Lots of Laughs

Hallelujah, my first warm shower in two weeks! Hot water is officially fixed and I love it. Right now one of the boys, Geni, is staying at our house. We are helping him with studying, though I admit, there is minimal studying going on tonight. We are having fun showing him friends and family on facebook, as well as the joys of photobooth on the mac computers. More importantly, he helped us cook a chicken today. Well not cook, but cut. When he came here, we wanted to cook him a good meal, so we decided to go get some chicken to cook. Natalie and Ethan came back with a whole chicken, in a bag. We were hoping that someone would know what to do with it, but one by one we passed it around and shook our heads. This included me, Natalie, Ethan, Korey, as well as the Spanish volunteers Anna and Clara. So all of our heads turned to Geni for direction. At this point he was laughing extremely hard. It must have looked so sad. So he took the chicken out and began to cut it up for us into good sized pieces. We all watched as he pulled apart legs and the middle, and cut through the bones etc. Ugh. Once we had the pieces, I pulled out the cookbook and figured out how to bake it. It turned out surprisingly well! I put in some onions, garlic and olive oil and then cooked it. We made rice and baked carrots and I consider it the best meal we've made! Genie has also been laughing at our attempts to speak spanish. Natalie came up to him and meant to ask him if he wanted some chips, so she pointed and said "te quiero". He gave her a very strange look and she just handed him the bag and walked away. I sat there for like a minute thinking about it and then started cracking up, realizing that she had just said "I love you". So now, every time we ask him if he wants something we tell him that we love him. Ah so funny. So many laughs here, at the moment I cant stop. Anna is perhaps the funniest person I have met. 

Anna and I were the only one's to get up early to go to the jungle school this morning. School this week is only for those who need extra help, and I was in charge of three kids in third grade. We spent time practicing our times tables. Anna went with the sixth graders to take their graduation pictures, and when she got back we both hiked to Geni's house to speak with his grandmother. It was a twenty minute walk up a muddy, slippery slope. We eventually arrived without falling (success) and were welcomed into Geni's house. Seeing the kids at the school every day in their uniforms, it's so easy to forget where exactly they life. We were greeted by several enormous pigs laying outside the house, and clothes strung around the house. Inside there was only the dirt floor and single room, with a stove in one corner and the beds in another. The roof is only tin, and looking up I wonder what they do when it rains. While we were sitting inside, I looked to my right and a tiny little puppy emerged. Later there were hens with baby chicks coming in and out of the house, and the pigs kept entering and being shooed out. They gave us some water with lemon juice in it, and Anna and I looked at each other and prayed for cleanliness before drinking. It was quite good, but we shall know soon if any Montezuma's revenge was contained within it. In a situation like that, you don't refuse anything that is offered. Nothing bad so far :). 

We went down to catch the bus, but the bus decided to be 2 hours late. It was quite nice. We walked with Geni, the school director, and three of the kids half way down the jungle school road. I enjoyed the walk. It is so pretty, and the three little boys were so funny, clinging to us and racing ahead. I didn't enjoy being bitten by tiny red ants, but that was the only unenjoyable part. Finally the bus picked us up which was about time. We took Geni to burger king, went shopping for some food, and then our night adventures began. Very fun day, and I'm so glad I went. They invited me back to visit any time. Geni is such a good, nice kid. If he can't go to the high school, he will repeat sixth grade again or help out at the jungle school, which would be a bummer because he would loose a year. There is some hope though.