Thursday, November 27, 2008

The adventure continues!! (and Happy Thanksgiving!)

In the past couple days, I haven't had quite as much excitement as I had on the trip down here. I think I'm just about recovered from the lack of sleep, but I suppose that's to be expected -- I'll have about 2 or 3 good days before I have to turn around and head back to the states!!

I met Teresa's fiance on Monday night -- he was dropping her off after they . . . did . . . some kind of planning for the wedding. That was so long ago I can't really remember what they were doing - OH!! They were meeting with a man from their church for some pre-marital counseling!! Teresa's dad is actually performing the wedding ceremony, but I guess they figured it would be a little awkward for him to do the counseling!!

Marcelo is very nice. Teresa said he doesn't like new situations, but he seems to be o.k. with me. There is the language barrier, though . . .

On Tuesday, we went to what will be their house to do some more baking (we had done a lot of baking on Monday, too -- they are fixing almost all the food for the reception. She is having cupcakes instead of a traditional cake and their "lunch" reception will be chicken, vegetables, potatos, and bread. I've been helping her mom with the bread mostly.) Back to Teresa's house. It is a little run-down. I didn't bring my little do-hickey that loads pictures to my computer, so I'll have to wait until I'm in the states to post pictures. They have been working to fix it up for the past couple of months, but since they're just in Springtime here, I guess it's been a little cold to do too much.

When we sat down to eat lunch Tuesday at Teresa's house, Marcelo looked over at me (I'll interject that he doesn't speak any more English than I speak Spanish -- I may know more Spanish than he does English. He had 2 years of English in school, but didn't like it very much). He looked at me and said, "How are you today, Kelly?" Then he said something to Teresa in Spanish which was, "That's all I remember from my English classes." Teresa said I need to come more often because he won't speak to her in English!!

The language barrier has definately been interesting. I took French in high school, so any time I try to think of something I could say, it ends up being French in my head, so I don't bother even trying to say anything. Sometimes I can pick out words from their conversations: house, tomorrow, and most numbers/colors/fruits. One phrase I do hear is "Yo tango" which means "I have". I'll get excited when I hear this, but then I realize that I don't really know WHAT they have, I just know they have something!! Sometimes I'll follow a short conversation, but mostly I'm lost. The best part is when Teresa's mom goes to "translate" for me and she starts talking to me in Spanish!! One time, Teresa's dad looked at her and said, "Do you wanna try asking her in English??" It's been great!!

I guess that's all the excitement for now. We're headed to do some more shopping today, then early tomorrow we'll head to the campground to start preparations.

When I started typing this blog post, I was trying to figure out what day I first met Marcelo, so I was going backwards in my head to figure out if it was yesterday, the day before that, or the day before that. Then I realized I didn't really know what day it is today!! I looked at my little clock thing at the bottom corner of my computer and realized: TODAY IS THANKSGIVING!! So, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! We do get a typical Thanksgiving dinner tonight -- Teresa's 2 sisters and their families are traveling up today and we'll have a family celebration tonight. It should be very exciting!! I'll still be the only person who ONLY speaks English, but the ratio of non-English to English speakers will greatly increase!

Have a great day -- enjoy Black Friday -- I'll be missing it!!!