livin la vida campo!!

i´ve already spent 2 weeks in this country and i´m learning a lot about the culture and language. Finally I´ve discovered my voice. I comprehend a little more of the conversations of my family, especially of my ¨"mother" who speaks really fast and with A LOT of slang. I´m also a little more accustomed to this culture´s conception of time. Time passes really slowly here... ok, well...

The first 2 days with my family I was so nervous because i understood pretty much NOTHING they said.. if they said anything to me, and i was always separated aka i ate alone, have my own room..etc. Eventually i asked why i always ate away from the family and stuff and i found out that they eat outside and sleep in hammocks because they don´t like the heat. Well DUH this random girl from Michigan obviously doesnt like the heat either!! I said i want to be a part of the family, so now i eat with them outside. I spent the whole weekend with my family visiting relatives and stuff on father´s day and now i can understand them, but no one else haha...

There´s so much slang here, just about every other word is cut off. They use the term "puta" (bitch-literally, but can be used like sh*t or f*ck or whatever you want it to be) like it´s thier job too... oh yea, that def. includes the 3 yr. old... haha. My family is known for listening to the radio loudly all day which i like because im learning music and i get to hear the news. The whole family likes to sing and dance around a lot which is cute. Anyways, I´m surviving just fine.. besides the fat that i feel like im gonna gain 20 lbs. from the food and amount of food they feed me here (ex. breakfast this morning - a big piece of pastry, 2 cookies, sweetened coffee, and fried plantains). I gave away a cookie, and im working on making portions smaller (they think im crazy and make fun of how i dont want to get fat).
Body image here is something that´s always thrown out into the open. They refer to others that they see as gordo or gordita or flaco (fat or skinny). Yesterday we walked to the casa of a lady who sews and mends things because Alé needed his gym pants shortened. When we got back he was telling his mom about her and they started talking about how she´s getting fat. Fat and skinny aren´t bad or good, just adjectives.. although fat ppl are common. i decided its because they eat a lot of unhealthy, cheap foods and becasue they sit around all day. it´s just too hot for exercise.
On Sunday night, i asked my family if i could go for a run maybe in the morning and they started craaaccking up like crazy! They asked what time, so i said 5am because figured it´d be before i´d draw too much attention. They told me i they´d unlock the school yrd across the street.. sooo i got up at 5 and they got up at 5:30 to open it.. haha... i ran for 10 min and the father and daughter were standing there watching my every move like i was crazy. i asked the daughter (Marina- 12 yrs old) if i was doing something wrong or if everything was ok and she said i should maybe stop after 10 more min. I felt so awkward and they kept commenting on my run all day so i thought maybe they didnt want me to. but then this morning the mom was like "oh, no running today Ana?" so now im totally confused about the whole situation and i think í´ll try to run again tomorrow.. we´ll see how it goes!
They did allow me/teach me how to wash my cloths in the pila and help cook the chicken which was awesome. i get the impression that Deborah, the girl who stayed with them last summer, spoke better than me, but learned things in a different way.. For some reason they were really careful about asking me if I want to learn.. maybe im completely off with that.. either way, they do love her and keep calling me deborah by mistake. Two gringos, we must look alike!
One more little story although there´s sooo many (ask me later about the incident with the family members we visited who do coke). This story´s about my job. This mornign we went out on our first presentation about gallinas (hens). One initiative they´re doing at OIKOS is to teach the women in communities the best ways to take care of and raise hens for the best and healthiest production. it was really cool becasue it might be a way to teach the communities about safety and health issues along wtih bringing them together. plus, if they can get healthy gains, they might be able to earn some money. The poverty here is rediculous and their environmental management too. i think this afternoon there´s a puppet show at a school which is an awesome way to get youth educated and involved early. I´ll write more about this later...
for now.. im going to try to find something to do in the office resembling work.
p.s. if you happen to look at this Deborah, any advice you ahve to offer would be AMAZING!!!