Third week...

As of today I have been in Lima Peru for three weeks. I am in the midst of teaching my third week. I have to admit that I am unsure of how it is going. i am also going to have to tell you i am no longer using capital letters. i am using the computer at school and the keyboard is slighty different, to allow for some Spanish keys such as ç and ¿ and the shift key is much smaller and i keep hitting< instead of the shift key. i can no longer stand to stop and back up to erase the < and find the shift. so there will be no capital letters for the remainder of blog. moving on, every time i think i am getting a handle on this job something happens and i think that there is no way i am getting through to these kids. sigh. they are a joy to watch when they finally understand some new concept or word, it just seems not to happen nearly enough. i know that i will get this and that they are learning and i just need to chill. so job wise i am dealing fairly well. today some of it went really great and then the afternoon went horribly wrong. not wrong just crazy. I need to get more creative in the afternoons to hold their nearly exhausted attentions.

now for the home side of things. we are struggling. we are cut off from all our family and friends. tomorrow is kira's birthday and we do not have a way with which to call her and sing to her. emily was not able to call katrina on tuesday and sing to her. it is all very frustrating. we think that the vonage router has been fried. the power lights come on for about 7 seconds adn then fade, while the router itself begins to smell hot and we frantically unplug it. this was enough to send me into tears last night. we would use skype or something like that execpt our computer will not connect to the internet. and for the wonderful persons who gave us the computer, you are right the computer works fine....i am NOT too thrilled with the lenovo software however. :) but that just means we have nothing. no way to call to the people who help us maintain our sanity. no way to email our frustration out to those who calm us while we are at home. yes we can email for school but that mean staying here longer and there are some days that the LAST thing i want to do is stay here longer...but those are the days when i need ot blog the most. it is just a crappy situation that satan is taking joy in and that just ticks me off more. So the long and short of it is that we need a new router for vonage we have no idea how much that is, that (i think) means that we will have to get a new number as well, but I will have to ask kris about that. I just keep trying to focus on the fact that life IS good and God IS faithful, instead of thinking about how much satan is messing with me.

okay so the tone of this email is pretty down and for the most part i am not down. I really like where i live, what i do, and i am amazed at how much life is the same here as in the states.

yesterday i learned how to make a Peruvian dish with rice, beef, chicken, ham, egg, peas, peppers, and soy sauce. it is really yummy and makes a ton. I had it for breakfast and lunch.

hooray!!! two of my Peruvian coworkers just came and asked if i would help them with their English for 1....huh there is no backslash on this key board.....asked if i could help them with English for half an hour two days a week and then for the next half hour we would work on my Spanish!!!! God is so freaking awesome!!!!! so we will work on conversational english and Spanish Tuesdays and Thursdays after class. Well I should prolly sign off and go do lesson planning for tomorrow and next week. love ya all

cindy