Staying in Argentina

So my internship has officially ended, but as you may have noticed, I am not back in the United States.  During my internship I did not have a chance to job search, so I figured, why come home now if I am just going to sit around on the computer for a couple of weeks searching and applying to jobs.  I can sit around here for a few weeks and search and apply to jobs.  My Spanish can still use some improving as well.  I also missed the summer in the U.S. so I am hoping to stick around so I can experience at least the Argentine spring. 

 

I do like it enough here that I will look for jobs either here in Argentina or in the U.S. (the closest to Kansas City the better.)  However, I would love a job in which I could travel and use my Spanish skills (though be it they are not perfect.)  Ideally I would like to use my economic and mathematics background as well, maybe something in finance.  Part of me also wants to do something crazy like work on a cruise ship for awhile.  Or just find whatever job that will pay me money in hang out in Argentina for awhile.  I guess we will see what happens in the coming weeks.

 

In October, I will be going to Chile for a week for a CFCA (Christian Foundation for Children and Aging) Mission Awareness Trip.  (www.cfcausa.org) It is the organization that I sponsor a couple of kids and they visit each of their sponsored countries and visit the projects.  There happens to be on in Chile in October and I figured it was so close, why not go?  Jean (my big sis) will meet me in Chile, then we will travel back across Argentine to Buenos Aires and in to Uruguay.  Jean will head home the 11^th and as of now I will be heading home on November 13^th.  We will see how all of that goes.  But as for the next few weeks I will be job searching and traveling around Argentina as I see fit.

 

Last Monday I moved out of my host families house.  I love them to death, but was starting to feel claustrophobic….they are a little too helpful and parenting.  For instance one of the last days I was there, I was hungry in the afternoon and made myself some soup.  Miriam (my host mom) came home while I was still cooking it.  She was very concerned that I was just going to eat soup.  She offered to make me a pizza or heat up leftover and told me she had pasta she could add.  She couldn’t accept the fact that I just wanted to make myself soup and just eat soup. 

 

I moved into an Argentine “pension”, which is an unexplainable mix between a shared house, dorm, and sorority house.  There are 12 girls in total and I share a room with two others.  There is a kitchen, dining room, study room and two bathrooms (but only one shower!, which doesn’t really matter to me as I have no particular schedule, and it doesn’t really seem to be a problem with anyone else either.)  They also have a computer with internet that is shared and supposedly wifi, though  I have been here a week and there is no wifi signal, they told me they will call to figure it out but haven’t done so yet.  My roommates are both really nice.  Isable, turned 24 two days after me, and Danielle I think is 25, so they are older (some girls are 18, mainly students live here.)  Another girl in the pension turned 24 the same day as I did.  She is also very nice and we went out together on our birthday.  I am sure I will have more fun “pension” anecdotes in the future.

 

Now that I am not living with Miriam I like her so much better.  She is such a great person that I can pretty much stop by anytime I want.  Last night I went to pick up some stuff I had left the night of my birthday.  I ended up knitting and staying for dinner until 11pm.  I am headed over there tonight again.  Miriam works super close to where I live now and she is going to walk home from work today, which is quite a walk and I told her I would walk with her.  I am hoping to finish the project I was knitting tonight.

 

Anyways, that is it for now.  Hope everyone is doing well, I miss you!!!

Miriam’s Birthday

Thursday was Miriam’s birthday (my host mom).  A ton of people came to our house to celebrate.  Around 5:30 women from her work came and stayed til around 8:30, eating sweets and drinking mate.  Then for dinner was the more “intimate” crowd, the people that always come over for asados, Amber and Jenn’s host families, Patricia (neighbor friend), Vivi’s in-laws, etc. and we had hamburgers (very mediocre, which is the norm for hamburgers here.)  Miriam’s mother and sister also came (Susana, Miriam’s sister is Javier’s mom).

