The Magic of La Luna

Hola Amigos!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend thus far! A quick shoutout to my little bro, K-man (Keegan)... K-man, as many of you know, is eight years old and this morning he competed in the Sylvania Kids Triathlon. Kman, I´m soo proud of you and I plan on getting more minutes tonight to call home and hear how it went! Also, Daddio- hope you´re getting pumped for your triathlon tomorrow morning as well. Good luck and I cant wait to hear how it goes! :)

So like i mentioned in the last post, on Fridays Sakribal has a potluck dinner for all the students and teachers. Last night was SO much fun! WE had guacamole, frijoles, frutas con chocolate, empañadas, an Israeli dish (unsure of the name, but was delicious!), and a bunch of other amazing food. WE all sat and ate together and apparently on Fridays before dinner, anyone leaving the school and not returning the next week ¨graduates¨ and receives a diploma. Then after dinner, the student puts their handprint in paint on the wall of the inside of the school and writes their name next to it. Eugene is leaving on Monday and so he received his diploma, gave his speech and left his handprint. After dinner we had some salsa lessons. It was a lot of fun! Carlos, one of the teachers, is a world champion salsa dancer so he teaches us all his moves! :)

After dinner, I asked all the students to join me at La Luna for some of that delicous chocolate caliente. All of the students came and so the eight of us sat around and enjoyed some hot chocolate and conversation. I got to learn a lot about some of the students that I dont know as well. Lewis and Nicholas are both older and have come to Xela for language school. Lewis is teaching English in Mexico and Nicholas is teaching spanish in the US. Both are dealing with extreme changes in their lives and so it was really interesting to hear about their challenges as well as the wisdom they´ve learned from those challenges. It was the perfect evening and amazing how each person opened up and we all just discussed our fears and dreams. It was really encouraging because everyone at the table was at least a few years older than me and encouraged me with the fact that I will never regret this experience and that I´m going to gain and grow more than I can imagine.

Earlier in the day, Regina and I walked around Xela and explored some of the bookstores in the city. All the bookstores are really cool and all contain used and traded books. I picked out a book, recommended by Eugene (he actually sold it to the bookstore I got it from), called ¨Streetkids from Brazil¨. I´m really excited to start reading it today... one of the other bookstores is also a cafe, ¨North and South Cafe¨, and yesterday Eugene showed me their rooftop which has a beautiful view of the city and is very peaceful. Looks like a great place to read and also to be my future studying location. I´ll have to take a picture of the view sometime.. although it won´t do it justice.

Something I recently thought about... I´d really like if you could all please post (in comments, possibly?) some prayer requests. It means a lot to have all of your support so i would really like to have some things that I can pray for specifically for all of you. So please post those.. that way all who look at this blog are able to pray as well. If you don´t feel comfortable posting, please feel free to email me at kteddingfield@gmail.com

Again, thank you so much for all your comments and posts on the blog. It means a lot!

Love,
Kate