bienvenido a tlaxiaco

Hola from Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca! After over 24 hours of traveling and waiting around in airports, we finally made it here safely at around 8 AM Sunday morning. We weren´t supposed to get here that late, but a series of unpredicable events happened, and well, the rest is history. Chris, the leader of short-term missions here at GFM just said, ¨Welcome to Flexico¨ I know that it will not be the last time that plans change drastically.

While I think I am still trying to catch up on lost sleep from all of the traveling, I absolutely love it here. Tlaxiaco is beautiful, and even though I have only been here three days, I am already calling it home.

Things I LOVE about Tlaxico:
1. The people! (Not only are they wonderful and so much fun, but I also just love the fact that there are people everywhere. Tlaxiaco is a market town, which means that there are people absolutely everywhere in the streets selling all sorts of things... it makes the perfect environment to practice Spanish, even though everyone stares at me because I am a ¨gringa¨ or white girl, which draws quite a bit of attention to myself!)
2. The food (It is delicious... even though I can never remember the names of everything I eat... but I´ll get there. It is a good thing that I like the food, though, because culturally you should eat everything that they offer you... which is a lot. They offer me sooo much food, and eventually I just have to say ¨no, gracias, estoy llena,¨ which means no, thank you I am full. )
3. The colors (Did I mention that Tlaxiaco is beautiful? While it is a town filled with brokeness and poverty, it is also a town filled with life. I love that all the buildings are painted bright colors. I love that the walls of the apartment where I will live after these first two weeks with my host family are painted bring green)

So right now, I am staying with my host family. They are WONDERFUL! Sandra and Carlos have two sons-- Emanual who is 5 and has quickly become one of my favorite people in Tlaxiaco, and Carlito who is 10. The are all so wonderful to be around. Emanual loves to ramble on and on to me in Spanish, and a lot of the time I have no idea what he is saying, but I love it anyway.

For those of you who are wondering what I am doing...
I basically am trying to live as a Mexican daughter would live. I follow Sandra around a lot of the day, going where she goes, and doing what she does. I am learning how to cook, clean, go to the market, and do so many other things... all in the Mexican way. Carlos and Sandra run a pasteleria, which is a cake shop. From about 1 until 10 our time is spent in the pasteleria, but at some point in the afternoon I go out and walk around through the centro, talking to as many people as I can in Spanish, and trying to form relationships. (And trying not to get lost as I do it!) It is one of my favorite parts of the day, though! GFM has adopted a strategy of learning Spanish know as LAMP, which stands for language acquisition made practical. In LAMP, we learn so many phrases a day, and it is our responsibility to say them to at least 25 different people every day. It has been hard for me to get out of my comfort zone and start conversations with people when I don´t speak the language well, but I am getting better at it. Learning a language is exhausting, though, and I feel like I am always tired and overwhelmed. Even though I studied Spanish at school, I am realizing how badly I really speak it.

Well, this is long, and I should go. I have so many other stories to tell, but they will have to wait for another time.

All for Him,
Elizabeth