 

I am a terrible host daughter and did not get her a birthday present.  First off, I am generally late on getting presents, ask anyone I know.  Second I am not exactly sure what to get her.  I also am supposed to live in a couple weeks and wanted to do a really nice “goodbye” present.  I haven’t told her this yet, so she probably just thinks I suck as a person…

 

Javier’s family arrived on Thursday night as well, his mom, dad, and sister.  Claudio was right, Javi’s dad is impossible to understand, he mumbles and talks fast…and he likes to talk, so I missed a lot.  It is unfortunate I didn’t understand him very well, because he seemed to have interesting answers to a lot of the questions I asked.  Karina, Javi’s sister was very nice too, she is a clothing designer and getting ready to open her own store.  She brought some of her clothes, which were very cute, but didn’t fit me right L  And I love Javi’s mother, Susana, Miriam’s sister.  She was more “tranquilo” or calmer than Miriam.  She also seemed to understand the whole international thing…I am not stupid, but if you talk slower I can understand, and you have to explain expressions or look for others words to explain things.  I very much appreciated her.

 

On Saturday, Javi’s family, minus Javi, took me to Buenos Aires and we toured the La Boca and San Telmo areas.  I really liked it.  I think I would enjoy living in Buenos Aires….maybe that will happen soon.

Monday, August 11, 2008

I finally met my host brother last weekend!  Santiago arrived on Thursday morning and stayed till Sunday night.  He is a student in Bahía Blanca about 8 hours south of La Plata along the coast.  He studies there as a mechanical engineering student.  Bahía Blanca is close to Tornquist, the small town where the family is from (everyone else moved up here about four years ago, but he had already started school there so he stayed.) 

 

He was very nice, I am glad I met him.  I am kind of sad he doesn’t live here all the time, because I think we would get along well.  He is not as shy as his sister, our conversations weren’t quite as strained as my conversations with Flor.  Flor is shy as am I, so our conversations are always difficult…and most of the time her boyfriend and friends are around, so she has other things to do.  With Santiago, he doesn’t live her full time, so he doesn’t have friends to go out with.  I did ask him and Flor to go out with my and the other interns several time over the weekend and he never went…it’s probably weird to go out with a bunch of foreigners anyway. 

 

Two of the interns, Samiron and Kristen only have two weeks left.  I can’t believe the time has gone by so quickly!  I on the other hand only have four weeks left.  Everyday I struggle with should I stay or go?  I miss everyone of course (especially Colton and Clayton….no offense to anyone else J ).  But I also feel like I could still use to improve my Spanish.  I also wouldn’t mind traveling around more.  I guess we will see what happens!

 

GREAT ACCOMPLISHMENT AT THE COMEDOR!!!

On Friday, Claudio (my host dad) made Santiago go with him to the comedor to install all the electricity.  We went about 9:30 (shortly after the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, we saw a small part of it).  Claudio thought it would take about 2 hours to install the electricity…we were there until 3:30, that is six hours for those of you who don’t want to calculate it!  However, he did an awesome job!  In the comedor/cooking side of the building, the electricity consists of the wiring strung around the room to whatever location it needs to reach, not necessarily following a hard surface, so in several places there are hanging wires.  Claudio brought his own materials and used plastic tubing that he affixed to the walls and then strung the wires through so that they were not exposed. 

 

Anyway I was pretty impressed.  He also brought some of his own light fixtures, some heavy duty ones with a “turtle” shell covering to prevent it form breaking easily (in the comedor side, the outside light is a bulb with a cut off top of a pop bottle surrounding it).  Claudio also told my supervisor that he would come back this week to rewire the comedor so that the wires are not exposed.  Hopefully he has time to do it…who knows I might become an electrician expert by the time I leave.  I need to figure out how to repay him.  Not only did he give his time, most of the supplies he used were his and not the ones that had been previously bought by the comedor, mainly because his way of doing things was better.  Unfortunately I do not think it is as easy as asking him to write me a bill, I think I will have to convince him to write a bill. 

Monday, August 04, 2008 – Halfway Done :) :(

So I am officially half-way through my Argentine internship.  I arrived six weeks ago and have six weeks left.  I have finally settled in and gotten used to living here and have some sort of routine with my work at the comedor.  I also have finally decided the direction I will go with my FSD projects (maybe a little late) – which further outlines how I will be spending my remaining weeks here.  I am also excited to start traveling and seeing parts of the country and feel slightly crunched on time.  At the same time I am really starting to miss my family and friends….and a clothes dryer, QuikTrip, and med red (that is my car for those of you unaware – I hope you are taking good care of her Jean). 

