Wednesday, December 26, 2007

lunch

it's been a long (but momentous) day.

it was cold last night and i slept with the balcony door open and froze. considering that i'm not feeling that great, it wasn't so smart. then i discovered that my roommate has eaten my food. and not anything like salt or rice or butter, but my cheese. my cheese! chileans do not have great cheese, so i forked over the dinero for alouette. and she ate it. i don't know how i'm going to confront her in spanish, but i have to, if i want my cheese from now on. i'll let you know how that goes.

then i was off to work. my commute consists of a three minute walk to the metro, about 30 minutes on the train including one line change, and then a 15 minute bus ride and a 10-12 minute walk to the house. it's not so bad, but the worst part is the dogs. there is a serious stray dog problem here, and packs of them roam all over the place (except for my neighborhood, which is nice). so usually, on my walk to the baby house, i pass at least 5 to 10 dogs. the trick is to not make eye contact. seriously. i know at least a couple of other volunteers who got chomped.

a couple of hours playing with the babies, and then the head tia asked me to get the car out. whoa - my first day on my own, and i drove all the way into providencia, which is about a 30 minute drive, to a hospital. my first couple of shifts into first gear were a little jerky (the tias were laughing) but the rest went really well. i was very proud of myself!

whenever i work the morning shift, part of the job is picking up lunch from another hogar. hogar esperanza is the name of the organization that runs two homes - one for older kids and one for the babies. the home for the older kids (casa grande) is not that far from the baby house, and they generally cook a lot of food - over 20 kids live there. so every day, someone from the baby house heads over to casa grande and picks up lunch. usually, it's pretty good. i've had mashed potatoes and tuna cakes, rice/mashed potatoes with fried eggs (that was not so great), spaghetti, stew with chickpeas and veggies, and today we had rice with grilled meat from the christmas fiesta yesterday. it wasn't bad. however, everyone puts mayonnaise on everything. mayo on rice, mayo on spaghetti, mayo on meat, mayo on corn. on everything. it's a little strange.

now, after three attempts to get cash from atms, i'm at a coffee shop close to my apartment, drinking fanta light and eating a donut. life is good. :)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

kathy, what an adventure you are on. everything sounds fun; even the frustrating stuff. agreed, you need to confront your roommate about the cheese - ASAP is a good rule for timing of confrontation for roommate issues. anyway, sounds like things are going well for you. your friends and family will love your stories for years to come!

adam b.

Anonymous said...

ugh! you've probably figured it out by now...but, maybe she moved it! :) your cheese, that is. just kidding, but I hear that's a good book. ha.
so cool to hear your experiences. it's an inspiration as we move into the new year. i hope you have a good celebration with new friends, friend.
God bless, wendy y

Anonymous said...

Happy New Year from Kalamazoo, Kathy!!

Debbie