and Marange and other types of moves. I really like it, but I spent the entire first class laughing at myself. I am definitely the tallest, whitest girl in the class but Lisa, Jess and Caro are there right next to me which helps me to feel better.

Last I am going to leave you with my favorite and least favorite parts of Mexico so far. My least favorite is the Cat Calling that goes on... Almost everyday when we walk down the street we get whistled at and yelled at. Today I even got a "hello white-girl" (in Spanish). Sometimes I get frustrated but most of the time I think its hilarious. Such as when a guy rolled down the window and made kissy noises, or when some guy said "hello baby, I love you." I choose to laugh at these things because A. It is a cultural thing B. I just have to accept that I do stick out here and other than my roomates there are no white people here and C. because the things they say in English they don't even understand and have learned from movies or other "funny" guys. But on a bad day, this gets to me and will annoy me.

leaving with the positive- I love the fresh food EVERYWHERE. There are farmers markets at least three days a week here. We buy tons of fresh vegetables and tortillas every week. The Saturday market is huge! It takes up at least a whole block if not multiple full of any and every kind of fresh fruit or veggies you could want. You can bargain and it is insanely cheap. We have to take all of our fresh veggies that we don't peel and soak them in water with antibacterial drops so that we don't get sick but trust me, It's Worth It. There are even some fruits and veggies here that I have never seen or heard of before!

This is it for today, I shall try and put up some pictures for you in the next week or so.

Be kind. All my love.