Routine

Mi casa (Blurry, haha it's a digital picture of a disposable camera print)

Yo y Raquel


I'm in Rio de Janeiro now, but before I can start writing about Brazil, I feel I need to tie up Argentina a bit. I once said on here that life was getting too routine to write about, but I never actually described my routine. I'm writing this more for my own records than anything, so it may be boring and it's possible you'll just want to skip on ahead :]


Every day, Raquel (host mother) would wake me up at 8, though it would be around 830 by the time I was finally up, dressed, and ready for breakfast. Breakfast every morning was corn flakes and milk. The first morning,s he rattled off some Spanish at me, and being too fast too soon, I just said "Si". She then set a little bowl of sugar with a little tiny spoo9n next to my cereal, so I assume she must have asked if I like sugar with my corn flakes (I don't). She continued setting it there every morning; I don't think she ever noticed that I didn't touch it. Once I even tried to tell her that I don't actually put sugar on my cereal, and she took it away. She must have thought I just meant for that day though, cause the very next morning the little bowl was back and ready to sweeten. Oh well.



All throughout the 6 weeks Raquel never stopped insisting that I not lift a finger to help around the house. I still tried, of course. I was frequently "scolded" for even just bringing my dishes from the table to the sink..."DEJALOS!" (Leave them). She started hiding the dishrack from me so I wouldn't do the dishes, telling me I'd have no place to put them except back in the sink and then she would just have to do them again so I might as well not even try. She's tricky.


After breakfast I'd walk to the bus stop, located exactly 2 blocks away from my house. They don't exactly have a "bus schedule"... not even a map of the routes, actually. So of course no matter what time I left the house, the bus would come just as I was completing the first block of said 2 block journey.



The bus fare was 1.20 pesos, or about 40 cents. I'd stay on the bus for about 20 minutes, and then walk another half mile or so to Arco Iris. I'd normally get there at around 915. At first I'd stay all day long, but once the number of children halved, there wasn't enough for me to do and I'd leave around 1:00. I don't really need to write here how I spent my time at Arco Iris, as 90% of these entries have detailed exactly that.



I'd get home around 1:30 and eat lunch, which was always home-cooked and always delicious. Empanadas, Arroz con pollo, Milanesas, Marineras... I'd always try to make sure there were leftovers that I could eat for dinner, to avoid boiled hot dogs and dead sea noodles (They really like salt down here. And they don't put much thought into, nor even usually eat it seemed, dinner.)


There wasn't much I could do after lunch since everything was closed for siesta time, so I figured "When In Posadas..." and I started taking a daily post-lunch nap from 2-4 as well. Evenings were relaxed--or boring, whichever way you want to look at it. I did a lot of reading, filling out college applications, exploring the town, and trying to decipher Spanish television. Thursday-Saturday nights were always fun though. I'd get together with the other volunteers, often Veronica and Marcello too.


The water situation was interesting. Out of 1)Showering, 2)Washing dishes, and 3)Running the washing machine, only ONE of these could be done in the house at a time. So, if someone did not realize that I was in the shower and turned on the water in the kitchen sink to wash a plate, the shower would shut off on me (happened a time or two).



The shower, at least, had hot water. It was the only place in the whole house. The shower head only had 3 settings: Hot, Cold, And Mixed. Hot was always too hot, and medium was usually too cold, so I'd find myself switching between those two settings. Only problem being, the shower head was about 8 feet high, I don't know if to accomodate all of those Viking-descended Scandinavian volunteers or what, but the point is that I couldn't reach it. There were two ways I could change the water setting... 1) Jump. or 2) Get out of the shower, stand on the toilet, reach over, and change it. You can imagine I felt pretty foolish either way. When I went with option number 2, I always worried I was going to forget to wipe the wet footprints off of the toilet seat cover. I can just imagine the question mark materializing over Raquel's head upon seeing those. Thankfully, I never forgot. I don't think...



During the week I'd get in bed anywhere between 10 and 2, depending on how into my book I was...or who was on the computer to talk to :] And then at 8 am, it'd all start again.