Day 2 of the old folks home

Let me start out with saying that this day has had the best weather thus far! No rain, a little sunshine, and a breeze! I had 2 quizzes in my conversation class and learned some more expressions in my other language skills class. After class, I went home and had lunch- Mamá made Jenny and me this fried ham and cheese thing... it was very tasty! After lunch, I took an hour long siesta and woke up just in time to meet my friends at the corner of my street to walk to the Asilo.

First, Maria Josefa (the main hermanita in charge) had Bree, Katie, Reagan, and I watch an informational video over Juana Jugan, the woman who founded the home, and the catholic background. We had watched about 15 minutes of the video when Maria Josefa came in and said there were more people coming to watch the video, but instead of letting us finish the last 10 minutes, we had to start the video over and watch it all over again. We were in the small room with the microscopic TV for 1 hour. However, based on what we did after the video... I would have rather watched the video another time. After the video, Maria Josefa told us to go talk to the "abuelitas", so we went to the next room (all 7 of us- 3 Spanish women and the 4 American non-Spanish speakers) to talk to the 6 abuelitas. This is what I learned: Consuelo is in a wheelchair and hard of hearing and seems angry all the time, but I talked to her when I was there yesterday and I think she may have remembered me because when I said hello to her, she smiled really big and greeted me- so touching!! Trinidad (Trini) is the only pretty much always lucid adorable woman who wouldn't speak to us yesterday; for some reason she talked a lot today and even corrected our grammatical mistakes!! Esperanza is the smallest woman I've seen- she is also in a wheelchair, from looking at her, I think her torso is probably 4 inches long. Esperanza comes in and out of phases where she thinks she's at home with her child- she yells "niña" for minutes straight- I found out that she did have a child at one point, but her child died very young. Carmen was also in a wheelchair, she never spoke to me- only to the Spanish ladies. "Madre" was tied to her chair and repeated "ahora" over and over and over again the entire time I was there. She was playing with an unraveled ball of yarn. She was the most senile of them all- she only knew her name (which escapes me at this moment, I only remember that it started with an H) and she repeated back to me everything I asked her. Rosario was the last lady- she walked with a walker and came in and out, but never spoke to us. It's incredibly difficult to practice Spanish with senile abuelitas because they don't speak back, plus it's so depressing to see people at this stage. Finally it was time for them to eat dinner, so I escaped to the other kitchen that I worked in the day before. I saw the same hermanita and other people whom I'd previously met. I used a lot of Spanish and understood a lot too! Over all, 1/3 of the time I actually use Spanish, so I think I'll try and find another place to do my Spanish Internship. The premise of this class is to find an internship/job that is unpaid and complete 80 hours during the semester. I want to find a place where I will use Spanish a lot. My Mamá said she would help me find a place to work with children... after all, I probably could converse quite well with a 5 year old!

After that, I went home and Mamá made peas with ham and fries with eggs for dinner- it was surprisingly good. I did some homework and then went out for dessert and tea!

I had my first experience with... forward Spanish males. I was walking to "Nervion Plaza" which is across the street from my apartment to go to the restaurant and the males walked past me and yelled "Veo guapa, veo guapa!", I started walking as fast as I could to get inside the safety of Nervion Plaza. The restaurants and bars are open very late, so most people stay out very late into the night- this is why the siesta is necessary!

Over all, this is such a different culture, but I really enjoy experiencing it from a first hand perspective!

Until next time.

Love,
Merick :)