 

The other day I finally took time to read through an Argentine Lonely Planet tourist book to see which places I want to visit while I am here.  We will see what I end up having time to see.  Places include:

• San Antonio de Acerco – area of “las pampas” fairly close to Buenos Aires, has museums of gauchos (famous Argentine cowboys) and model estancias (ranches); Parque Nacional de Ernesto Tornquist – about 10 hours from Buenos Aires, there is a big hill/mountain there, if you hike to the top you can supposedly get a good view of the pampas, it also happens to be very close to the town of Tornquist, where my host parents are from, I am hoping I get to visit it with them;
• Iguazú Falls – in Missiones province, in northeastern Argentine, partially located in Brazil as well, I believe they are the some of the largest waterfalls in the world, I would also love to cross into Paraguay and Brazil (unfortunately visa is needed for Brazil) while I am up that direction, but am not sure if that will happen, as of now I am planning on going in mid-August when there is a three day holiday weekend, I will probably take more than 3 days as its about a 20 hour bus ride;
• Mendoza – province in western Argentina along the Chile border, famous for its wineries, also about a 20 hours bus ride from Buenos Aires, I would like to cross into Chile if I am going that far, but not sure if it will be possible;
• Tierra del Fuego – I am pretty sure this will not happen as it is extremely far, but I would really like to say that I have been! 
• I would also like to go to Colonia, Uruguay, which is about a two hour boat ride from Buenos Aires.  Technically I am not supposed to leave the country while under the FSD internship, but I feel since they didn’t tell us that rule before hand I am going to disregard it – seriously if I am two hours from Uruguay I am going to want to cross the border!  I also mentioned it to my host mom who has also visited, and she suggested that maybe we go this weekend when her son comes in town from Tornquist – I hope we go! 

So that’s where I want to go.  I am fairly certain I won’t get to most of it, but we will see.

 

In the last week I have learned how to knit.  I have knitted myself a very long, fluffy blackish/purplish scarf.  I have also bought yarn to knit a baby blanket (CONGRATULATIONS JULIE!!!!)  And have made a list of several other things I would like to make while I am here.  I get a kick out of it, as does my host mom who has been basically begging to teach me.  Mary Andrews (another intern) also came over last week to learn, and Amber (another intern who already knows how to knit) also came and we had a little knitting party – it was quite amusing.

 

I also tried my first shot at cooking for my host family.  I tried my specialty, spinach artichoke dip.  It turned out subpar for my standards, but they seemed to like (though sometimes I wonder if they just say that.)  I had to be creative as I couldn’t exactly find all the ingredients – and dairy/cream products are slightly different.  Everything is called “crema” or cream and I couldn’t quite figure out what was sour cream, also couldn’t find the cream cheese I wanted, so used mayonnaise (found in abundance here – it is there favorite sauce) as a replacement that I have used before.  However, I asked Ana, with FSD and she told me that cream cheese can be found, so I might try another round.  I need to make an actual meal for them as well, unfortunately all the real typical American/Kansans type food I don’t actually know how to make, I personally prefer Mexican food, but they don’t like spicy stuff.  We will see what I can come up with that will taste good and I can find ingredients for!

Thursday, July 31, 2008 – Buenos Aires

I finally went to Buenos Aires to actually see the city.  Florencia, my host sister went with me.  We saw the “Casa Rosada” or the pink house, equivalent to the White House.  However, the President actually lives there but is rather executive offices and a place for meetings.  In front is the “Plaza de Mayo” named commemorating the month in which they declared independence.  The Plaza de Mayo has also been come to be a traditional location for protests.  Every Thursday, the “Madres de la Plaza de Mayo” march on the plaza.  The organization formed to protest the torture and disappearances occurring during the “Dirty War” in the 70’s, which frankly takes much more explanation than I care to go into, however, there are plenty of books than can more thoroughly explain.  Anyways, they were there on Thursday, as well as another group of protesters whose cause I couldn’t quite figure out.  Until a couple weeks ago, the “campo” or collaborative “countryside” were regular protestors in Buenos Aires and the Plaza de Mayo regarding extravagant export taxes (I believe this gained international news attention – another interesting topic to look into J ).  The problem has since been “solved” and export taxes have been lowered to 35% as opposed to the proposed 48% (for soy only, other products have lower percentages.)

