attacking turkeys

• I had my first site visit last week. That means that the boss lady of youth development came to check up with me. Things went well, she actually stayed with my family so we got to spend some “non business” time together which could have potentially been awkward (eating breakfast with your boss, not exactly normal) but it wasn’t awkward at all. She had some good insight and said I was doing a fine job (and she said my Spanish was better, woooo). Best of all, she came bearing packages! Obviously this was one of the more exciting things that has happened in weeks. Two were from mom and dad, thanks parental figures. And one was from Uncle Pinny, Aunt Linny, Ben, and Ella. Thanks guys! I got some good treats and movies and (best of all) a picture courtesy of Ella which is now hanging over my bed. I originally tried to hold off on opening all the boxes, but that lasted less than 24 hours. I did however manage to leave just one closed so that I can open it on my b-day or Christmas.
• I emailed itunes (see problem described in previous post) and they were kind enough to resend all the shows I lost. The problem? It takes at least 72 hours to download one show. I lost about 25 shows. Perhaps by the end of my two years here I will download all the shows again…
• My English classes preeeettty much make me dread waking up in the morning. I am teaching 6 hours of English a day and not liking it so much (probably because it is exactly what I was doing in the states). I am not a huge fan of teaching English and Peace Corps would rather us train the teachers to do it so that when we leave, there is someone there that can still teach. Teachers from the escuela sit in two of my morning classes to observe so that’s good but I am going to be glad when school starts up again and there is more for me to do besides teach English. The kids (for the most part) are well behaved. Some of them actually come to multiple classes a day (I personally would not want to come to one of my boring classes over my vacation but hey! Its good that they are so motivated).
• The other day I was walking around town with my 4 year old host sister in search of toilet paper (me) and candy (her). On the way home we passed a giant turkey. This is not unusual because I have to walk by him every day on my way to and from class. However, he started following us and making a weird noise. His gross wrinkly head started turning really red (it is usually kind of blueish, sick). I tried to get my sister to walk a little faster, and didn’t really know what to do to make him stop following us. Then all of a sudden he popped up in the air and jumped on my sister’s back. Who knew turkeys attacked? I certainly did not. She naturally started screaming and the turkey reared up to try to jump on her again. At this point I was totally clueless, what do I do? So, I swung my bag of toilet paper at him. He gave me an evil glare and prepared to strike again. So I swung again. This time he got the point and slowly backed off. My sister was still crying and I (I am ashamed to say) was laughing hysterically. I tried my best to consol her because I would have been terrified if I were her size and had been attacked (to be honest I was a little scared and I have at least 100 pounds on the thing) but it was kind of hard because I couldn’t stop laughing. I think the turkey was trying to send a thanksgiving message…you eat my family, I eat yours.
• On Thanksgiving I headed to La Esperanza to hang out with other Americans. We had a delicious dinner, and as per Thanksgiving tradition I ate until I thought I was going to explode. The whole day was actually very similar to what I would have done if I were in the states. We played the infamous piece of paper game Aunt Karen always tricks us into playing (don’t feel like explaining it, but its fun). I also drank copious amounts of wine, which naturally reminded me of my aunts. The only difference was that on Thanksgiving morning a bunch of the other volunteers herded a turkey from the backyard to another house to be slaughtered. I opted not to watch the predinner show. All in all it was a good time, but of course it was nowhere near as good as being with family and I missed everyone a lot. I also missed our annual venable thanksgiving feast and just as a heads up I expect to be very depressed Dec. 19th (the day of the feast). The bus ride home from La Esp was terrible. It was packed full and I had to sit in a jumper seat (a little fold down seat). I shouldn’t complain though because originally I did not have a seat and almost had to stand all 4 hours but luckily a lady took pity on me and had her daughter sit in her lap. About halfway home we got stopped by three pickup trucks full of soldiers with automatic weapons. Obviously, this is not the most comforting experience. The driver ended up getting ticketed (he didn’t actually get a ticket, they just took his license and didn’t give it back) because there were people riding on the roof with the luggage. I was really surprised by this since I have never ridden on a bus sans people on the roof so I assumed it was legal. Apparently not.
• The elections were today. So far so good. There have been a lot more soldiers/police around colo and my host mom said it is because it is a border town and they don’t want anyone to come in from El Salvador to cause trouble. I don’t know if that is true, but I am hopeful that everything will continue to go smoothly.
• Yesterday I was talking politics with my host mom and she informed me that the bible says when a black man takes office in the US, the US will succumb to communism. If anyone could please point me to that passage, I would love to read it. I give mad props to Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John because one of them was apparently able to predict a country, two systems of government, a period of racism and oppression, election results, and to top it off had knowledge of a race of people living thousands of miles away. Well played bible guys, well played.
• I finally killed the roach in my room! I kind of felt a little sad for a second, because I had gotten used to him. Then I realized that it was a roach and got over it. I also killed two scorpions. One little guy and one giant one. It was creepy, and I felt pretty hardcore. I am hoping to have no reason to feel hardcore in the future.