Reconnecting with Friends

So I know this is a little late. I usually try and post blogs on Tuesday evenings, but this week things were a little thrown off with a surprise birthday party. Everybody out here actually did a great job with the surprise except for one guy. About thirty-minutes before I was supposed to meet up with everyone a local guy called me and apologized for not being able to go to the party and wanting to wish me a happy birthday. So I kind of knew going into things. It was still a great night. We went to eat at this local pizza place that is run by an Italian guy. It is about the only place that you can get decent pizza in town. Afterwards we went back for cake and watched some downloaded football on tv.

Other than that this week has been busy with school and meeting a lot of new people. I've started meeting with one of my friends for tutoring. We met a couple of times this week and it has been a lot more fun than tutoring has been in the past. Up until now I have mainly focused on working out of books and learning sentence structure. Now I am finally to the point where our tutoring is mostly conversational. It is a LOT more fun than just learning vocabulary. We are actually talking about going out one of these weekends with my tutor's uncle and going hunting. The word out here for hunting literally translates as 'bird and dog' because you hunt with a falcon and dogs. So that'll be interesting.

I also met a guy this week who is a 24 year-old environmental engineer. He speaks great English and just moved back to town a few months ago after he finished up at university. We've gotten to talk a few times in the gym and we're going to plan on getting together sometime this next week. I've actually had a lot of opportunities this week to reconnect with some people that I haven't seen in a few months. I've made sure and gotten their phone numbers so that, hopefully, we can keep in better touch. I'm currently looking for a local guy to be a roommate. Hopefully one of these guys will work out.

A Crazy Week

So I’m finally getting around to updating this thing. Sorry it has taken a little longer than I was expecting. Things out here have been pretty crazy over the past few days. Classes have all started back and are in full swing. On top of that we had a health clinic this weekend. The clinic was in the village that I spend a lot of time in so I went and helped out. Friday we had some training, and I learned how to take blood pressure (which is a lot harder than you’d think when you have grannies with five layers of clothes on). We had a dental hygienist and a physical therapist come and help out with things. Mostly all I did was help out by filtering water, taking blood pressure, and talking to old grannies who were just sitting around. We made a lot of contacts though and had some really good talks when we went to visit people with follow up. One of my friends also moved back to the U.S. on Sunday after living here for three years. So there was a lot going on with getting her moved and goodbye parties and things like that. Things are definitely going to be different out here. I think I’ve eaten noodles about two meals a day since she’s been gone, and I don’t know when I’m going to get another home cooked meal. There have also been a lot of people sick out here. My roommate and a couple of other guys have caught some kind of bug that has knocked them out of commission for a few days. Today I was the only one in my class. I don’t know if I’ve said a lot about my Tues/Thurs class, but it is pretty hard to sit through. The teacher doesn’t speak English and (literally) for the past week and a half we have been working on learning local songs. So I was a little freaked out when I was the only one who showed up to class today. It actually turned out to be one of the best classes I’ve had since I’ve been here. We still worked on songs for about the first forty-five minutes, but then we spent the next hour having a conversation. We talked about all sorts of random things, but I was just proud I could hold down a conversation for that long. Granted, she can understand a little English, but about 90% of it was in the local language. So maybe all of the random songs I’m learning are paying off. Hopefully things will slow down a little bit this next week. I don’t see how they could be any busier.

A Busy Holiday

So I'm going to apologize up front for this being a little bit late this week. Things out here have been a little bit crazy. Most of last week was spent working on a project, which took up about forty hours. It is going to be a long thing and we've spent about nine hours/day working on it for most of this week too. Being out of school has really helped with getting things done around here too.

One of my good friends is leaving this next week and heading back to The States. Things are definitely going to change around here. For starters, I bet I drop about five pounds in the next month because she won't be around to cook every time we show up at her apartment. It will also just be different because she has been here for the entire time that I've been here (including summer visits). So I guess what I'm saying is, please send food to my roommate and me so that we won't starve.

To celebrate her leave we took off and hiked the Gorge on Monday and Tuesday. There were four of us Westerners and then we had three local friends go with us. Even though the weather wasn't the best, it was still a good time. It was mostly cloudy and you couldn't see the mountains nearly as well as last time, but everyone enjoyed just getting out of town for a while. It was also a good chance to get to talk to our local friends and encourage them.

This next week is going to be pretty crazy. I'm trying not to schedule anything of my own because I know that I'm not going to have a lot of free time. Classes start back on Monday, we have a new family that just moved out here that everyone is trying to get settled, my friend is leaving to head back to the states, and we are also hosting a health clinic in a village. The village is the one that I spend a lot of time in, so I'm helping out with things too. The plan is, as of now, that I'm going to be in charge of the dental hygiene training. I think there is a video and I'm supposed to show how to brush your teeth. I don't know how much more complicated it could be than that though (since they don't sell floss or mouthwash out here). So next week is going to be a little crazy. I'll try and make sure and update this when I have a chance.