It rained all night and throughout the morning so we did not have to work on the guinea pig barn. It was a lazy day for us gringos, but it was the first day back at school for the locals. Brian and I took advantage of the day off, and went fishing with our host brother Alex. We did not catch anything, but we did freeze in the stream of glacial melt. In general, my Spanish is coming along slowly, but somehow I pick up on the bad words which seem to stick. A bunch of the boys went to the school where we work, and sat in on a few classes. I made it to one class for 10 minutes, and did not understand one word. All of our families try to teach us a bit of Quechua. It is hard for them to understand that we cannot learn Spanish.
The food is tasty, and gets better by the day. However, the portion sizes seem to grow, the rice piles get bigger and bigger, and sometimes it is hard to eat everything. My family is very generous, and I am thankful. I really enjoy playing football with the local kids, and have lost every game so far. Ben has yet to clean any part of his body, and I think I can smell him in the breeze at night… seriously. Brian has somehow drawn the eyes of Janet, who happens to be 10 years old. Age aside, she will not let Brian out of her sight.
My family has welcomed me with open arms, but even still, I suppose I do miss home a bit. Our family warmed up to me and Brian right away. They truly seemed to enjoy seeing pictures of our family and life at home. Today I gave Alex a little demo of American music from my I pod. He seemed to like it. His favorites, in order, include 50 cent, Kanye West, and finally the Dave Matthews Band. The people here never seem to stop working, and I think they laugh at us for being so tired after only about 5 hours of work. Hauling 50 pound adobe bricks all morning makes seven thirty in the evening feel like midnight. I guess Cullen is very difficult to say in Spanish, so I asked Brian to ask Alex to give me an easier name. I now go by Juan. When I introduce myself, I sometimes get laughs because they expect my name to be Jimmy or Tom I guess. They keep asking me the name of the place where I live at home, because they cannot remember the name. Most of the people here live near the same fields they work, between two incredible mountains. My host mom is an unbelievable woman. She was working the fields two days prior to giving birth. Now she has a three week old baby sick with a cold. Her life is even busier, nursing the baby, cooking and cleaning non stop.
...Cullen Cassidy
No comments:
Post a Comment