today i'm at the house tiffany is renting while she is here for a year... spending a lot of the day with the other girl interns until english class and basketball later. david calls us "las gringitas" or "gringita"... he adds -ito or -ita on everythingg. it's kind of a form of endearment, meaning sommething like "little." so we are the "little white girls." tonight we're having a sleepover for all the girls from the church, with movies and games and such... but we have no idea how many are coming so we're prepared for anything.
last night and this morning i got to spend a lot more time with my mexican family, especially aurora (mi madre) and melanie (mi hermana). i spent a lot of time with them this morning at breakfast talking about melanie's experience in canada last summer, where she studied english for a few months. apparently it was miserable because she was with a philippino family that didn't do a lot to accomodate her needs, so she was left to herself a lot and struggled the whole time. they made it really clear that if anything they hope to avoid that kind of experience for me, and repeatedly urged me to let them know what i like, what i don't like, if i need anything, etc. so i feel very much at home. tomorrow i get to spend the day with the family so i'm excited to get to know them on a deeper level. aurora and i had a great talk about some of the differences between our culture and theirs... the valtierras have been to pennsylvania before with rod's family for a vacation, so they understand something of american culture. the prevalent attitude seems to be that we have a lot of posessions in the states, so we talked about how things can give you a false sense of security and self sufficiency, when really you are very poor in spirit. one thing is certain; i've definitely already seen God's grace through the valtierras and their hospitality and warmth.
every meal is quite the experience... you never know what youre going to get. but the food is good. this morning we had tomales for breakfast. i had a tomale dulce, which is like a sweet corn dish cooked inside a corn husk. some things take a little getting used to, but there's always more than enough food... mexicans are extremely hospitable. every time you go to someone's house, they will always, always offer you something, even if it's just water.
my mexican culture rule for the day: "agua" does not mean water. it usually means some kind of juice that has water in it. "jugo" on the other hand, means straight up juice without anything else in it. if you want real water, you have to ask for "agua agua" or "agua simple." oh the things you learn in mexico.
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