 

We walked down Avenida Florida which was a large pedestrian street with tons of stores of all types.  We were there around mid-day and frankly there were too many people there for my taste.  I tried to enter a few stores to look for a leather purse and shoes, (Argentina is well known for its leather products) but became exhausted by the over helpful employees and soon gave up.  We also walked up to the obelisco a huge monument similar to the Washington Monument (I think, is that the one that is a tall tower that comes to a point at the top? – I know it is bad I do not know….)  I asked my family here what it was a monument for, they said something about the Foundation of Buenos Aires and it was for an anniversary of some sort, but that is all the could come up with, so I will assume it is not that important.  However, it is a fairly prominent marker in the city.  It is located in the Avenids 9 de Julio (named for Argentina’s independence day.)  My host sister told me it might be the widest street in the world…maybe 20 lanes?  She didn’t tell me until afterwards, so I didn’t count while I was there….the two directions were split by a large median/plaza so its width didn’t occur to me while we were there. 

 

While in Buenos Aires we went to Puerto Madero which is kind of like a boardwalk type place with lots of fancy/American restaurants along the river.  They also had a museum in an old navy boat.  I toured it with Florencia which was actually probably the highlight, mainly because I had lots of questions and since she is in the military school she could answer most of them – it definitely helped facilitate the conversation.  We had a long lunch at a fairly expensive place – lunch cost almost $25 which is a lot here…it should have been like $5 each L  oh well we survived, we returned home tired.  I am glad I went and glad Florencia took me, I am not sure if she actually enjoyed it or was just doing it because here parent made her, but I appreciate all the same.  

Sunday, July 20, 2008 – Friendship Day

My host sister, Florencia came home on Friday night.  This is the second time I have seen here in the four weeks I have been in Argentina.  She attends the naval academy and they have spent the last several weeks on a “voyage”.  On Saturday she invited several of her friends over, all of which also attend the naval academy, for dinner.  I assumed the occasion was to celebrate that they were done with their trip.  However, when the clock struck midnight, everyone circled around the room giving everyone kisses, saying “Feliz Día” or Happy Day, marking the beginning of “Día de Amigo”, friendship day.  The holiday is fairly important to Argentine’s.  It seems as though everyone celebrates it with their friends – even the news reported on the “Friendship Day” festivities – mostly composed of friends either having get-togethers at home or going out to dinner. 

 

Dinner consisted of hamburgers…which my new Panamanian friend commented that he missed American hamburgers (a friend of Florencia’s from school – he spent his senior year of high school in Delaware, he appeared excited to meet me and talk in English.)  The hamburgers here are definitely lacking.  They are the premade kind so they are small and not very thick.  They put them on dry buns that are too large for the meat, never include cheese, and you are lucky to find ketchup to top them with (however mayonnaise is easy to come by as is mustard.)  After dinner we sat around for an extremely long period of time waiting for an appropriate time in which we could go out – some of her friends wanted to take me dancing.  The appropriate time to go out here is 3am….so we waited awhile.  By the time we decided to leave we couldn’t find a taxi – after calling several companies where there were hour long waits, we started to walk towards a major road about 12 blocks away to try our luck. 

 

Once we made it “Quo”, we all got in the huge line outside and one of the guys went to ask how much the cover charge was – it ended up being free for ladies, but 30 pesos for guys, which is about $10.  However, that is very expensive here as most cover charges are about 8 pesos, and the taxi to get to the club only cost 10 pesos.  So we decided we were tired and all went home.  So much for my first night going out with my host sister. L

 

So Sunday was friendship day.  I woke up to several visitors in my house.  Apparently we were having another asado (barbecue) to celebrate Friendship Day.  Today we had about 16 join us for lunch – four of which were interns (me, Amber, Jennifer, and Kelly).  Of course the asado consisted of homemade empanadas (delicious), chorizo (sausage), and various varieties of other “carne”.  Luckily today I got by with just eating empanadas and chorizo and passed on the other various meats. 

 

After lunch they taught us how to play “tejo” which consisted of throwing wooden discs to see which one lands closest to a target point.  Then we got some live music and dancing from Vivi, her husband and others.  Then Vivi did a funny skit and song she had written about her friends who were in attendance.  All in all it was pretty funny.  Another long day of entertaining!

Saturday, July 19, 2008 – Vivi’s Party

Primo and interns at Vivi's party.

