Just left the beach on the lake where I was working on a new song with my friend Augu. The Gypsy Kings do a great cover of Hotel California in Spanish and we´re working it out. It´s a lot harder to sing in Spanish, but with it being Augu´s first language it should come together.
While I was sitting on the beach I saw a little farm that was growing fennel. This may be the first time I´ve ever seen it not growing wild. Though not too surprising as there are small plots of land scattered about the city with little gardens. When I was walking up to meet the family my school supports we walked up a trail through hundreds of coffee plants picked clean from the recent harvest.
This afternoon I went with Rosa to a little store to get some school supplies for the two oldest boys of the family. She definitely helped in the bargaining process and got a good deal for me. I still need to work on my numbers for the bargaining. I mean cinco or ocho quetzal is easy enough to quarrel over, but when I get into the ochcentas and quinientos I have to take a brief pause in the battle to take-in, process, and then formulate a response.
I had a big test today on all I´ve learned up to now and I did well. I missed a few, but all-in-all the page had mostly check marks on it. I might ask Rosa if I can put it up on their fridge. There are still times when I find myself stumbling trying to express myself with the language, but the way I measure it is that I can talk just about as well as Rosa´s 2 year old granddaughter, Rosalina. Kind of a funny way of thinking about it, but it is quite a big undertaking to learn a language. It´s a great challenge though and with each step forward you can see the reward of all the work it takes to learn.
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