Tea with Tía

Dear Chris Kwon,

I finally went to the post office to buy some stamps. I have desperately needed them. Three of us went to the post office. There was an armed security guard there who had his finger on the trigger of his rifle the whole time. He was wandering around the office and looked sort of naive about gun use. I was concerned. I bought $4 worth of stamps (2 stamps!). SOOOO expensive.

A classmate and I went to Mr. Bagel for lunch. I was so glad to finally get a bagel! I'm not a fan of the creamcheese here, but Bagels are always amazing. I'm in love with carbs here- sorry mom.

Yesterday, we had a discussion about employees in our culture class. Someone told us that the current president made it so all the employees get paid the same salary. This had negative consequences, because a ton of people decided they couldn't afford employees, thus a lot of home employees lost their jobs. I was still super confused about Carmencita's role and why she always watched me eat.

I ran home for a skype date with Anne and was intercepted by tía at the front door. She asked if I wanted to have some herbal tea. I said of course and ran into the kitchen. There was fresh cinnamon raisin bread on the table. Carmencita was boiling the tea (which was just a branch from the yard thoroughly rinsed and thrown in boiling water). We all sat down (including Carmencita) and enjoyed our tea and bread. Carmencita and tía made small talk, then Carmencita had to leave.

After tía spoke to me in broken english for a few minutes, I asked her exactly what role Carmencita has in the family. Tía explained to me that Carmencita has been with the family for 35 years! She worked in Susy's hair salon, but business has been slow. Susy and Antonio know how it is now impossible for people to find work, so they kept Carmencita on. Tía told me that Carmencita and my abuelita's nurse are really proactive about their work. If they aren't preoccupied, they will find other work to do. There is the other employee (lupita) who works only in the kitchen. She doesn't really do much else. SO what I learned from this was that Carmencita watches me eat because she values her job. Tía said she is like family. Afterwards, a huge conversation was started about the current political system. It was amazing! I truly hope that there are more teas before tía leaves.

This morning, I woke up at the crack of dawn to go to my service learning. I got there at 8 to see Ines- the crazy psycho lady who is in charge of the shelter. She is sooooo mean. As soon as we showed up, Ines went into all the rooms and dragged the people out of bed to hang out with us. We don't want to force these people out! They're sick. We showed the movie Up (SOOOO good) and then taught them how to play monopoly. It was challenging as we don't speak much spanish and they know no english. Ines was there watching us like a hawk the whole time. At 11:00 (1 hour before we were done) she called us into her office and had another discussion about the same exact stuff we always talk about. She tells us we don't have enough ideas. She treats us like we're children, but gives us no direction. It's so frustrating. She told us we weren't allowed to show movies over 20 minutes long (what movie is under 20 minutes?!) BUT we are allowed to schedule monopoly for 3 hours... Now I'm venting, but this lady is crazy.

I went to the mall and ordered a HUGE salad for lunch. You're really not supposed to eat uncooked vegetables here, but I don't care anymore. It was delicious. School happened, then three of us taxied to gringolandia to buy tickets for the galapagos! I'm so stoked! AND broke. Great. We bussed it back to school and made it just in time for a lecture from one of my UW teachers' friends. She is a british woman who lives in Ecuador and contributes to guide books. Her lecture was all about holidays here. It was interesting.

A bunch of us decided to go to trivia night at Finn McCool's (yes, there is also a Finn McCool's in Seattle AND they have trivia night once a week). I left my backpack at school (guess I'll do homework tomorrow). We bussed it to gringolandia (not supposed to at 8:00 but whatever). Trivia was fun. My team was not so great, but the other members of our huge group dominated. My team peaced out a bit early. I made it home at around 10:40. LONG day.