Jan 30: The Routine

What does life look like for us now? During the week we send Ariana off to school in the morning. I use the time to get my work done, and Nicole looks after Ciara and cleans the house. Ariana is home to join us for lunch, often with some other friends as well. The afternoons we usually use to study some Spanish, take the kids out in the field to play, take care of the household errands, pickup some food for dinner. We often head out on a walking tour around our house and try to use the time to interact with some of our neighbors. It’s nice to be able to get to know them a little and it gives us good practice of our very limited Spanish.

Kids Heading out for a Visit

Weekends aren’t too much difference. Saturdays mornings I usually still do a little work which helps make it feel a little more like a weekday. We almost always go to the kids park at least once on the weekend, if not on both days. As there isn’t a lot of “special” things to do with the kids we like to take advantage of this one. Saturday is also often the day we will walk to town and get groceries from one of the bigger supermarkets. Of course we catch a taxi home. If we’re feeling brave (i.e. we think the kids can handle it) we will walk downtown to some of the shops, the parks, and maybe even grab an ice cream.

In terms of scheduled activities we really don’t have too much. We generally aim for three 1 hr Spanish lessons a week, we go to the weekly TEARS meetings, and attend the nearby church on Sundays.

There does seem to be a lot of other activities that arise to fill in our time. Whether it’s hosting someone for a meal, viewing the Church youth group, tracking down some household or hardware item, refilling gas tanks, or trying to track someone down (literally, usually on foot) our time fills up quick. If we don’t have something scheduled than the local kids provide more than enough activity to keep us busy. Even when we don’t let them in (we’re trying to be a little more disciplined about this now), its still hard to get much done because of the almost constant knocking. Nicole is starting her running training again and is trying to get back up to 5 runs a week.

We’re definitely enjoying our time and are very aware how quick it is drawing to a close. We really want to be able to give back to the individuals and the community that has hosted us so generously for the last two months and have some ideas in mind for how to do this.

Ariana Quote of the Day: I only like school on days that are holidays.

Ciara Quote of the Day: (Pointing) There’s a little hole for a duck to pee in.

Stretching after 10km's