September 14

I killed some more lice today. It’s not that it’s a very important piece of information.. and you probably don’t care that much. I just wanted to remind you that yes, I am still killing lice like the professional lice killer I am.

A more important fact: I’m sick. This sickness has been going around and I’ve had it since Saturday. I’ve been pushing myself to stay in bed all day. I’ve been able to catch up on a little bit of Pride and Prejudice, a book that I love… I’m guilty of reading it through many times. Other than Pride and Prejudice, it’s been pretty boring laying in bed all day, but I think it helped. Tarynn got to go to the river with some of the older girls… I was good and I stayed in bed. I cheated on Sunday when Tarynn and I took Fernando to lunch for his birthday. With my excellent Spanish, I struggled to ask him what he was going to do for his birthday. He said that he was going to church. At first I thought that his church was throwing a party for him, but he said that he was going to play piano for them. When I realized that, I asked him if he was going to have a fiesta, but he said no. He told me that his mother left on a trip with his two brothers and his sister was gone for the day. No one remembered that it was his birthday. He didn’t go with them because he had to play for church. Then I asked about his friends. I asked if he was going to have a fiesta with any of them and if they knew it was his birthday. He said that only his amigas did… and he said our names. I felt sooooo bad then. I wish we could’ve done more for him. I was so glad that we took him out to eat yesterday. We ate baleadas (which were heavenly) and we had some ice cream after (this was even more heavenly… ice cream never fails to make me happy). Then we asked him if he wanted anything for his birthday and he said he wanted shoes. So we went to the market and bought him shoes… for less than 20 bucks! Not bad, hu? Thing is, those weren’t the shoes he really wanted. They were nice, but he really wanted other ones in a store that was closed. We told him we’d buy them for him, but he couldn’t return the other shoes. It was sad, but at least he got new shoes for school.

Oh! And I forgot to mention that I sound like a man. Some of the kids make fun of me… especially Fernando. One of the boys called my voice bonito with an emphasis on the O... which is pretty much calling me a man. My voice drops like 10 octaves when I get sick. It’s like I’m back to my high school drama/theater days… Haha, don’t ask.

Another random useless piece of information: my bug bites are HUGE. They’re like little red mountains on my skin. When I showed some of the kids, they looked at me wide eyed and asked what it was. I had no idea how to say mosquito and so I just used my finger to act out a little bug flying and landing on them to bite them. They just laughed at the silly “china” girl who can’t take bug bites. Hehe. Oh well. Hopefully the bugs will lay off after a while.

Tengo hambre. Voy a comer. Hasta luego!