Everything's Better Now

---

Hello friends, family, and those interested in Mexico...

I have had all kinds of trouble with my blog the past few weeks. Part of it was my fault and part of it was because the server crashed and they temporarily lost my previous entries. As soon as they recovered my old entries, I printed them out. So everything's better now.

I also switched families at the beginning of August to be closer to downtown. My family consists of 4 grown children and 2 grandchildren. None of them are currently living in the house, although Diego comes home on the weekends. Luis and his family live nearby and eat meals with us sometimes. He has two little girls named Fernanda and Cinthia. Claudia lives with her husband in San Miguel and she is such a sweetheart. The first day you meet her she makes you feel like family. Her father, Ernesto, is the same way. He likes to be fatherly and tell me about the city and many other topics. When mom came we talked about health care and immigration after dinner for probably an hour. Oh! I can't forget Juan Carlos who left for Spain my first week living with them. He's looking for a job in Mallorca. (Is that how you spell it?) And my host mother, Marina, is a hoot. She grew up on a farm in a family of 9 or so. She's very informal and likes to joke and be sarcastic. But she's a very sweet person.

My new home is very close to the Public Library. This is good news because I will be helping teach a class to elementary kids for an hour every day. It's a volunteer job and it's not very structured. We just try to teach the children English by practicing phrases and vocabulary. The other teacher, Victoria, is a teacher back in the States, so I'm hoping I can learn a lot from her! She goes to my school and we are very close in age. I'm starting to meet a lot of people now. A lot of my friends left at the end of July and a whole new group came in. However, about 20 of them are from Oregon and are only staying 2 weeks, so they're leaving tomorrow. I had about 5 people in my class, but they are all leaving. So it looks like I get private lessons for the group price. However, we may get some new people next week. The school population is always in flux.

I really cannot remember for the life of me what I have written and what I have not. I will go back and read my old entries and figure it out. I'm excited that it is the weekend!! I think I am finally going to the hot springs! Hooray! I don't have a whole lot of plans but I think I will shop around a little bit too. Tonight we are going out as a farewell to the Oregon group. Maybe I'll get to do a little salsa somewhere! So far I haven't had much luck with that. I need to find a dance partner! This is an international dilemma. It's hard to find men who like to dance whether in the US or Mexico.

Hasta luego!

Liz

---

Photos

Lopez-Flores Familia
Here is my second host family. We've got Ernesto, Marina, Luis, Cinthia, Diego, Fernanda, Me, Claudia, and Osbaldo. We make quite a lineup, huh?

My Students
Here are my students from La Biblioteca Publica. Aren't they cute?!? They were well-behaved too.