bits and pieces from my first two weeks in Caracas

Monday morning May 4^th I got up at 5:45 and had a yoga class from 6-7 am. The yoga “studio” (covered porch on the third floor) has a beautiful view of the city of Caracas. The yoga class itself is usually pretty easy but I figure that it is a good way to start the day. The next hour is set aside for meditation, however I usually only try to meditate for about 15 minutes. Then I go change, shower etc… and go downstairs for breakfast. We all make our own breakfasts and I usually have fruit and toast. Most of the people here have granola, yogurt, fruit and toast for breakfast.

From 8:30 – 9:00 am is set aside for cleaning. Everyone is supposed to do a chore every day and it really helps to keep the place clean. There is a maid who comes once a week and does the deep cleaning.

She is very nice and enjoys showing me things like what to do so the papaya ripens sweeter. According to her you should take the tip off of both ends, and make shallow incisions (not deep enough to get to the tasty part, but enough to mark the rind) and let it sit in the window sill for a day or two. Juice will leak out of the fruit, and she thinks that it makes it taste better. Not being a papaya expert myself, I’m unable to differentiate between fruit that has been “prepped” and fruit that hasn’t been “prepped.” But she swears that it makes it taste much better. Yesterday (June 3^rd) she brought a desert that she made for us to try. It was made from milk, white corn, sugar and a few other ingredients. We had it cold for desert after lunch. I only had a little because it is milk based, but what I had was very tasty.

Anyway, back to my first day … I was very lucky because there is a volunteer who has been here for almost a year named Spencer. In the morning he was kind enough to help me make posters advertising for language exchange and then after lunch, Monday afternoon, we went out and he helped me purchase a cell phone and then I added my phone number to the posters and we went to the University Central de Venezuela (UCV) and put up my posters all over campus.

After we put up our last sign we asked a woman for directions back to the metro/ subway. (Caracas has a wonderful subway and public transportation system. In a city with 2 million people, it really makes a huge difference in what we are able to do!)

Less than 5 minutes later I get a call on my phone, it is the woman that we just talked to and she is interested in doing a language exchange. She and I decided to meet several times a week, in the mornings before she goes in to work.

Then we headed toward the metro but before we got there, we received a second call from two other girls who were also interested. So we waited for them to come and meet us, but it turned out that they really wanted free English lessons and didn’t even know how to introduce themselves in English, so I didn’t make arrangements to meet them.

Anyway, my posters were a huge success so I ended up with far more potential people to practice with then I actually have time to meet. I try to practice with at least one native speaker every day and I am also trying to put time into studying on my own, but there is so much to do, I am having a hard time juggling everything!

Anyway, I feel like Spencer really helped me get the ball rolling with learning Spanish here!

Eventually he and I took the metro back to our neighborhood and came home. I think that we got home around 6pm and t hen had a quiet evening. I felt like I'd gotten a lot done on my first full day here.

In general, the weekday schedule is:

5-6 am meditation (optional - nope I haven't been going to it.)

6-7 am yoga class (required)

7 - 8 am mediation time (I usually only stay for the first 15 minutes or so.)

8 - 8:30 am breakfast - everyone makes their own breakfast. I usually have fruit and toast.

8:30 - 9:00 am household chores.

9:00 - 1:00 work

1:00 - 2:00 lunch

2:00-6:00 work

6:00pm meditation

Of course, the schedule is very flexible, but it provides a general framework for weekdays at the house.

During my second week in Venezuela I was invited out to the farm, Centro Madre. (You can read about it on www.priven.org.) It is a beautiful farm, but they don’t have internet access, so I was unexpectedly offline for almost a week.

The last day I was there, a group of school children came out to the farm to see what it was like there and I took over 200 pictures of the kids and the farm. It really is a wonderful place!

Anyway, it is late now, so I’m going to stop here. I’ll keep working on filling in all the gaps!

Big Hugs

Mariah

P.S. What do I like the most about Venezuela thus far? I am really enjoying how affectionate people are with each other here! People hug and kiss each other all the time here. A hug and an air kiss to the right side of the head (sometimes your cheeks touch) is the normal greeting and people gently lean on each other often.

The house where I am staying is at the opposite end of the spectrum so I’m experiencing a funny contrast but it is working for me. [The head of the house is a monk who usually doesn’t touch women at all. He will shake hands the first time he meets someone, but as soon as he has an opportunity he will explain that he doesn’t touch women and so his normal greeting is derived from the Indian tradition of putting your hands together and bowing your head. Everyone else follows his lead, thus people in the house rarely touch each other. Luckily, I get lots of hugs from the Venezuelans that I meet so from a hug standpoint I am having a much easier time here than I did in The Gambia.]