Sleeping In A Stranger's Home.

I never thought routines would be what saved me on this trip, but hey, who knows everything right? The beginnning of the homestays were kind of rough. My spanish was shaky, I didn´t know the people, and I was suddenly on my own. The noises outside were loud and would carry on into the night. The nonstop barking of dogs and the fact that I was sleeping alone in a strangers house made my sleeping sporatic at best. i would wake up every couple of hours, with the party outside raging on, and the dogs still barking at each other across town. The second night was not much better and I cried myself to sleep, while playing my music loud enough to drown out the noise, but quiet enough that I. could fall asleep. Come the third night, I had a breakthrough. I finally slept the whole night. I have since decided that it was probably because it was raining that night and all of the dogs (and people) were in dry hiding spots sleeping. But also some part, perhaps even a larger part, was because I had settled into my routine.

Wake up at 8 (but lets be honest, it was probably 820 before i finally dragged myself out of bed) and get ready for the day. Breakfast was at 830 with my host mother, Ilda and occasionally my host sister Nilda and her two little children. Breakfast consisted of some type of bread with either tea or weak hot chocolate (but who is going to turn down hot chocolate, even if it is weak). I would then wash the dishes and wait to be picked up at 9 by Sam, Emma and Neal to go do whatever project we had planned for that day. That usually lasted until 4 or 430 when I woulde be dropped off at my house for the night.

There were a couple nights evenings when we would have té, around 415 or 430. Té consists of bread and some kind of hot beverage. Most evenings though, I got home too late to enjoy té, and I would just go to my room and hang out until 630 when I would go out to the kitchen  to help make dinner, which usually meant play with the kids while Nilda and Ilda made dinner. Dinner was at around 7 or 715 and after eating I washed the dishes before returning to my room, and they to theirs by 745. The time between then and sleeping was spent listening to music and reading.

I am thankful that I stuck with it, because with a few bonding moments comiserating about girl problems with my host family, and comparing different things in Bolivia and the US, I have really come to enjoy my host family and everything I am experiencing. There are still hard moments, that is for sure, but I know that I can always go home (to my host family) and complain about it in my broken spanish (although that is improving greatly!). I cannot believe we only have one more week in Bolivia, and I am looking forward to all of the bonding moments to come.

I am not really sure why most of this blog post is in past tense, but it may have something to do with the fact that right now we are in a nice town called Sorata, and not staying with our host families. Tomorrow I will return to Batallas and my nice routine, and all of this will become present tense once again.

I will try and post some pictures of them sometime soon.

Good__(enter whatever time of day it is as you are reading this)____, I hope you are doing well!

Adios from Bolivia! - Annie

(Also, writing on the keyboards here is a pain in the butt because everything is moved around and there are added keys. Just thought you should know that.)