Americana

Today I feel a hundred times better than I did on Monday. The weather has been beautiful all day (as was promised by my señor) so I am extremely grateful for that. I think the rain these past few days just made the whole situation worse.

Yesterday afternoon I went to the girls´home to help them with their homework, but the whole system of organization there is completely ridiculous. All of the girls as well as their teachers just want us to do the work ourselves (obviously conducive to a good education). The woman who is "in charge" there gets these puppy-dog eyes before I leave and asks me to do homework for "one more girl." The girls are extremely introverted as well, but in a very odd way. They always run up and start hugging and kissing the volunteers, and then immediately run away not to be seen again for the rest of the afternoon. It´s all very strange.

Last night I went out with some other volunteers to this (of all things) English pub-type restaurant. Not my choice, but it was fine. I went with three girls and one was from Sweden, another from Australia and the third from Canada. It was nice to speak some English. However, that was not the best part of the evening. While I was there I heard "Millenium" by Robbie Williams which was amazing. The only bad part was that I wanted to call my brother but had no means. (Adam, they also played "El Ninja Americano 4" last night on TV and that one infamous line is just as hilarious in español. Me hizo extrañarte, hermanito!)

This morning I went to work the boys, whose company I enjoy infinitely more. This one boy, Richard, tried to teach me Quechua (to no avail, as before). So far the only words I remember are chaki and maki, which mean foot and hand respectively. After that we played fútbol but I couldn´t stay long because I had to go to class.

I had a different teacher this week than last week but he was really nice. He seemed surprised that I´m a vegetarian (and was a vegan) and wanted to talk about it ad nauseum. I also told him about In Defense of Food (which I finished a few days ago) and the family book club and he thought the concept was really fantastic. I think he is going to be my teacher on Friday as well, so maybe we can spend that entire class talking about food as well!

Anyway, I´m definitely starting to feel more at home here. Just had to get over that first week hurdle.

Chau,
Adrien

P.S. Chuck Norris jokes appear at least once an hour on television here. And they´re still just as funny.