holaaaa!
first off, disclaimer. i wanted to put like 30 pictures in this post but they're not uploading and it's 2 in the morning and there's a tropical storm going on aaaaand i gotta get that beauty rest. so you get a measly six. sorries!
i finally have had semi-strong enough wifi to upload my pictures (cough and download the software to my new camera) so i can finally blog! side note: i know i blogged in paris about every day, but so far the wifi has been super wacky here and sometime's the power's out soooooo yeah. the updates may be patchy. this may be more on the meesh du week (semaine, whatever) side than du jour but thassa whole lot betta than what it was before (meesh du year haha). so DEAL WIT IT. eventually we're supposed to have a converter here and have wifi all the time so everybody cross your fingers and fast that that happens. gracias!
first off, disclaimer. i wanted to put like 30 pictures in this post but they're not uploading and it's 2 in the morning and there's a tropical storm going on aaaaand i gotta get that beauty rest. so you get a measly six. sorries!
i finally have had semi-strong enough wifi to upload my pictures (cough and download the software to my new camera) so i can finally blog! side note: i know i blogged in paris about every day, but so far the wifi has been super wacky here and sometime's the power's out soooooo yeah. the updates may be patchy. this may be more on the meesh du week (semaine, whatever) side than du jour but thassa whole lot betta than what it was before (meesh du year haha). so DEAL WIT IT. eventually we're supposed to have a converter here and have wifi all the time so everybody cross your fingers and fast that that happens. gracias!
okay, so i've been out here like a week? and it feels like i've been here a year. first things first, the red eye flight coming out here was the biggest struggle. imagine me in every position possible in two seats (there was an asian girl sitting by me but she moved? i'm unbearable to sit by? ask me if i care, i got another seat out of it!) and doped up on melatonin to help me try to fall asleep...yeah, didn't work. i had a layover in miami and me and this girl karson were joking around about napping on the floor for a little bit and then we just decided to eff it and do it. so yeah, i was that homeless girl sleeping on the floor of the miami airport. hopefully i don't have aids now!
the first night's sleep was basically like sleeping in a sauna. first off, it is sooooo hot and humid here. like you think you know what hot and humid is ("oh yeah, i lived by the beach"...."oh yeah, i've been out on the east coast"...NOPE) and then you get here and you get schooled. we sleep on bunk beds here and everybody basically just sleeps on a sheet. some people brought blankets (HA HA whats a blanket) and they are crazy. air flow is a hot commodity here and our apartment has the best of it, so we for sure lucked out! there's three apartments in our complex full of our teachers....i'll go into more detail about all of that eventually.
the food so far has been super good! we are lucky enough to have a cook to cook our lunches and dinners and it usually consists of a meat (pork, um maybe steak, or chicken with the best seasoning), rice, mashed or fried plantains, steamed veggies, or beans. there's usually three of those things i just listed and they just put big bowls of it out and all 23 of us sit around and eat (they have plates here too, don't worry). and then sometimes we walk down the street and get some helado (ice cream) and i get to embarrass myself trying to order in espanol (somebody get this girl a phrase book!). luckily a few of the other teachers can speak spanish and i just yell for one of them to come over and help :]
the bug situation has actually not been too bad so far (knock on all the wood in the world)! still doesn't stop me from sleeping with a huge can of bug killer by my bed and waking up every few hours to feel around my bed for any cockroaches or centipedes (terrified of one of those nasties crawling in my mouth!!!@#!). i also haven't had too many mosquito bites but i wear bug spray like perfume so that probably kills the vibe a titch.
this whole week, we've just been training and getting ready to start teaching next week! should be interesting. these are new schools that we are starting out here so the kids don't really know english at all, which is rare because usually they know at least a little. so watch me as i'm the one snorting laughing from awkwardness when the kids aren't answering any of my questions. we've had some free time to go to the beach (only 15 min away! hollaaaa) and we went up the gondola yesterday which reminded me of the gondola going up the teton mountains in jackson. it was so beautiful on the top and we walked around in essentially a jungle and ate an early dinner of bacon cheeseburgers (don't even judge me fools). it was perfect!
i'm so excited to start teaching and have no idea what i've gotten myself in for. me and macie just say "what are we even doing here?" all day long because it feels like the most random thing that we live here now for four months. a group of us watched the secret life of walter mitty last night which is seriously one of my most favorite movies and i was getting all giddy inside watching it because no joke, it is the movie that inspired and kicked my butt into gear to finally come teach english to little kids since i've been wanting to for so long. i'm so grateful to finally be here and to be doing this! i'm the biggest fan of new starts and throwing myself into unknown places and having to figure it all out and myself out in it as well.
fingers crossed a good meesh comes out in the end!
