Corrupting the Uruguayans' English

So I wasn't going to write anything today, because I didn't feel like I had any new stories to really tell. And I figured you didn't want to hear another I love aerobics or my students story. Although I do love them both.

But then I went to church. I love going to church here. I may only understand a few sentences at a time during the sermon, ok... that's being generous. Every so often I get the gist of what's being said. But I love being with the Christians here. It is so nice the way they welcome us into their family even though we will only be here a few months. They are so patient with us. They will repeat things over and over for me when I don't understand. And because I'm getting comfortable enough with them, I'm starting to use my Spanish more. Of course now that they are comfortable with us they are starting to use English more. Not a lot of deep conversation, but at least we can communicate.

Tonight a few of us went to the mid-week meeting. After church Rhonda walked up to Pablo, the guy who teaches our Sunday morning class, and says, "Hey, Pablo, what's up?" Pablo replies, with proper head jerk, "Whas up?" Rhonda told him he's watched too many American movies. (Now I missed this part because I was talking to someone else across the room.) But I turn around when I hear, "Otoño, Whas up?" yelled at me from across the room. (By the way Otoño is Spanish for Autumn. It seems much easier to introduce myself that way than to try to get them to say Autumn.) Of course, I have to yell back. Then I told him, he needed to add in a "Yo, Yo" first. It was pretty great to hear a 40ish Uruguayan man saying "Yo, yo what's up?" Jonathan F. says he's going to get Pablo to add dog to the end as well. Rhonda thinks this is a horrible game we've started. I on the other hand have been trying to think of other terrible American slang to teach him. :)

After church, I hung out with some of the students for awhile. Some of the girls got custom made shoes for Tango and had picked the shoes up tonight, so they were on a post shoe buying high. It was just generally fun to laugh together, have girl talk, etc.

You know the funny thing that is of all the things that makes Study Abroad special, its really the nights like this that are so amazing. Nothing big happened, we didn't see anything famous or do anything particularly unusual. It was just a great night with our friends from church and our CasaACU family during which we created bonds and memories. (Ok... you can go throw up now... but I do mean it... I'm done with my touchy feely moment for the semester.)