where to start? so for spanish class i get to gossip (chismear) in the kitchen with the cooks and other women who work at the school. its great! i still hate speaking alot, especially about myself but i love to listen. just really sit there and listen to people speak-about the double standard women face, about anas boring husband, about dancing and fiestas and tele novelas and code names for bosses. the thing about another language is that firstly it sucks but secondly you really have to listen, all the time with intense focus to not loose the thread of the conversation and your brain is speeding ahead to try to piece together a response to the question you know theyre going to ask you. i still cant wrap my mind around how people can be comepletely fluent in two languages, it seems impossible to me especially as i realize more and more maybe i was born without the talent to pick up languages-but ive never shied away from an academic challenge (well maybe thats not true, but for the most part it is). so instead of kitchen gossip, the other day ryan and i and ana and yamy (like how i cant spell even in spanish?) went to the market to buy a literal mountain of fruits and vegetables and meat for the center. we went to mercado israel which is more expensive than other markets like mercado oriental becasue the vendors actually buy the produce at five in the morning and hall it to this other market but supposedly there are less people so that makes it more desireable. so as were walking along i among the usual audible shouts and whispers about being gringa, chela, bonita, linda, etc etc i actually got asked "how much" as in how much for sex...ive tried to explain how normally these comments-rude, vulgur, and devaluing-dont bother me because i just ignore them or pretend i dont speak any spanish but this one guy in particular i wanted to knock down to the ground, and im pretty sure i could have i had to have been a good five inches taller then he was. but i supressed my violent tendency and continued walking and honestly im not that fired up about it anymore. the market has its highlights though, for instance there were live iguanas, crabs, lobsters and almost anything else you could possibly want to buy. i should be better at remembering the names of fruits and vegtables but i need to see them written down, im pretty sure i ate a guyava or something to that effect, then it was made into juice for lunch. we went to our friend maria teresa chomorros house later in the evening and it was a tropical paradise to say the least. i can imagine that her backyard might closely resemble heaven. but i couldnt ignor the juxtapostition of that against a background of barefoot kids who asked for a peso and peered in windows of the suv at us and her driver as we were stopped at the red light. we went to the galleria mall as well and i couldnt help but think it was like lookign into a mirror of ourselves-transported to this place where it seemingly didnt belong- and i have to admitt i didnt like the image that stared back at me. not to belabor the point of this little cuento but it reminded me quite clearly that for all the gray that exists between black and white there are some very real choices that we make, whether we realize it or not. some like to believe that things are always relative, that there is always someone richer, someone poorer. but when that someone who is poorer doesnt live in dignity or cant live at all things stop being realtive really quickly and start moving in the direction of moral black and white, right and wrong. im afraid that im often, if not exclusively on the side of the oppressor, the priviledged and its not an easy truth to be aware of because it calls for action and for change. so while some may view this little summer trip as squandering time and avoiding "real" work i look at it as ingraining a very real truth on my heart that i will never forget, that i couldnt forget even if i wanted to and will move me in a certain direction with my life here on out. im reading three books right now simutaneously, sobrino still, one about the political message of jesus that the center gave us, and then one about buddhism and im really delighted with myself becasue they all compliment one another in increasingly profound ways, which makes sense if no one person or source can have all of the truth. i dont think ill making a career out of blogging, its so hard to put thoughts into any kind of order or for me to make any sense out of a stream of conscious and the really frustrating part is i know im spelling a lot of words horribly wrong and i cant find the freaking spell check or at least get it to work along with the various keys on the keyboard. anyways thats all for now...thanks for my one comment charity! love you:)