Mi Familia y mas

I was greeted to my new home with warm hugs and a hot meal.

My temporary mama Rossa is extremely lovely, as is my broha Martin(17). They don´t speak much english--Rossa vritually none. Virtually? Does that make sense? Ah well, practically none. So that´s been really fun and is a great learning experience. I love Martin and have such a good time with him. He speaks a little English and is a great assest in helping me learn. He gives me crap sometimes, well, most of the time, but I am so grateful for his patience and his willingness to help me out, look over my homework, etc.

There are also 3 other students living here; Alana and Austin, 2 girls from California that came with a group and are attending a different school, and Richard from Germany who goes to Amauta with me but is staying for 5 months. We´re all pretty close in age, but I´m the oldest in the house.

I have a nice private room and am able to hang my clothes in a closet and put my socks in drawers, which is soo nice and makes me feel like, yeah, wow, this is my house. We all have our own set of keys and come and go as we please. We get two meals a day, which for me is generally desayuno (breaky) and ceña (din-din). We eat a lot of rice and a lot a chicken. Surprise? It´s all good and I haven´t had something I haven´t liked yet.

Classes are pretty good, and a little (kind of a lot) challenging. The first day was kind of like a oh crap feeling, but I´m definitely catching on pretty quick. Áfter a placement test the first day they put me in an Intermediate level group with 4 or 5 other students. People are always coming and going, so it´s my understanding the the group is a little different every week depending on people´s travel agendas. I´m in classes for 4 hours a day which doesn´t seem like a lot, but when it´s all at one go it gets to be pretty darn long. But yeah.. it´s good, the profs are good, the students are fun, everyone is there because they want to be and that makes a big difference. The only semi- negative thing how far it is away from the school. It takes me 35-40 minutes to get there on foot, or is 3 soles (like 1.50ish) by cab. The walk is interesting with lots to see along the way, and has got to be some darn good exercise, but yeah some days it seems longer than others... (when you´re running a little late, for example).

I don´t hang out all to much at the school right now, but that´ll probably change in the following weeks. Sometimes it feels a bit clostraphobic to be around so many nice people in one space. Is that weird? Obviously most of them are awesome, but it´s fun to stroll around and meet with the locals too. (I feel like that sentence was a pretty obivous statement?) I brought a hackey sac to the Plaza de Armas (the main square) and that was a huge hit with some of the young vendor boys.

Well, my time with the computer is just about up, but I´m feeling like I´ve pretty well gotten this thing up to date. I mean, minus all the stuff that has happened this past week... ay ay ay. But yeah, good. Now I can hook you up with more of my present than my past. And the future...oh boy the future!

Take care, be well, and mucho amor

xo Kait