My homestay is quite interesting. The two year old continues to be cute for the hour a day he's in a good mood, but the other 23 when he's screaming his head off is getting a bit old. So are the mosquitoes that swarm me at night through the large hole in the roof above my bed. But the bright side is that the ice cold shower feels quite good on sweaty itchy mosquito bites.

Okay, enough spoiled westerner whining. I feel like I'm getting a much more real homestay experience than I had in Guatemala. There I was in an impeccable and quiet house with a retired couple, but here I'm really a renter in a busy household going about their daily life. And, my situation actually got better today because I got to switch to a different room because the other student moved out. This room has a mosquito net, a complete roof, and a place to put away my clothes which is nice. Although I will miss the stray cat that sometimes was looking at me from the roof in the mornings as I woke up.

The student that moved out was this hilarious hyper young kid from Chicago. He didn't speak Spanish, but always gave it a go with really entertaining Spanglish. I called him my little brother and told him how I proud I was when he made the decision to move into a youth hostel to get away from all his bad influence friends in the neighborhood. The family had asked me several times to translate for him that the guys he was hanging out with were bad news, but he kept saying they just had bad reputations but were good guys. It never occurred to him that people who were deported from the U.S. for gang involvement and drugs might not be hanging out with him just to keep their English sharp. Well, he finally wised up and I get the good room out of it!!!!