lugares que son hogares.

OK, I've made some changes to this post- and its going to be a long one... Last night Kara and I were obviously on the same page. We both posted and when i went back and read hers i got a kick out of their similarity. We're so cute. I'm going to combine both of our posts from last night.

(Kara)
I'm sitting upstairs in an empty classroom with my laptop, my guitar, and a Pepsi. Que mas necesito?
I have been playing my guitar a lot this week. I think it's a comfort thing. I can be alone and sing sappy songs like "leavin on a jetplane" without anyone judging me. Seriously though, playing and singing this week has been theraputic. Two weeks from today I will already be on a plane back to Texas and as much as I want to be there, it is getting harder and harder to want to leave. I didn't expect to feel this way and I think there's a few of us others who feel the same way. Our nights out with friends have been incredible and I feel like we are just now getting comfortable enough with each other and with speaking Spanish to each other and it is hard to want to leave them, knowing that I very well may never see them again.

Andrea asked Jessalyn and I to spend the night with her tonight. We couldn't tonight because it was such late notice that we didn't get to ask Wimon and Rosalinda for permission, but I think we are going to stay with her on saturday night and then we will all come back here for church in the morning. I can't believe she asked us to come over! Here, it means you are very close friends if you are invited into a home. Jessalyn has said a few times this last week, "I could just kick myself for not inviting her over more." We feel that way about all of our friends. We could have spent more time with all of them. Andrea has come to hang out every day this week...even without Martin (her boyfriend). Andrea doesn't speak any English and she is a little shy so it has been fun to see her come out of her shell. We have really enjoyed getting to spend time with her.

Tonight they had an English speaking conversation club at the church and a bunch of the Casa ACUians went next door to help our church family with their Inglés. I didn't go, but it is something that the students are quite enjoying (they had one last Wednesday night too). One of the cute little old men, Ruben, is an artist and he brought everyone little keychains he made with Scriptures on them. He is so sweet and happy ALL THE TIME. He actually looks a lot like my great uncle Jim...but a little más tan.

I went to a different church tonight. I usually go with Zanessa and sometimes Carolyn and Sarita on sunday nights and wednesday nights. It's a church, but it's almost like a rehab of sorts to help people get off the streets and to become free from addictions. Zanessa and I always stay afterward and talk with our friends and I usually play guitar and sing with my friend Andrés. Rosalinda helped me translate a song into Spanish so I could teach it to Andrés and once I had taught him the Spanish version, he wanted to learn the English version. He speaks zero English, so it was fun trying to teach him how to pronounce English words-so cute. I enjoy being with my friends from that church so much, and I feel like I am just now becoming really close friends with them too. After church tonight, one of the worship leaders was talking to me and telling me how much they were going to miss having us there and how blessed they feel. It was so ironic to me, because they don't even have a CLUE how blessed I have been by watching them serve the Lord with such glad and sincere hearts. They have truely shown me the love of God. Let me offer you a brief example of the type of things they teach me every week...

Primero, a little background...Since I have been here, God has really been teaching me about giving and also showing me what it looks like to follow Jesus, not worrying about clothes or money or any of those things. Side note-I could do a whole series of blogs on this subject alone. He has taught me so much through his Word and his people here. I am constantly being challenged in many areas and I pray that he gives me the grace to be able to put into action the things I have learned.

Okay, so last wednesday night I was sitting next to my friend Laura (Andrés' sister) and thinking that when I leave, I want to give her a few shirts. In my head I was going through the clothes I have here and for almost every option of what I might give her, I thought, "well...but I'll want to wear that at home," or, "mmm...maybe I could find something I don't like as much." And even as I was thinking those thoughts I thought how silly and selfish of me to be thinking that way. It was like a mini-battle in my mind. It's ironic how stingy I can be, when I have been given so much. Anyway, once the service was over I was talking to my friend Gabriel and he had pulled a shirt out of his bag and I mentioned "oh me gusta tu camisa" (I like your shirt). It was a nice pearl snap that looked brand-spankin' new. He said "this one?" I nodded. He said "regalo" and handed it to me. I tried to refuse it and told him that I just like it but I wasn't asking for it. He kept shushing me and just saying "regalo- es un regalo para ti"- it was his gift to me. Again I told him he didn't need to give it to me and he just kept right on saying "por favor" JUST EXCEPT THE GIFT! He gave me his new shirt. May I remind you that he lives at this church and hardly has any clothes. Yet, he gave it to me like it was nothing. Nothing. Wow. Talk about a SLAP in the face. Now THAT, friends, is a disciple of Jesus Christ. These are the kinds of things that happen here all the time. This is just one tiny glimpse into the way God is teaching us things through his Uruguayan people. They are precious. Irreplaceable. Unforgettable.