Last night was “the party”.  Amber’s host mom, Viviana, turned 50 on Tuesday, so they had a big blowout party for her.  “Vivi” is a super outgoing, funny, and crazy lady, so of course any party for her will be fun.  It also just happens that nearly all the host families of the interns in my group have some sort of relationship with Vivi: my host mom works with her, lives near her and they are good friends; Jennifer’s host dad is Vivi’s brother; Kristen’s host mom is Vivi’s aunt; Samiron’s host dad is in a band with Vivi’s husband.  The only person not related was Mary Andrews – but we made sure she was invited anyway – it was Vivi’s party, how could Mary Andrews not come?

 

 

 

 

 

It was a really nice party, they rented a really nice salon – food was catered and there was plenty of wine.  Dinner started with an assortment of cheese, meat, and other “munchies”.  “Dinner” itself was strange, as we were never given plates or served a complete meal.  Rather, waiters walked around every so often with a new plate of goodies serving them to each table – we had empanadas, hotdogs covered with bacon (not so yummy), pizza, chicken bites, meatballs, and a variety of other foods.  Music was played throughout the night, but the highlight was a skit put on by Vivi’s husband, brother, brother-in-law and my host dad.  They came out dancing dressed as painters then proceeded with a “striptease” each wearing a plastic “six pack”.  It was quite entertaining.  The party lasted until 3am, which I figure is not bad for being 50!  Afterwards, I went out with Javier (my “primo”) and Mary Andrews.  All-in-all a fun night!

Wednesday, July 9, 2008 – Dia de Independencia

Today was Argentina’s Independence Day – my host family had a get together to celebrate.  My host mom is good friends with another family that hosts interns through FSD, who is related to another family and friends with even another family that hosts FSD interns, so it was a huge network of friends and family that host interns – about 30 friends of the family in total at my house.  We all ate a super-extended table for the noon meal (which didn’t really happen until about 2pm, I was starving!)  We ate a traditional “criollo” (def – traditionally Spanish American) meal of Locro, which is a very thick stew like food that includes beans, rice, meat (beef perhaps), bacon, and I am sure various other things I am leaving out.  We also had freshly made empanadas that were cooked outside in a Bolivian brick oven (if I ever get around to it I have pictures of the over, it was left by the previous Bolivian owners of the house that I live in.)  The food was all delicious and accompanies by some very tasty “postre” or desserts – including of course a pinwheel cake smothered in dulce de leche!

 

Unfortunately I was super tired and all I could think of was sleeping after lunch, but everyone stuck around until after 5pm.  I did attempt to play “trucco” which is a very popular card game that they play here – I am still not exactly sure how to play it, but am trying.  After everyone left, I crashed for a few hours and didn’t really accomplish anything the rest of the night.  My throat hurt all day and I could tell I was getting sick so I pretty much lay low the rest of the day.

Monday, June 30, 2008: Starting off with family and work

I look pretty stupid next to her dressed up ready to return to school...

This weekend I met my host sister, Florencia.  Many of her friends live very far away from the school so they come to La Plata on the weekend, and Florencia’s parents act as surrogate parents for many of these students.  As a result, there are always young people around on the weekend, which is nice.  Florencia has a boyfriend, which makes her less available to hang out with me, but one of her friends, Stephanie took me downtown to run some errands.  Stephanie is very outgoing, so she is always talking (which is good because then I have to talk less) and she is also patient with explaining the things I miss in Spanish.  Another friend, Perla, said we should go out dancing sometime.  Unfortunately they all have short trips via ship in the coming weeks and no one will be returning to La Plata for several weeks and shortly after that they have two weeks of vacation in which many will return to their homes.  One girl, Patricia (Perla’s sister, but not in the naval academy), did invite me to her home in Missiones (northern province) near Iguazú Falls, which I believe is the largest natural waterfall in the world (per Claudio).  Patricia also said we could cross the border into Paraguay to go shopping because everything is cheaper there.  Unfortunately, I think it is against FSD regulation to leave the country…I am not sure what I am going to do about this yet.  (It is also 18 hours away which is another road bump…) 

 

 

 

I met my supervisor for the comedor today also.  Marta lives in the barrio Altos Hornos de San Lorenzo – which is also where I live.  However, she lives in an area that they refer to as “asentimiento”; the people that live there do not own they land.  After the 2001 economic crisis, many people came to the city (I am assuming to look for work or government help) and settled on this open land.  The houses are varying degrees of shacks.  Tin roofs and walls on concrete slabs seems to be the norm.  Marta is from northern Argentina (Missiones) but said that many of the people that live near here are from other countries – Bolivia, Paraguay, and maybe Uruguay also.  One house she pointed out she said a Yugoslavian woman lived there…I will have to get to the bottom of that, it seems like an awfully long way to come. 

