To beard or not to beard?

The first thing Lissy said to me was, ¨Mr. Tim jou look ugly without the (waves hands around chin/face area).¨ Now I´m not saying I´m gonna grow back the ol´Abe Lincoln, but that was an opening line that I thought I just had to share with everyone. It´s nice to be made fun of for something other than my lack of spanish fluency anyways.

Which brings me to my next topic: I have been pleased with my spanish at times, and it is exciting being in on the jokes sometimes, but I am trying really hard to simply not sound like an idiot most of the time. Alas, I don´t think languages upload themselves into my brain as well as I would like them to, but maybe someday it will click. I´m trying really hard, and I was also able to stop by Gaby´s house (my wonderful spanish teacher) on the weekend and re-unite with her family. My Cofradian spanish lessons will resume with Gaby this Thursday! They are such great people and Gaby had a new (very cute) baby daughter since I left, so it was nice to be introduced to the newest member of the family as well.

I also bumped into one of my old students, who now attends a local public school in one of the barrios - she now has no exposure to english and she attends classes with about 50 other kids in them. She invited me over to start tutoring her after school, and that has been a really great experience as well. My routine now involves a really fun tutoring/hanging out session with Marlen and her hilarious parents. They always give me free stuff from their shop, and they have even offered to pay me! (Which is ridiculous because it´s so much fun and I definitely don´t need to be paid by a family who can´t afford the 30-40$ monthly school fees at CBS).

I finished ¨The Courage of Children¨by Peter Dalglish (the guy Remy and I volunteered with in Nepal) and I really loved it. Peter has lived a fascinating life and I hope you guys get your hands on a copy at some point. (Thanks Mom for the recommendation!).
Hope all is well on the home front. peace