Settling In.....

I’ve been here for two weeks now, and I feel like I am getting settled in.

I realize that I haven’t mentioned much about where I am living or what I have been doing. Well, I couldn’t have asked for a better situation. I live in a big house in a town called Carorita, which is maybe 10 minutes up the mountain from a small tourist town called La Puerta. I say Carorita is a town, but it is really just a road with houses and fields along the sides. But what it lacks in size and amenities it makes up for in community. Everybody knows everybody else, and most of the people have a lot of other family in Carorita as well. I live in the house with Francisco, his new wife Auxi, her three kids, Mary Allison from South Carolina, and Stewart. Francisco’s de facto son Adonys and his wife Patricia and their two small children live here as well, although they are in Maracaibo for the next month or two. So it is a full house! But it is such a blessing to be a part of a family. Auxi’s children are all between 17-19, so it is really fun to have them around to hang out with.

During the week I have been studying generally for half of the day and helping my friends in the fields for the other half. At night I walk around the town with my friends and talk. It’s a bit like cruising the Summit in 8^th grade, only without the pretensions of being cool. There´s also a lot less A&F clothing. Weekends are very relaxed. Sunday I got to watch a bootleg copy of the awesome movie Undisputed 2 in English (Spanish subtitles) with my friend Alexandro, which is the riveting tale of an American boxing champions’ hellish stay in a Russian prison where he learns to kickbox and eventually defeats the evil prison champion. I suggest queuing it on Netflix immediately.

Some other highlights from the past week include:

• Hitchhiking to La Puerta in the back of a truck and having the driver thrust his chrome plated pistol out of the window (I think he was just proud of it)
• Gathering roots with my friend Emilio and his horse Relampago. I swear that horse walked up a muddy 60 degree slope with several hundred pounds on his back like it was nothing…it is strong as a horse (sorry for that). We also saw a guy who had to be 80 plowing a similar slope with 2 bulls and one of those wooden plows that Snuffy Smith uses in the comics.
• Nearly going a day without eating an arepa. Notice I said nearly.
• When Stew caught a ride back to Carorita and left his friend Zenair in La Puerta
• Discovering that the only two American songs my friend Katire can sing are “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” and “Rapper’s Delight”
• Watching a cockfight on DVD. It’s actually terribly boring.

The only lowlight was realizing that I will not be able to watch any Auburn games here without a miracle. The possibility of listening on internet radio is still up in the air.

Ok, I need to get some arepas before work, so that´s all for now. Hasta Luego.