Tuesday, February 25

Today I woke up and went for a run. Then I showered, got ready, and worked on my blog for a while. There was still no internet in the house and it was incredibly frustrating. Nancy asked me to walk down to the Lider to pay the bill, and she gave me $80 and sent Monse and I on our way. We walked all the way down only to find that the bill was almost double the money she had given me, and we had to walk back. While Nancy went to the bank to take out more money, I helped Maxi and Sra Adela make humitas.

We had to take the corn off the cob and then mash it up into this mush using a special machine. Then we had to wrap the mush up with the corn husks and tie them with string before putting them in the oven to cook. After I finished, I walked back to the Lider to pay the internet bill. When I got back the internet way finally on. I responded to the millions of messages and birthday wishes waiting for me, and I invited Lila to come over to my house that night. After our family ate a late lunch of humitas together, Lila came over. The poor girl had gotten her wisdom teeth out like 4 days before, and her mouth was all swollen and she could barely talk. It was definitely a challenge communicating because I can barely understand regular Spanish let alone swollen mouth mumbled Spanish! We had fun convincing Monse that the reason Lila couldn’t talk was because she had tried to kiss a cow and the cow had bitten her tongue off.

Lila left around 10, and then I ate a quick dinner and watched TV with Monse. Then I Skyped with Ilana for the first time in a long time (it was the day in between our birthdays, so it was the perfect day to Skype). It was great to talk to her again. Her weirdness and laid back attitude are like contagious and I felt so much better and more carefree after listening to her hilarious stories. We talked until like 1 my time and then I went straight to sleep.