Monday

Well today I started my Spanish class!! I went with Millie to the school this morning at 7:30am. There were seven other teachers at the school this morning and Millie is having Miss Juliana, be my Spanish tutor. I was a little nervous at first because Juliana does not speak English so I was thinking, “great how am I going to explain to her what I am suppose to do?!” But Millie helped explain in the beginning and the rest worked itself out pretty well. We sat in one of the classrooms and practiced going over some commands and some phrases that will be helpful for me in the classroom. Juliana is a really sweet girl and she is only one year older than me so it is nice to feel like she is just more of a friend helping me out. I need more friends my age here!!
Then it was time to hit the streets. Juliana and I went to Millie’s aunt’s restaurant first. I love this aunt she is so precious! We talked to her for a little bit and she is so cute because she really tries to make sure she speaks a little slower for me. At her little restaurant she makes enchiladas and tajadas. Las tajadas are kind of like potato chips to them….they are platanos fried. Here, banano refers to the fruit banana and platano refers to the vegetable which looks almost identical to a banana (just a little background info for you all in case you were wondering :>). She gave us a big bag of tajadas as a gift and then took us next door to meet her son who owns the store and where we bought some drinks. Then we left and went back down the street to the Pulperia (my host family’s store) and talked to mama Hilda for a little bit and then went back to the school. I sat and listened to the teachers talk some more… not understanding much that was said, and then at 11am I headed back to the house. Once I got back to the Pulperia mama Hilda’s brother was there. He is visiting from Florida and is only here for a few more days. He was excited to meet me and has been to Los Angeles so he wanted to talk to me about California, how it is a beautiful place and random other things. He was a cute old man with his little cane and he spoke very good Spanish….well I guess the type of Spanish that I can more or less understand! He was cute because if he could not pronounce something, like Azusa and my name, he would have me write it down for him. It was funny to listen to him struggle over my last name and then when I said it was Italian he started going off about Italy!! He talked about how beautiful it is there and how he loves the Italian language. He said Italian, French and Portuguese are all a lot easier to learn because they are closer to Spanish. I was pretty surprised though because he has been living in Florida for several years now and still does not know very much English. He said one sentence in English and I could barely understand what he was saying!! Anyways, people here love to talk so I had to finally end the conversation so I could get some of my homework done while things were fresh on my mind. I had not been working on my homework for very long before one of the teacher’s daughters came in my room and sat on my bed and started talking. She is five years old and so cute but I cannot understand a word she says!! Do you all see a pattern here of me not understanding anything? Well you are right; there is a pattern. Welcome to my life!!
Let us just all pray that I start understanding things!!!