Birthdays and Goodbyes

So I reread my last entry and realized how poorly written it was. Heres my excuse--I wrote it at the Hogar. The Hogar is mostly little boys. They have such a strict schedule and have hardly anytime to play. Not to mention they are boys, and they love gadgets and toys. So, anytime I am on the internet when the kids are there I have at least 5 little boys hanging all over me, moving the mouse and poking the screen relentlessly asking me what everything is. I ask them about a hundred times to give me some space and not touch anything and they do. But then 30 seconds late they start inching their way closer and with in a minute I can smell Ignacio bad breath heaving down on me. I dont know why they just stand there and watch me type in English, it seems so boring. They find it fun to scream out the words they recognize. The other day some of the words they recognized were Birthday and Lima. I couldnt really concentrate when I was writing my last entry and I didnt feel like taking the time to proof read. This picture may give you an idea of the chaos that ensues whenever I have a technological gadget. They LOVE when I bring the camera. But I try not to bring it cause all the kids grab at it and when they demand to look at the photos they all poke the screen and touch the buttons even though thats the one condition they promise not to do when they ask to see the photo. In this picture Im trying to get every to take a nice picture and smile. This is the best one I got. They were all going nuts in front of the camera...wait a minute, that all go nuts all the time.

This picture is my birthday lunch with my host family. It was a good experience, but I cant tell if it brought me closer to them or separated me further. Me and my host mom went to the market in the morning and bought all the stuff we needed. I bought everything. Some members of the family seem to embrace me, others seem to resent me for having more than they do. I guess thats to be expected, we are all human.

Oh yeah, the sun came out that day for the first time! It was still a bit chilly but I didnt care, I celebrated (note the short sleve shirt). The other white girls at the table are Bianca to my left and Antonia to my right. It was really nice to have them both there.