¡Estoy aquí!
Hola a todos. Aquí Blogger.com es en español. Y el... uh... keyboard es diferente. Still working on the Spanish here. I arrived safely and happily. I´m living in Casa Ita, which is the smallest Casa (there are three). I live with four other American students, Amy, Monique, Graham, and Zac, and two Salvadoran scholarship students from la UCA, Teresa and Lupita, as well as our Community Coordinator Linda. She did the Casa program a couple years ago, and she´s working with it now. I share a huge room with Amy and Monique. We have our own bathroom and a little balcony.
I´m very happy. The food is awesome. So far we´ve been doing orientation stuff. Our classes don´t start until the 22nd. Yesterday we visited the Romero Center at the UCA, which has a museum wth stuff about Romero, Rutilio Grande, the six Jesuits, and the American churchwomen. It´s in the building where the Jesuits lived. We also visited the rose garden, where the Jesuits were killed. I had been to both places before, but it was still pretty powerful.
The Spanish is a challenge, but I´m doing better than I was afraid of. There´s a guard that stands outside near our Casa, and last night a group of us spend about a half hour talking to him. His name is Esteban. He was very nice and very hard to understand, but we made it work. I had a nice conversation with a woman named Griselda who helps coordinate something called the Romero Program, which helps the scholarship students. Scholarships pay for tuition, but for most poor students that´s not very helpful because they still can´t afford books and transportation and other expenses, so the Romero Program helps with that. The becari@s (scholarship students) in our Casas are part of the Romero Program. Through orientation we´re doing a lot of stuff in English, but then we´ll have to speak a lot more Spanish.
We officially signed up for our classes today. I´m changing one of the classes I planned to take because there´s another one that sounds really really good. I´m taking the sociology class instead of the literature class. I hadn´t realized what the sociology class was like - turns out it´s basically a media studies class. I think it´s called Sociology of Public Communication. Apparently the teacher is amazing, though it is a hard class. I´m excited though. It means I´ll have to take a literature class at USF to finish my core, and I might have to take something else to finish my Latin American Studies minor, but I can manage that fine.
The weather has been gorgeous. It´s hot, but when you´re walking around or sitting in the shade it´s fine. It´s hot, but it´s not too uncomfortable. And it´s good that it´s hot because we don´t have hot water in my Casa, so a cold shower feels kind of nice once you get past the initial shock.
There´s an internet café really close to the Casa, so I´ll probably be able to access is pretty frequently. Yay.
Over the next week we´re visiting all the praxis sites, and we´re going to mine tomorrow. Exciting.
I´m very happy. The food is awesome. So far we´ve been doing orientation stuff. Our classes don´t start until the 22nd. Yesterday we visited the Romero Center at the UCA, which has a museum wth stuff about Romero, Rutilio Grande, the six Jesuits, and the American churchwomen. It´s in the building where the Jesuits lived. We also visited the rose garden, where the Jesuits were killed. I had been to both places before, but it was still pretty powerful.
The Spanish is a challenge, but I´m doing better than I was afraid of. There´s a guard that stands outside near our Casa, and last night a group of us spend about a half hour talking to him. His name is Esteban. He was very nice and very hard to understand, but we made it work. I had a nice conversation with a woman named Griselda who helps coordinate something called the Romero Program, which helps the scholarship students. Scholarships pay for tuition, but for most poor students that´s not very helpful because they still can´t afford books and transportation and other expenses, so the Romero Program helps with that. The becari@s (scholarship students) in our Casas are part of the Romero Program. Through orientation we´re doing a lot of stuff in English, but then we´ll have to speak a lot more Spanish.
We officially signed up for our classes today. I´m changing one of the classes I planned to take because there´s another one that sounds really really good. I´m taking the sociology class instead of the literature class. I hadn´t realized what the sociology class was like - turns out it´s basically a media studies class. I think it´s called Sociology of Public Communication. Apparently the teacher is amazing, though it is a hard class. I´m excited though. It means I´ll have to take a literature class at USF to finish my core, and I might have to take something else to finish my Latin American Studies minor, but I can manage that fine.
The weather has been gorgeous. It´s hot, but when you´re walking around or sitting in the shade it´s fine. It´s hot, but it´s not too uncomfortable. And it´s good that it´s hot because we don´t have hot water in my Casa, so a cold shower feels kind of nice once you get past the initial shock.
There´s an internet café really close to the Casa, so I´ll probably be able to access is pretty frequently. Yay.
Over the next week we´re visiting all the praxis sites, and we´re going to mine tomorrow. Exciting.
posted by Amber at 1:50 PM
1 Comments:
Hola, mi hermana!
I didn't know you had no hot water! O.O *shivers*
It's hella cold up here, and our water takes a while to heat up, so whenever I wash my hands, they get numb and then slowly thaw out if I keep the water on long enough.
It made me laugh that my e-mail to you was over 1600 words long and your response was like, 18 words. :-P
I told you the Spanish thing would be fine.
Su hermana,
Maria ;-)
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