February 24, 2004

• Antigua… a city of romance. We think. At least it appears so from the couples that frequent the parque y las jardins…  Anywho, we are learning much espanol – our vocabulary increases by the day and it really is thrilling to finally ask for a ‘cafe con leche.’ K, that is a really big joke between the three chicas, that’s all that Hana can say so far, so we hear that phrase all the time.   Wait, she’s learning to say ‘un kilo de tomatos’ also…

  
  

  Today was our first official Spanish lesson – we studied for four horas this manaña, and that was much confucion, says Hana, plus sorrow. No really, we were all looking forward to starting lessons, and we sure got an earful for our first day! This really is an immersion experience; our teachers don’t even speak English to us at all, which results in a brain overload at the end of four hours. No sleep tonight because we must study Español para manaña. The last smiley shows what we’ve been doing for the past few hours as result of our brain overload. We’ve really been enjoying staying at the guesthouse – we’ve picked up so much Spanish just by listening to dialogue and questions in our dinner conversations…

  
  

  Our guesthouse manager, David, mentioned tonight that the word ‘Jesu Cristo’ en Espoñal is a verb, not a noun. He said that it’s demonstrated by a lifestyle, not by words. Hmmmm, that made me aware that people are watching to see our lives…

  
  

  We took Gina to the Casa Shalom yesterday morning…  All of us piled in a litte carro with Dad hunched in the trunk and chugged up the mountain a few miles to the orphanage. She will be in charge of five little babies, from what we understand, and they are the darlingest little hunchkins!!! She was falling in love with them already by the time we left, and the rest of us can’t wait to go see her, hopefully this weekend… Dad left early this morning, which was very sad as well. I feel rather vulerable without my dad’s protection, but I know it will be a time when I see God as my Guardian in a bigger way than I’ve known before…

  
  

  By the way, when we sign ‘por las chicas’ it is the way we are addressed down here!! Just por su informacion… It is a form of reference, or a title given to all females in the younger realm.

  
  

  Sooo, all that said,

  
  

  por las chicas

  
  

  clarita <><

  • 9:27 pm
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