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Schenck Adventures
Hey everyone, here's some more random details. Our waterfall adventure seriously the coolest thing I've ever seen! Ok, if you've been to Gooseberry Falls in Northern MN, just picture that times 10. I'm not even kidding. And Dad and Katie- the hike to get there was like staircase portage in the boundary waters times 100 (Oh wait, I think my girls went with me to staircase too- so you guys know what I'm talkin about). It was physically challenging, but so worth it when we finally got there. I can't even try to estimate how tall the falls were. We went with another teacher from Canada, and she was even impressed by it (even though she lives right by niagra falls!) Our friend Carla promissed to help us download pictures sometime this week, so you'll see it soon.
Last night we had some teachers over from another town and we had a blast! We went to a club down the street called ¨Live¨and talked and tried a little tequila
too =) It's cool because the whole corner the club is on is practically owned by this one family. Like, the mom (Irma) owns this little restaurant (which is so good and we eat there all the time), and then nextdoor the daughter owns a beauty salon, and then the brother owns the club which is above the beauty salon. Oh yeah, and the dad is a cab driver with the cab he owns on the same street. Crazy huh? But this family is so nice- we try to help them learn english and they try to speak to us in spanish. The mom -Irma, is the sweetest lady I've ever met and she has become my mom away from home. Like last night at the club, I went outside at one point to get some fresh air away from the smoke, and she was out there hanging out with her husband and she took my up to their private roof to get some air. We just hang out and talk and she just hugs me and treats me like her own daughter. (But don't worry mom- no one could ever replace you- it's just nice to have a motherly type for a friend when I can't be with you =) So that was a fun night. It was good to meet these other teachers too, because they work at the culturalingua in a town called Suhayo (which is a big town like 2 hours north of us) and now that we know them, we can hop on a bus anytime and stay with them for a weekend and explore another town.
We've met the most random people here (besides the Mexican of course). So far we've hung out with people from Jamaica, Canada (says eh?¨ constantly), Alabama (talk about major southern accent!), Boston (definately has the east coast accent- even worse than Trista's dad), änd last night we met a girl from London (way crazy english accent-she called my underwear knickers!). So the teachers are just from everywhere which is so cool because we just tease each other and have a good time. We all get along great.
Lets see, what else. Oh yeah, let me just tell you a few of the things here that are really different from back home and took some getting used to. First of all, when you go to the bathroom, you can't put the toilet paper you use in the toilet- you have to put it in the garbage. Their pipes are like really skinny I guess and if you do it even like 1 time, the toilet will clog. Also, out in some public places (like bigger places like bus stations, or bigger stores) you have to pay to use the bathroom. So you put your pesos in the slot and then the metal twirly thing lets you through. When I used one for the first time I couldn't figure out how to get out because there's like metal bars everywher-it was very emberrasing and the mexicansall laughed at me. The next big thing I guess is grocery shopping- buying food in that market is a crazy experience. You have to go to so many different stands just to get a few ingredients to try to put together a meal and you pay so many times because each stand is owned by someone else. I still haven't figured out how to order the beef- but I did ask for half a chicken and then screamed when he swung his huge knife like right by my head and wacked the chicken in half- peices of raw chicken guts flying everywhere! I'm not complaining, it's just that there are definatley things that take some getting used to. And then just walking around to get everwhere is new to us. I sort of sometimes feel like I'm living in a college town or something with all the walking. People in the town either walk, ride ¨motos¨(mopeds), or drive four wheelers around the street. We had a really adventourous ride on a 4 wheeler yesterday actually on our way back from the water falls. We were trying to walk to this town to catch a late bus home, and we had been walking and walking for like an hour and a half and we still couldn't see the town. (oh yeah, and I was so scared at first because of all the cows and bulls in the road- we were right by them- we have lots of pics) And so we're walking like in the middle of nowhere and this guy on a four wheeler comes down the road and Carla (our mexican friend) flags him down to ask him how far away the town was. So, he's like, you guys can just hop on my 4 wheeler and I'll take you all the way home. (like a 1/2 hour drive) so, we all piled on the front and the back and hung on for dear life while this dude is driving along a bumpy dirt road with puddles and mud- it was crazy but very fun. Of course it also started to rain- so that made it even more exciting. Adam and I both agreed that yesterday was our funnest day here so far. We are definately having a blast here! We're also very excited because their independence day is September 16th, so we have a 3 day weekend coming up (which makes up for the fact that we didn't have labor day here). We were confused at first because we thought cinco de mayo was their independence day, but that's just another excuse to party ( I guess they won some major battle that day- not their main Ãndependence Day). Ok, I gotta go get ready for tomorrow- write some lesson plans and try to get to bed early. We miss you guys, but we're also having a really good time here =) love you all! -sarah
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