Another Weekend Gone

The first week here went so slowly, now time is flying. I keep feeling like our time is up here, even though we are less than half way through. Let's see what happened this weekend...

On Saturday, the Finchers, the parents of the sick student arrived. I spent part of the morning with Jonathan at the hospital while we were waiting for them. Jonathan has been kind of up and down all weekend with how he is doing. I think that is normal for pneumonia. He was moved to a regular room yesterday. His father has to return to the States tonight, but his mother is going to remain for awhile.

After the Finchers arrived at the hospital around noon, I headed home. I walked in the house and was very confused because it smelled like someone had been cooking. I didn't think our group would be awake enough to be cooking by noon on Saturday. I walked in the kitchen and Raquel and Mariella were there. It took me a few minutes to figure out that it was indeed Saturday. Rhonda had them come in to cook for us on Saturday, because the Finchers were there. They also made food for us to heat up for Sunday lunch. It was a great surprise.

Saturday afternoon, I went out to enjoy the nice day. I walked to the bigger grocery store that I found out was reasonably close to CasaACU (15 or so blocks). It was exciting because I was able to by salad dressing! (They don't tend to put dressing on their salads.) After buying salad dressing, I sat in the park, read, and worked on my Spanish homework. It was a really pretty day, albeit a little cool in the shade. It was fun watching all the grandparents or parents out with the kids in the park.

In the evening, the Finchers, who are super nice, took a few of us out to dinner. We went to Molto Bene which is Jonathan's (and most of our) favorite restaurant. The waiter just laughs when we walk in. We are there at least once a week, and he is always working.

Sunday, the upper level Spanish class had a day trip. They went to their teacher's house in Piriapolis. That led to only 3 of us being in class at church Sunday morning. (Rhonda had gone on to the hospital.) Anyway, Pablo was gone and so were all our translators. Martin (pronounced Marteen) taught instead, which was pretty impressive since I don't think he knew he was going to teach until I walked up to him and told him Pablo was gone. Anyway, he said he'd just speak slowly. He... spoke... Spanish... about... like... this... the... whole... time... He also tried to use simpler vocabulary. Luke speaks a little more than Kelsey and I do, but it went really well. After about 20 min, though, my brain was really really tired. It did help that we were discussing 1st Corinthians.

(Oh funny side story to this. At the beginning of class Martin said he'd keep class short because I could only listen for about 20 min. Which I had told him last Sunday night when he asked me if I understood the sermon. I had told him that I knew most of the words, just couldn't think fast enough to put them together into thoughts and that I couldn't focus after about 20 minutes. According to Rhonda, he said that I said last week that his sermon was too long. So something got lost in the two languages. Even if I had thought that I wouldn't have said it. I'll have to straighten that out when I see him.)

Sunday evening, Kelsey and I went to Tres Cruces with Guillermo while he bought bus tickets for his trip home. We spotted these three boys that I thought they looked like American teenage punks. The haircuts, cargo shorts, and jeans with a big hole in the rear was a dead give away. And it turns out we were right.

The men at church were cracked up when I intelligently discussed the rugby match. Argentina lost to South Africa in the semi-finals, by the way.

Jennifer had really been missing American food, so last night when they returned from their day trip, some of us went to McDonald's. Its only the second time I've had fast food since I've been in South America. I must admit we all enjoyed our Quarter Pounders. Its a little sad. :)