Well hey
there! Long time no connect (sort
of). A lot has happened in the past
week, and so now’s as good a time as any to share what’s been going on.
First and
foremost, I moved homestays. Laura and I
just weren’t clicking; I wanted the involved host family, and she wanted the
independent tenant, and that caused a couple communication problems. So as of Monday (was it really just two days
ago??) I am officially moved into a house with Cecilia and Herbert as my new
host parents—and they are definitely playing the role of involved host
family. When I walked into the house,
Herbert gave me a warm welcome and said “welcome to the house, and welcome to
the family”. Definitely made the right
choice.
My new
place is absolutely huge! There are five
bedrooms on the second floor (all used to house host students typically) and at
least one available room on the first floor for more students—oh, and did I
mention that every single room has their own bathroom? I have never had my own bathroom before, and
it is the best thing ever. Like,
seriously. Even though they have all
this space, however, I am the only student staying with them this term. I’m not sure how I’ll hold up under “only
child” life circumstances, we’ll see. I
think I’d rather have siblings, but while I’m adjusting I suppose it’s probably
better to be an “only child”.
Yesterday,
Cecilia walked me to work (so nice of her!) and she made sure to point out the
landmarks so I would know where to turn inside the neighborhood. That was awesome because when I had visited
her house before with Karlayne, the subdivision seemed like an unnavigable labyrinth,
but now is a piece of cake. After
leaving the neighborhood, it’s pretty much a straight shot to the Rahab
Foundation. Pretty much. The tricky thing is, the way is not
pedestrian-friendly. Sure, there are
sidewalks all the way, but there are not crosswalks where you need them. And because I come and go at rush hour times,
it’s not easy to cross the street at a non-crosswalk. There is seriously an intersection (right
where I need to cross) that has three different streets coming together (from
different directions) and I’m pretty sure all the streets are two-way, and they
just don’t have the correct light systems in place to make it work…mainly
because there is no street light there.
Yeah, it’s cray. And so to avoid
trying to cross through all that, you have to cross about two blocks earlier
where there IS a crosswalk, and then to avoid that intersection again, you have
to turn and walk away from it for a block until you reach the other stoplight,
and then back track to get to Rahab. It’s…really
confusing.
And so on
my way back home, trying to avoid that intersection and still making it onto
the right path was…well…slightly unsuccessful.
It took me an hour to walk home when it should have taken between 20 and
30 minutes. But I called Cecilia and she
helped me out—turns out all I needed to do was keep going straight. Of course “straight” is a little harder to
find where there are forks in the road—that’s also what threw me. But I figured it out, and I made it to work
today just fine, and I think I’ll be able to make it home pretty unscathed as
well. We’ll see.
In any
case, Cecilia and Herbert are really sweet, and I think I’m going to like
living with them. And boy, can those two
talk! I think I’ll need to factor in at
least 20 minutes of “Cecilia time” before I want to go anywhere. But I think I can make that work. J
I’ll give
you some pictures soon, but for now, I just wanted to update you on what was
going on with my move (and that I moved in the first place). But for now, I’ll sign off and get back to
work!
Peace and
Blessings,
Kiki
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