Since Santiago... - Rachel

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It's been a while since I've had a chance to add an entry- sorry about that! I've been busy with things. The village was great. At first, I thought it'd be too rural for me. And for a while, it was. The bathrooms were literally a box made out of wood with spots cut into the wood so that you could desecrate into a big hole in the ground. There were spiders as big as Mandy's palm everywhere (and I mean everywhere), and you needed a bug net over your bed to even get a hint of sleep at night. Shoes weren't necessary. Chickens walked through your room and once, I even found a gecko on my pillow. It was comparable to living in the wild to me.

The thing I wasn't expecting is that I actually bonded a lot with the people. When I got there, I had the idea that because I didn't speak spanish well, I wouldn't make a lot of friends or really speak to people out of my social group already. I had opinions about them before I even met them because of what people told me about their life style and about people "like them"... But then I actually got to sit down and talk to the kids.

The kid I got to know the best was probably Alex. At first, he was a little pervert- he was thirteen years old and mostly just wanted me to be his novia. And of course, that was a little bit of a joke. But as the trip went on, I realized what a bright kid he really was. Although his school was sub par and he didn't get the kind of education we did, he just loved to learn english. He'd ask about words he didn't know, easily catch onto things (even if we didn't want him to), and unlike the other children, was happy to repeat things a hundred times until we understood. He spoke the clearest, and honestly, he was just a sweetheart (I gave him a kiss on the cheek at the end).

I really enjoyed my experience in the campo. It was definitely something that gave me a different perspective on how I live my life (and how fancy our toilets are).

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