Settling in

I’m finally getting to the point where I don’t have a bunch of new stuff to say.  The schedule has become normal and I’ve fallen into a comfortable pattern of life, where my training community is my home.  Every morning we have Spanish class, followed by lunch with our families, and then technical class, which ends around 5pm.  I then either run or play soccer, take a bucket bath, eat dinner with my family, and normally watch a Disney movie dubbed in Spanish.  I crave rice and carbs all the time.  When I smell the food cooking at other houses, I know what they are cooking because everyone cooks the same thing and my mom has served it to me before.  The sound of a choir of roosters crowing at 4am does not wake me up anymore.  When smoke from burning trash drifts by, the smell is familiar and no longer smells quite so foul.  Eating a bag of cheetohs is a delicacy.  I can finally understand 80% of what my family says.  It’s easier to say some things in Spanish than it is in English.  I look forward to the cold water in my bucket bath. 

The other day my family was out of the house for the day and left lunch for me on the stove for me to serve myself.  Well, I was pretty excited because this meant that I would finally be able to control my serving size.  The independence was so exciting!  But then, when I sat down to lunch and saw how much I had, I realized I had served myself just as much as my host mom usually serves me. 

As a group, we have become pretty cohesive, and every free moment we have we normally congregate at the benches by the store and eat Doritos and Cheetohs, 15 cent donuts and cakes, and drink Squirt and Pepsi.  It’s really nice to just sit and talk to each other, especially after spending so much time in class or trying to speak in Spanish.

I have really enjoyed watching a lot of cable in Spanish.  Not only is it a great way to practice Spanish, but it’s really entertaining to watch familiar movies and how the words get translated.  I’ve watched Harry Potter, The Incredibles, The Sandbox, and last night I saw Anchorman.  Not all families get cable, but most other families do watch Canta Conmigo, the Panamanian version of American Idol for pre-teens, and a slew of telenovelas.