Almost Fluent

Completed day 4 of our class and now almost fluent! I was able to tell the story of Hansel & Gretel in Sp. to my teacher and R told some peace corps stories to his. I'm working up to the grand finale tomorrow: BLANCA NIEVA! You can never tell when I might need the vocabulary words ¨seven dwarfs ¨ and ¨poison apple¨ while traveling around S. Amer.

After we finish our 4 hr class, we usually collapse in the room for a bit and then hit the hotel cafe for the $5 lunch special of soup, meat, rice, vegetables, salad and sugar cane juice with lime. Today's beef, however, was so tough that I'm sure the cow walked all the way from Argentina. I think we´ll branch out tomorrow. Then we have to head to the town's one ATM machine and hover in the little air conditioned box guarded by the police and draw out 400,000 pesos. ($200 is the maximum per day) We finally have the gig down of which buttons to push, but the first time the people waiting were getting very frustrated. After 3 days, we have finally almost collected a wad big enough to pay for our airline tickets to next stop in the interior and the six day trek we will take to the Ciudad Perdida (Yes, mom, it's with a guide and a group, so don't freak out.) We could use a credit card but would have to pay an additional hefty charge.

Any Gabriel Garcia Marque fans out there? He is from this area and from the many strange things we have seen I can see where he gets his sensibility for magical realism. Love in the Time of Cholera is set in Cartagena.

Abrazos a todos
Dana