12 Things Learned

12 Things I Have Learned This Semester
1. I have learned again that I need to go to God in prayer before I ask others advice. Through all the family problems that arose it came to my attention that I wasn´t praying about my problems, I was going to directly to people around. It is not a bad thing to ask others advice, but not first. It was hard to do for me at times because it is so easy to talk to poeple you can see and hear what they think right away. I learned to take the time to "hear" God and be patient in waiting for His response and revealing the answer to me. Of course, it is something I still have to work on.
2. I relearned I can do without a lot of stuff. It is possible to live three months or more with a week´s worth of clothes that consists of 7 shirts and 2 jeans. Yeah, sometimes I got bored of wearing the same shirt week after week, but who notices? I have plans to go through my closet at home to and get rid of the stuff I can do without. It´s amazing how much stuff we have in the States.
3. I learned another culture. There is some discrimination between Ladino´s (indian and Spanish) and Indians. This culture is very family oriented as well. I was trying to look for differences between here and other countries I have gone to. Not much. The Spanish is easy to understand here than in Peru, I think. It is a rather warm and friendly culture.
4. I have learned to go with my first feeling and make a fast decision. After 9 weeks my host family was having some problems within the family. It was better to change houses, so I went the same day to La Union to request a different family. Since it was an emergency to change quickly, I was put into a temporary family, then into a second host family by the end of the week. After a week I saw my former host family and everything was back to normal. Thank God for helping the family resolve their problem, at least temporarily.
5. I have learned a lot more Spanish! I finally learned the Subjuntive which I had no clue what that was a few weeks ago. I am getting more comfortable talking in Spanish. Since I have been living with Deanna I have also learned how to cut into the conversations instead of waiting for a pause to add my two cents worth on the topic. (Deanna is a talker and takes over conversations)
6. I experienced how to celebrate Holy Week in another poart of the world. I wrote about that in a previous blog post.
7. I learned how to make a sawdust carpet with La Union during Holy Week.
8. I learned that Catholics pay to carry the float during Semana Santa, and it is not cheap!
9. I experienced a little more about other religions such as Jehovah´s Witness and Pentecostal (carismatic worship). Qhuite an experience!
10. I learned how to ride crowded buses to Ciudad Vieja to work in my volunteer school and I learned how to take the right bus through experience. That is another story!
11. I learned a little about the guatemalan educational system. School here is expensive. High school is more like college because the students take specific courses related to the career they want. Most students can teach in elementary school by the time they graduate from high school, so many teach during the day and study their career choice in the evenings.
12. I have learned to like more fruits and vegetables. My new host mom cooks a lot of zuccini and different types of squash and veggies, and she cooks them differently so they have lots of flavor! I am also served fruit every morning. I now like pineapple, papaya, brocoli, and other vegetables. wow!
Sorry I have not uploaded pictures of Holy week yet. The computers here at the internet cafe is not allowing me to upload them on here. So I guess you all can look for them next week. I can´t wait to to get back, but at the same time I will miss it here. Thanks for keeping me in your prayers!