Friday night we are having an "Open House" here at Casa ACU so we can invite all our friends to come share our home with us. We are going to whip up some snacks and even put on a little "show de talento." It should be lots of fun. I'm sure there will be pictures and/or video footage of the event. We have some funny and albeit extraño (strange) characters living in this house, so it should be one interesting talent show. Maybe I'll write a funny song in Spanish...I would hate for my hilarity to be lost in translation ;-)

Jessalyn has aquired quite the fan club from the little girls from the Iglesia de Cristo next door. It's pretty precious. She has a gift with these kids, that is for sure. I'll let Jess tell you more about the girls, but she has invited the little twins over a few times this week and she lets them play "Barbie" on the computer and draws with them. I love the pictures they draw for her. Maybe she can take some pictures of the pictures and put them up here for you. I bet she would do it if I asked her to. I mean, I'm only the best roommate she's ever even thought of having.

Well, once again, it is past my bedtime as I click "publish post." Luckily, I don't have class tomorrow morning, so I can sleep in. Oh how I love to sleep. OH! And tomorrow is hot breakfast day! I love to sleep, but I really do love food. Tuesday we had banana pancakes. Jealous? Should be. The sooner I close these eyes, the sooner morning will wake me for some good home cookin'

Hasta pronto,

~Face~

(start jessalyn)
there is still no video. It already feels like so long ago. Tonight i am sharing my journal entry for our class. Usually it contains a cultural observation about what we learn or see or feel or stub our toe on in Uruguay. Tonight though, I had a little trouble coming up with something observant.


my thoughts instead, posted as such-

I don't really have a cultural observation to commentate this week. I am however very much fighting the feeling of the unstoppable end quickly approaching, not necessarily with dread but with a healthy mournfulness brought about by change. I had to turn down a friend's invitation to stay with her for the night, morose doesn't make for a good house guest.
I left Europe after 6 months and felt like it made an impact on me and I loved it ever bit as much as I love Uruguay, it was a very different love, a much more complicated love, but love all the same. However I knew that after I left there wasn't but one or two people who would even know that I was gone and they probably didn't even know my name. I gave months of my life to England and I know that when I make it back there, there won't be a soul who will even know that I ever called England home. I loved England, but England never loved me.

Knowing that I can leave Uruguay and Uruguay will miss me just as much as I'm going to miss it makes leaving much more like cutting off an appendage then simply letting go of its hand. I've done this twice now but I've been pulled between two homes for a long time. I've done it every year since the third grade. I dream of one, find it and then miss the other. I see the same things happening with some people who come to Zambia with us that I've seen happening with the study abroad experience. (I feel like in my experience I'm warranted an opinion, and in my opinion) There are many people who come with ACU to live in Uruguay or England or visit one place or another and leave profoundly impacted, but they leave and the place that they leave behind continues on without them as if nothing ever changed... like England continues on without me.

I realize that not everyone gets the opportunity to be pulled between the five different countries that were called home in one year or the chance to make more of their time in Uruguay this year than they did in England last year, but my advantageous life situation makes me feel no less accomplished for what I see as being one great accomplishment. That is to have really lived in Uruguay, to have not simply visted for four months wishing that I could find somewhere that sold Heinz ketchup. I feel like there is more I could have done, and things I could have done better, but even now I am sucking my last moments dry because I didn't just come and stay in this place for a while and love it as an outsider, but I met Uruguay and I'm going to miss it when I'm gone not as a stranger but as a friend.
Some people are counting down to when they can leave this still foreign place to return to their friends and their lifestyles, but I count the days only so that I don't miss a single grain of sand that siphons through the neck of the hourglass that's end will for me once again mean packing up the the heart that I haven't given away or left along the way... and ripping in half as part of me stays on the runway while the other half thinks about seeing my granddad's face.

Such is the life of an itinerant. Así es la vida de un ambulante... but better an itinerant than just a stranger.