 

The comedor where I will work is more impoverished than I had imagined.  All the interns had visited a comedor during our orientation week which appeared to be in a fairly normal looking neighborhood and it was housed in a solid infrastructure.  The people who came to eat looked like any other children in the neighborhood.  However, my comedor, La Estrategia de Caracol (I believe the translation is Strategy of the Snail, I am not exactly sure of the significance) is located in a fairly precarious looking building.  There are holes in the tin roof and the major wooden pillars that support the structure were salvaged from the first structure that was destroyed in a fire.  The bathroom is an outhouse in another tin shack.  The concrete floor has cracks and there are spaces between the walls and ceiling that need to be filled. 

 

After my first visit with Marta it appears as though the panadería, or the baking cooperative, has not been fully realized yet.  They have bought an industrial strength mixer, but it is sitting in Marta’s living room because the comedor is not secure enough to house such expensive equipment.  The price of flour is also sky-rocketing making it not cost effective to make and sell the bread. 

 

On Wednesday I will go to the comedor and help them transplant some plants in their garden (their first intern helped to create this garden) and I will get to meet all the women that help out at the comedor (members of the community who volunteer their time.)  After I meet everyone, I think I will then be in a position to stop by the comedor whenever I want.  I want to start talking to the women to find out the needs of their community and comedor and their interest in growing the panadería.  After learning of their needs, I will have to make a “work plan” for my internship.  Each intern has $200 available to realize a project and longer internships (which I think I qualify for) will have the opportunity to apply for additional grant moneys.  After my first visit with Marta it seems as though their major need is man power to make needed infrastructure changes to the comedor.  They already have most of the supplies, but Marta’s husband seems to be the only one available to make improvements and he has limited time.  I am not sure if this is because of lack of trust or confidence in using other man power, or just lack of available funds. 

 

The next couple of weeks I will spend getting to know the women of the comedor to realize a plan that will be meaningful and beneficial to the local community.

My Argentine Family: Wednesday, June 25, 2008

My host family, the Moya’s, picked me up at the FSD office on Wednesday evening.  They are super nice.  Miriam (the mom) is very outgoing.  She has dark brown/reddish (dyed) hair, and is actually fairly tall (maybe 5’7”) and slightly overweight (which is bad news for me cause it probably means they eat well here so I shouldn’t be expecting to lose weight anytime soon L ).  Miriam works for the “Ministrio de Educación” which I am assuming is similar to the Board of Education.  I am not exactly sure what she does yet.  She also knits and weaves scarves and shawls to sell to friends and co-workers.  Her husband, Claudio, is also fairly tall and fairly light skinned with brown/grayish colored hair.  I unsuspectingly asked him where he works and apparently he is unemployed – however, he used to work at a flour mill, but soy is taking over production so there is no longer demand for wheat flour.  So he stays at home and helps Miriam weave as part of their own microenterprise.  Claudio is not as outgoing as Miriam but very nice and “tranquilo” or calm and easy going – which is a nice contrast to Miriam’s vivacious personality. 

 

Their nephew Javier lives with them too.  He is 28 and is a hydraulic engineering student.  He is also plays the base in a rock band (which I think are practicing in the room next to mine right now – fortunately its not the loud obnoxious kind!)  He seems pretty cool also, he is a little hard to understand because he talks fast and the words seem to all mix together like he is mumbling (at least to me that is what it sounds like!) 

 

Claudio and Miriam also have a son and daughter.  The son is 22 and lives far away (700 kilometers) and studies mechanical engineering.  The daughter, Florencia, is 19 and is in the Naval Military School, which from listening to Miriam is probably similar to our military academies, it seems difficult to get into, and she seems very proud of her.  Florencia is not around during the week but apparently comes home on the weekends, so I will probably meet her this weekend.  Miriam says she is tall like me, she seems to think I look like her too, but I met a friend of Florencia’s yesterday and she didn’t share the same opinion, I think Miriam is just excited to have me here. 

 

The family seems very fun.  I think they get together with a big group of friends often – several of whom also host interns.  And friends of their kids are around on the weekends as well.  I think I will definitely get a taste of their culture living with them.