casa nueva

I was really lucky with rain my first week. It didn't rain much, and when it did, it was pretty short and I could just stay inside. The last two days it's rained a lot. Today it's been raining on and off for the last 4 hours (mostly on for the last 2). I'm sort of stuck in my room. Even to get to the rest of the house, I must go out in the rain. I don't know what I'd do anyway. The activity today is yoga class, and it's apparently really hard so I'm not so interested.

Anyway, I love my new house! I moved into my friend's casa yesterday, since he left Saturday. It's really, really nice. The parents are so nice. They took me up to my room and showed me around, and it went much smoother than last week. I guess I understand a lot more than even a week ago, because I was able to have an entire conversation with them, too. They're really good about correcting my spanish, which is very helpful. There are like 4 kids, I think, ranging in age from 10 to 26. The 26-yr-old is married with a small child. She's 3, I think. She's really cute. I just met her and she decided she liked me. So she held my hand and we walked around and then she had me pick her up. I can understand maybe half of what she says. It's sad when a 3-yr old can speak better than you!

The new house is so nice. The bathroom is tiled, and there's a real tub with really pretty tile. No more cement! The water pressure is even a little bit better. The mother of the new house is such a good cook. I think she's incapable of cooking anything bad. This morning we had amazing pancakes, and for lunch we had something that resembled risotto with sausages.

There is another student in the house, too. Lillian. She's from Hong Kong and this is her first week at school. She speaks zero spanish, so I've actually (strangely) been translating a bit for her. The fact that she is Chinese is basically amazing to Guatemalans. They do things like ask to take pictures with her. They say and do all kinds of things that would be really offensive in America, but it's just because they don't know any Chinese people, I guess. (For example, my family here did the universal 'pull the corner of your eyes down' to indicate that someone is Asian. They also don't really know the difference between Chinese and Japonese.)

I really miss my two amigos that left Saturday, as I was enjoying being able to just follow them around. Now, Lillian asks me where to go, and I'm like, 'No se!'. Having to make decisions sucks. I did head over to one of the mercados yesterday, though, and picked up two new sweaters and two new blouses. Yay.

Remember the story about how I couldn't say my teacher's name correctly? Well, when I was mispronouncing it, the guys though I was saying 'Gloria.' So, today, they kept calling my teacher Gloria all morning but wouldn't tell her why. Apparently, on break, she called one of her friends (who had also been out with us – not sure how she knew he'd know), and asked him why everyone was calling her Gloria. She was quite amused, and when I introduced myself as 'Sydney,' she said 'No, no, Gloria!' I've already picked up two nicknames. Great. (The other is 'Yuppie', which is a somewhat longer story. Only one teacher calls me that. I call him 'Preppy.')

In point of fact, my name is incredibly difficult for Guatemalans to say. First of all, the “ih” sound doesn't exist, so, the closest they can even get is “Seed-nee.” Which is fine. Much like in the US, the kid who loves in this house keeps saying “Seen-dee.” The kid, who is 10, is awesome. He actually is pretty good about figuring out what I'm trying to say and correcting my Spanish. He also likes to trick me a lot. Apparently they only have school in the morning, so this afternoon I asked him if he was done. And he said, 'yes.' Then I said, 'so, school is only in the mornings?' And he said, 'no, it continues in the afternoon.' Which is a lie. He just likes to confuse me. Of course, that interaction took place in Spanish, so it was even more confusing.

I have to write a gazillion more sentences today. I kind of hate writing the sentences because I hate making up stuff to say. Plus, some of the verbs are really weird. Like, one just means to scrub dishes, so there's not many ways to use that verb. Writing sentences is helpful, but a lot of time the sentences end up being incredibly simplistic because I can't think of anything else to say. And then it's less helpful, because it's forming the complicated sentences that is very hard. With complicated sentences, the words go in strange orders.

My accomplishment of the day is making friends with the dog that lives on the roof of the house. He's a big ole dog; not sure what kind. He barks loudly and is a bit scary at first, and they told me not to touch him for the first day. As of today, he likes me. Oh, hirs name is Roofo, since he lives on the roof. I feel pretty bad for Roofo, as he just hangs out on the roof all day and is very bored. I try to say hi to him when I walk by on the way to my room. (He can come down a lower part of the roof, which is even with the stairs I walk up to my room. Although he's on the roof, he's actually below me.) Guatemalans love dogs, and they love keeping them on the roof. Sometimes all the roof dogs in the neighborhood start up and it's pretty crazy.