Hope you are all doing well this week!  Thank you to those of you who have written back to me -- I am still working on replying and if I haven't replied to you yet, I will by the end of this weekend -- promise!  :)

So I've figured out the names of the aunts so it'll be easier to talk about them now!  :) Mirma is Margarita's mother, Nena is the aunt who lives in the back room, and Isabel lives next door.  Also, the frozen things that Mirma makes are called saborines!  Still can't remember the name of the weird fruit... I'll get back to you on that one, hopefully with pictures!  :)

So the big news is that Misael invited me to play for the soccer team!  :)  I already plated in the game last Saturday night and have been practicing with the team.  I am not in the best of shape but I'm working hard to catch up.  I haven't played on a team since 1998!!

The church congregation has been great to me and are just a great group of people.  They do not have a pastor right now but are currently working on constructing a home next to the church to offer to a future pastor, in hopes that it would make it more attractive to him.  The service is quiet and personal... children are walking about freely and families go up together to lead the group in songs... which are always predictably off-key, but beautiful to hear nevertheless.  A different person from the congregation gives a talk about the theme of the week and the Scriptures that the group has been directed to study.  I don't understand everything but I do recognize a lot of the Scriptures so it makes it a little easier to keep up!

Yesterday I went with one of the women from the church, Jacinta (pronounced Ha-seen-tah ... sp?!), to visit the kindergarten class where she assistant teaches.  It was a one room building but the classroom was fairly well-equipped, though they don't use centers like we do in the U.S.  The kids only meet for 3 hours, 5 days a week and the parents pay 6 pesos a day (10 pesos are very roughly equal to $1... I'm so lost with the exchange rate since the dollar value changed!) which goes towards one meal.  The food is prepared 3 times a week by a woman who lives around the corner, and 2 times a week by Jacinta (sp?!?).  During recess, I went out and played with the kids... we went exploring and found tons of shells in the playground... along with glass, dangerous metal objects, and a HUGE dead rodent..... fairly shocking for me to see, but not for the kids or the teachers, apparently.

Afterwards, Jacinta and I went walking around in the neighborhood visiting families of kids who no-showed that day.  One kid's little brother, who was maybe 3 years old, had on a shirt that said "Odio a mi escuela, y tambien a mi maestra" (I hate my school and also my teacher).  That made me feel really sad and I bet it is discouraging for teachers to work with families who have a negative attitude towards school.  I saw some families living in pretty deep poverty -- houses literally made of pieces of scrap metal, cardboard, sticks, and trash.  I was told that a lot of the fathers in that neighborhood are serious alcoholics and that at night there are heavy drugs sold around there.  I see a lot of families who are happy in Champoton but I also see a lot of families that have the saddest faces too, even the children.

Today Isabel and one of the young women from the church, Veronica, took me out to show me around Champoton.  We went to a restored hacienda where the local Marines work, as well as maintain the grounds.  We also went to a beautiful beach -- it was bright and sunny and the water was cool.  Next we ate at a shoreside restaurant and I ordered empanadas -- I'm not brave enough to try most of what is on that menu, which included octopus and a type of small shark!  Afterwards, we drove around the outskirts in some more tropical land and visited a stream that the sisters have swum in all their lives (some of them are in their 70s).  The water was SO clear, but I didn't go swimming... this time!

The writing is going slowly but I have been doing a lot freewriting in my journal, and obviously the words flow when I'm writing emails!  Sorry about the length of my letters!!  It's just that I am seeing and experiencing so much!  There is so much to say and this barely even covers the surface...

Write me back if you have time -- I will reply!  I love you and hope to hear from you soon!

-Kelly