Monday

Rosario, awoman I met last Thursday at a Bible study (part of the women's ministry of one of the local churches), agreed to come meet me at my house at 9 this morning to help me practice Spanish and learn more about the culture, etc. Now, it is not uncommon here for people to be late or miss a meeting altogether. In fact, the first woman who had agreed to meet with me for this reason never showed up for our meeting. So I wasn't at all concerned when Rosario wasn't here yet at 9 am. I just sat down to read a book about spiritual warfare while Iwaited. She called around 9:15 and said something about meeting somewhere else. Following Spanish over the phone is far more difficult than in person, so I strugged a bit until she suggested we meet at the hotel by the entrance to my neighborhood in about 30 minutes. I drove there and waited until she arrived just after 10 am. This is when I realized that her problem was transportation. I felt so bad! She had flagged down a transport van to bring her. After I apologized, we came back to the house, where we had a great conversation. I was instantly very comfortable, and it was very clear that she really wants to help me and be my friend. Among other things, I asked for her input on my idea to host a breakfast or something similar for the women in my neighborhood. Not only did she advise me on cultural aspects, scheduling, etc., but she helped me write the invitations and volunteered to come back over on Saturday to go door to door with me to distribute invitations. Around noon I drove her home, so now I know where she lives and can go back Saturday to pick her up.
After lunch I finished a monthly report for my supervisor and sent it in then ran a few errands. I designed and printed the invitations for my neighborhood women's event and spent a couple minutes on recordkeeping (I try to do this every day or two in order to avoid spending hours at the end of the month on expense reports.
After dinner I revised a resource that a colleague in another city shared with me and printed a copy of it so that I can take it to the copy shop while I am going and have them on hand when needed. Now I am going to do a load of laundry, work a bit more on kids' activity prep work, and maybe even do a bit of house cleaning.