Estoy Seguro

Hello dear friends and family! If you have not heard by now, I am safe (which is the title of my blog post in spanish :) I arrived in Cochabamba safely around 9:30 Monday morning... after almost a full day of travel. I am praising God for safe and smooth travels, especially considering the 3 layovers (Akron-Charlotte-Miami-Santa Cruz-Cochabamba). The flight to Santa Cruz was overnight, but I managed to snatch a few hours of sleep :).

There was a host of SIM people to greet me (and Beth, a fellow worker at the school). They were so kind and understanding and helped me get settled in my temporary room at the Guest House. I will be staying in the house probably until next Thursday, when I will be moving into an apartment (the complex houses other single teachers from the school as well), conveniently right accross the street.

Yesterday seemed quite long, but it was not too overwhelming. After dropping of my things and freshening up Beth and I headed to lunch at a local restaurante (which is safe for foreigners stomachs, ha) with Amallia. There we ate a traditional 4 course meal - "salad" bar items, soup (with pumpkin! delic.) meat (I had beef) with rice or noodles ... or in our case, potatoes, and then dessert (warm pinneaple, yum). Then we took a taxi (called taxi trufis, I believe) to a supermarket, with many American-type foods. Needless to say, it was somewhat of a humbling experience... for those of you who have gone shopping with me in an American store, just imagine me shopping in a store where I have to think about how there are 7 bolivianos to 1 US dollar... and I don't really know how to cook! You would have had a laugh, I'm sure :) BUT, I will learn!

After shopping I took a long nap, and then we were invited to dinner at an SIM family's house, which was delicious.

After a good night's sleep (eight hours!) I ate breakfast with a woman from Peru. I only speak a very little Spanish, and she only speaks a very little English... so here is what I gathered from our 1/2 an hour -45 min. meal:
-her name (I know how to say that! "Me llamo..." = my name is...)
-she is from Peru
-she works at a university there, but is not a professor
-she has lived there for 22 years
-she is travelling
-she has no family there
-she is leaving on Viernes (which I had to look up later becuase I forgot that it means "Friday")

I'm sorry to say that she probably did not learn very much about me.... maybe only this:
-that I can't speak spanish very well, and can understand only ever 7th word, ha
-I will be teaching at a school
-I will be teaching children in primary school
-I am staying here until April
-I visited Lima, Peru last April

O boy... I have so much to learn!! I wish I could understand so much more! Hopefully that will happen over the course of the next four months.

One thing I learned yesterday about my first grade students is that many of them are still learning to speak English. I am excited to learn about how to teach these students, and it will be a good experience for both me and the students (I hope).

Well, this entry has been entirely too long, and probably full of details you didn't want to know, but there you go. I have no idea yet what I am doing today (it's 12:23 right now), so I am trying to stay occupied :)

I hope that you all are doing well, especially those of you who just headed back to school yesterday (or today)!

Adios,
KP