Dia Tres

I can’t believe day 3 is already here! Time sure goes by quickly! A lot has happened in the past 48 hours! Greg and I had a tough time sleeping our first night here (due to several things…heat, scratchy sheets, a new environment, excitement, etc.) Fortunately, we were able to sneak a nap in later in the afternoon to make up for it a least a little! We got up at 6am and took to the streets in search of coffee. About two steps down the street we ran into a school girl who informed us there shops will not open until at least 8! Going on adrenaline, we decided to plug on! We walked around for about an hour and a half checking out the neighborhood and learning our surroundings. We headed to the school at about 7:45am as we needed to be there by 8:00am to begin. Once we arrived, we were greeted by the other teachers where we sang praise songs and had a brief Bible lesson (too bad all Greg and I could understand was Jesu Cristo!) Next, we met with one of the administrators, Norma, so she could go over some basics with us. She gave us more information about the subjects we will teach and sent us to the library to pick up our text books. We headed back to our apartment at around 10:00am. We dropped off our stuff, had a snack, the decided to do some more exploring. We also dropped by the Hotel Quan to see if we could meet with Alan, the head of All God’s Children (one of the organization’s that supports the Hogar de Ninos.) No luck, but we left a note for him, saying that we would come by later in the day.

Next task, get cell phones. We hiked over to the mall, only have a break down in communication with the saleswomen. They didn’t speak English, we don’t speak Spanish. We decided that it would probably be in our best interest to come back the next day with a local to make sure we weren’t getting ripped off! We then went across the street for a delicious meal at the La Casita Asado (a cute little Log Cabin restaurant that serves tasty barbequed meat with about 4 side dishes…all for only L60 (about $3)!

Later in the day we ended up meeting us with Alan. He invited us to have dinner with the group on Wednesday night – so we planned to meet then at Mang Ying for some good eats (and Gringo company!) For dinner, we headed over to Bill’s condo. He cooked up some yummy spaghetti and shrimp followed by some Kraft cheese and crackers. He also loaded us up with about 2 grocery bags full of “American” food that he purchased at the base! The prized item….real butter! Sure, all the packages in the supermarket say ‘Natural Butter’ but what they really mean is margarine! We were thrilled that Bill was so kind to fill our fridge and pantry with some items that reminded us of home! We are very thankful to have met him, as he has done so much for us already! Oh, and I can’t leave out one other important staple he provided for us…a coffee pot! He gave us his, complete with filters and some beans! He said he’d just pick up a new one at the post! Our life here is improving everyday!