one more week....

i can´t believe we only have a week left. 6-year-old gleicy asked me last night when i was going home, and when i told her she cried and asked me "why? i want you to stay here." i´m going to hate leaving these kids. they ask when we´ll come back, and it´s so hard not to be able to give an answer.

we finally got to sleep the night through last night! no more medicine for babies. :-) little maria is doing soo well and has stolen my heart, she smiles and laughs for me and has gained 5 lbs. since being here (one month).

i don´t think i told you all about iglesia (church) last sunday. we go to the assembly of God church here, and of course it´s in spanish so i had a little difficulty understanding everything (ok, a lot). i was holding tony (who used to be malnourished but you certainly can´t tell now hehehe), and it was definitely the hottest, stickiest, sweatiest church service i´ve ever been to. ;-) but i loved the worship; there´s quite a few american churches that could learn a thing or two from attending church here. they had a drummer, bass player, electric guitarist, singer/keyboardist, and two other singers...they were a good band, but the most awesome thing was how much they loved praising God and how much joy they had. they put their whole heart into it. the pastor is the keyboardist/worship leader, and he´s very compelling, even though i didn´t understand much. :-P one thing i loved was that some of the songs were american worship songs translated to spanish, so i could sing along in english--it´s so amazing to be worshiping God with people who can´t communicate with you otherwise...the language ceases to matter, just that we are all there for the same purpose.

tomorrow the group from texas is leaving, and so tonight we´re having a going-away/birthday party. a lot of these kids don´t know exactly when their birthday is, and also it´s too much to have a separate party for each, so every two months they have a party. the kids usually get some kind of small gift, and the house´s birthday tradition is to douse them with water. :-D

jose had an especially good class today...sometimes we start to wonder how much he´s really learning and understanding, and some days he just learns by leaps and bounds and amazes us. especially today, yoko and i both were tired and preoccupied--it just goes to show that it´s God who gives understanding, not us. he is really beginning to pick up on the right expressions and facial grammar, which is difficult to teach except just through example; watching us sign is paying off, because he´s picking up on the language more, not just vocabulary.

yesterday was eventful; first yoko went to the jail to interpret for 15 "japanese" people who were picked up by the coast guard and didn´t know any english/spanish. unfortunately people here mix up their asians, and the group was actually chinese. they communicated somewhat through writing, though, which was good. :-) people are always calling poor yoko "china" and "chinita."

we also took the afternoon off and went to a creek nearby (well, 7 miles...across a bumpy dirt road in the back of a truck...good thing there were lots of people so we were kind of smushed in). we actually saw pine trees!! i felt like i was back home. ;-) it was so nice...the water was clear and deep, and the kids loved it. we washed clothes there too, which was definitely more fun than using the washing machine at home (and we got clean, too).

one more story: there was another cockroach in my bed! the night before last i went to get in bed and a huge one flew up (i didn´t know they could fly-!) at me and started crawling around in my sheets. now i´m ok with most kinds of bugs (even most spiders), but somehow i just can´t handle cockroaches...so yoko and i run out squealing and kimberly and telma came to the rescue. neither of them has a problem with picking the nasty little things with their bare hands, and telma chased me around with it while roger laughed at us "california girls." at least we got a good laugh out of the whole thing, and kimberly did a thorough search of my bed for amigos de cucharacha. we have a running joke that "novio de kimberly es cucharacha, y novio de misha es sapo" kimberly´s boyfriend is a cockroach, and mine is a frog...long story, but basically we´re going to kiss both of them and they´ll turn into princes.

on that note, adios and buenos tardes!