i have the bombest host family. everyone here in barqui is really great. i´m having a really good time. cecosesola the cooperativa is super hard, but super chevre. i think this is going to be such a good part of my trip. my host mama is really awesome. i live with her, her son, alex, who is four, and sooo coool. we play everyday together and color and stuff. he´s awesome. he crawls in my bed in the morning and kisses me goodmorning and tells me it´s time to come play with with him. I´m sleeping in his bed, of course, as there are only two beds. the house is tiny, with no doors, and walls dont touch the corregated tin roof. they have a dalmation puppy. yadyra, my mama, and i stayed up all last night talking in bed. it was really great, i´m actually just really glad to get to bond with someone that much, especially a woman, as they are harder to get attention from here. I´m sick of men flockign to me! i want actual friends.

i have a new phone... my number is 0412 0570 050. you can call me on it. but not too late (3.5 hours ahead of pacif time), cause everyone will be asleep ( the walls between all of the neighbors on the block also do not touch the roof, so it´s like one big house.. you can hear everyone´s conversations and tvs. there are no floors in the house, well ours is concrete, but most people have dirt. we live very close to my friends grace´s host family, who is also really cool. i had dinner with their fmaily tonight, and her host brothers brought us to the internet cafe. they wont let us walk down the block alone. actually my host mom wont walk down the block alone, she´ll go with me or call her neighbor to walk with her.

the coop is very intereting, my job is basically working in a grocery store. I work in the produce in the morning, cutting up veggies and stocking them for about 6 hours. then lunch, then for the next 7 hours work cleaning up the produce area and then stalking adn putting away the canned/packaged foods and soap n stuff. this is 4 days a week, then meetings two days a week, and another day of just stocking food preparing for the market days, thurs, fri, sat, sun. the meetings are the cool part, because everyone in the coop comes and says whatever they want. they also have workshops, with no teachers, so more like focused conversations on things like mutual respect, trust, work ethic... anyone who needs anything can get it from the coop. members are like family. they need a loan for something, or just need money which they will never be able to pay back, they will get it. no one will be hungry or homeless, and certainley not lose their jobs for such things. everyone is freinds with everyone. they all work together. if you get sick of doing one task at work you just go swtich with someone who´s doing something better and switch back when they´re tired. all workers and visitors are fed lunch (a really good huge lunch), then you wash your own dishes.

My spanish has imporoved tons. it´s very hard to only write in enlglish, i keep writing spanish words adn having to earse them!

overall it´s very hard to be here, i´m very tired, it´s simply tiring to be lost and confused every second. but i never want to sleep, because everyone always wants to show me something new. i met like 400 family members in the last week. my whole family´s cousins and aunts adn grandparetns adn everyone, they all live in the same ghetto together. grace´s family as well, who we also went house to house meeting everyone. they are all so nice, they all say, oh if you get lost, or if you need anything, or if you dont like the house you´re in, you can come live with us.