Dancin in the Rain

Asado from Kara DuBose on Vimeo.

So guys, I've missed you. I'm sure you're ready to hear from me. It's ok- I won't tell Jess.

I have to let you in on my life in the last ten minutes. Jessalyn got my radio thing working again (thanks to some batteries donated by THE Wimon Walker) and so she started jammin some sweetly soft music and we just went into the courtyard and had a ballet slash interpretive dancing fest. Jealous? Don't be. You just go ahead and drag yourself from reading this oh-so-hard-to-want-to-ever-read-anything-else-ever blog and take an interpretive dancing break. There's no judgement here.

As I type, we are having a girl party in my room. Sarah is painting her nails orange and Jessalyn is painting a henna tattoo on Carolyn's cute little foot. We are just chillin' in the cuarto until our amigos finishing cooking the our dinner comida. A bunch of us are pitching in and some of the Profs and other students are cooking us some Mexican Pile-up. Mmmmm. Can't wait!

Some highlights from this past semana:

1) The Asado, of course. Please see above video. Oh- but there is one part I didn't get to put on the video because it was too dark. The devotional. It really was so sweet. We all sat in a big circle sang songs for a while. First the people from the Iglesia de Cristo would sing a song and then our group would sing. Many times, we sang the same song two times in a row- first in Spanish, and then in English. It's such a humbling experience to realize how BIG God is! That night was just a small illustration of how personal God is to people all around the world.

2) Class on Monday- we learned about the Candombe music (from an African sub-culture here). The Walkers got Charo Delgado, a reknown Candombe teacher, to come teach us the backgound of the Candombe people, parade, drum beats, and dancing. You all can look forward to some video clips of us trying to dance. It's rather comical really. It was tons of fun and Charo Delgado was HILLARIOUS! The first thing she said when she came in was "You all have heard of me, right? No? I'm surprised" HAHA! We got a kick outa her.

3) The YMCA Tuesday night. We discovered a rock-climbing class! We just happened to go at just the right time. They were finishing the kid's class so we got to (try to) talk to them a little bit. Shelly and Nathan Sanders were with us and they were QUITE the hit among the youngsters. Nathan is really good at Spanish. Plus, he's funny- so that helps. Anyway, turns out that Pablo runs the rock climbing room and he speaks English. He was so warm and welcoming and taught us everything we needed to know about climbing and belaying other climbers. Now that I think about it, had he not spoken English, that night had the potential to be pretty brutal. Pablo let us climb and taught us a little bit about form and encouraged us to go introduce ourselves to the other climbers so that we could practice our Spanish with them and they could practice their English with us. Everyone was so friendly and helpful! It was so much fun! Afterward we did an abdominal workout with them and they seemed a tid bit exasperated with us because Pablo would say what do to in Spanish and then would stop them so he could tell us in English. He laughed and said "Sorry- they're new." He said soon he'll only speak to us in Spanish and only if we NEED him to say something in English he will. It's so awesome though because he's genuinely interested in us learning Spanish while we are here. Also he gave our whole class the "we're a team" speech. Now, every time we walk into the YMCA, the people know our faces and we all greet each other with a kiss (cheek to cheek, don't worry- plus it's Biblical "greet one another with a holy kiss"-Rom 16:16, 1Cr 16:20 to name a few). Ok...enough with the Y. Follow-up stories available upon viewer request.

I'm gonna be honest with you...when I said earlier "SOME highlights..." I was far from telling a lie. We had so many fun times this week; it would be a daunting task to note them all. We hung out with the church kids Wednesday night, some of us went out to dinner with the Profs Thursday night for a Uruguayan specialty meal "Gnochi." This weekend it has actually been rainy, so we've all spent a lot of time with each other as a house just playing guitar, drinking coffee, and listening to the rain in our courtyard.

People have asked me a lot lately which I like better: Oxford or Montevideo. I honestly can't give an answer. Both of these experiences have been so very different. One thing I've loved about being here is the contact with the local people. I always thought people were plenty friendly in England, and they are. But I was telling people here this week, the people here have redefined my expectations of friendliness. The people in England pretty much kept to themselves. People in the States people are looking out for number one (the exception being the small towns of Texas: ABILENE- wut wut!). Everyone has an agenda and "if you were not originally a part of my planned day, then move out of my way so I can get on with the things I need to get done." But here- I have not felt that once. People aren't in a hurry. Sometimes they're in the opposite, in fact. I don't really know what that means. But you get the point.

Ok. Time to chao. It's been real. Watch the video or Jessalyn will poke you in the eye with the llama she just bought.

Hi mom and dad,

~Kara Dawn