casa prom...yes please.

so this coming week we have exams/its our last full week here in salvador so this may or may not be my last entry for a bit:

- praxis was really great this past week. on Wednesday in the morning i was at Centro Hogar (the school) with my kids in Materno 1 (who are all between the ages of 1 and 2 years). It hit me pretty hard when i got there in the morning that i only have one more week with them. all the little kiddies are just so crazy and fun. dont get me wrong, its not always great, i mean they bite and spit and pee and cry and act like they take crazy pills in the morning, but even still, every time they giggle and smile up at me or run to me in the morning with hugs and kisses when i get there and actually remember my name or pile on top of me if i sit on the floor or come to me crying after one of the other kids bit them I cant help but be a little attached. Then in the afternoon we were at the soy project and we interviewed the women about the project and about nutrition in the country. We’ll be using the interviews for our project for praxis class.

- Friday, casa silvia (my house) hosted a ‘casa prom’ which was a huge success! We transformed the house into a photo area, an outdoor seating and hangout area, a dance floor complete with a DJ corner, and a punch and popcorn room. Everyone came lookin their best (at least the best we could do with clothes we have here) and we danced the night away (...or at least until 11:30ish, because we had to wake up at 6:30am the next morning...wah wah). Fr. Mark came for a bit sporting a 'chaperone' name tag and we even got flowers for everyone to make corsages. Basically it was a magical night full of dancing...not that we dont have dance parties all the time here...this one was just more formal.

- Saturday we drove to El Mozote (hence why we had to get up so early) to visit the site of the massacre that happened in 1981. It was really surreal being in the place we’ve heard about and read about all semester. So many lives lost in a brutal and unnecessary way. There was actually one survivor named Rufina Amaya (who died about a year or two ago). We met with her oldest daughter who told us her mother’s story at her grave in El Mozote at the site where it all happened. It was a really incredible afternoon. Then we stayed the night in a nearby town and celebrated one of the bacarias (Salvadoran scholarship student’s) birthday’s with a delicious cake and the Salvadoran tradition of throwing the birthday person up in the air as many times as years old they are (though they forgot to do it for me on my birthday...not that im complaining...haha)

This week will be packed with projects, papers, despedidas (going away parties…and i probably spelled that wrong…) and who knows what else but I’ll see what I can do to tell a couple stories at some point...