Part 1

saludos from an internet cafe in Puebla!
I have no idea what I just ate for lunch (okay-actually I had a potato and saussage and chile sandwhich and some sort of soft taco creation with HORCHATA yay!)
definitely have no idea how I got here...except I got here with Valerie and she certainly seems to know what she is doing!!
so...my poor little head is spinning. there is so much to process. it´s like once I get the routine down during the week, and I think to myself, hey-it is a possibility that I can do this-ohhhhh wait! here comes the weekend.

speaking of, I have done everything I was told not to.
friday night, went to a bar in atlixco and drank a pina colada. complete fail, because a) I barely know this girl Valerie, who is the German volunteer, and drinking with strangers in a karaoke bar is truly no fun at all.
(side note, now I am confused because I might be back online again at 3 in Atlixco...huh. Tagging along sucks but is absolutely 100% necessary at this point)
b) HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE THAT PINA COLADAS ARE NOT EVERYTHING I THOUGHT THEY WOULD BE?!?!
c)I got all cute and ready and...after a sketch bus ride there and a really nice taxi driver back...I really don´t know if I want to go out every weekend, but I feel like IPO hasn´t necessarily accounted for me staying every weekend?

so Saturday I woke up LATE yay and it was freakin´ adorable because when the boys were done working, they came inside and they hadn´t seen me in like, what, 12 hours but they all had little smiles and I got a few hugs and I felt like an awesome Mexican mother!! (no literal meaning there, mom.) And a little later on I had a blastey blast playing around with Ramiro y Luis Noe in the kitchen...but gah! Here´s the thing-and I have run into this problem before...they are 10 years old and what I´m used to with a 10 year old is lots of play time...tiny attention spans...and even on the weekends, their schedule includes a lot of work and a lot of cleaning, and not a lot of playing with Laura time. so then I feel bad and confused when their older-chavo-babysitters (because the house educators get the weekend entirely off, too, and mine left altogether) punish them or yell at them or whatever and it´s probably because I was playing with them a little more than I was telling them to work. also-it sucks that I can´t remember all the time how to use commands in spanish. darn. like take for example, last night, when the boys got back from Atlixco--the older boys go from 4-8 and the younger boys from 6-8 and they are given enough money from IPO to buy dinner or whatever else they want in the zoloco, or town square--and I guess two of the boys from my house were lost-ish for a while so they were sent directly to bed. I went up to Alejandro to see if I had put the right clothes on the right bed, and then saw he was crying, and tried to give him a hug and back-rub and what-not. 30 min later, the babysitter older guy, Jaime, asked me (although he needed to say it 3 times) to not like...take care of the kiddos who are being punished. which makes complete sense-it just sucks because I felt really bad after the fact but when I don´t understand what´s going on...I don´t know what I am suppossed to do!
but regression to more of things I was specifically warned not to do: I went for a walk alone yesterday after the boys left for Atlixco and while I was rather dissappointed at only an average of one whistle or horn honk every 2 minutes, I did ADORE the walk. the mountains here are nothing but gorgeous and it was absolutely authentic with vendors or little restraunts along the side of the highway. I went to the gas station to buy something, and was torn between a sol ceverza simply to get the cap which would match my sol keychain (for all of you who didn´t know this side of me before, I offer my sincerest apologies, but would prefer not to censor this hehe honesty is the best policy...?) anyways between a ceverza and an ice cream bar when this CREEPER came and asked me where I was from and attempted spanish and guess what?! I rocked it and carried on the full convo in spanish and explained to him that I didn´t remember my address (false. 25 cat fed) and I only had 10 min until I needed to return and well...like I said rocked it. so in entirety, I rocked my 2 hours alone. and I did not need go ride a sketch bus into Atlixco or go to a pathetic bar and...yeah. so that´s one of those confusing things.

the final thing I did which everyone told me not to: drank the water! and am still alive and typing and in no need of a constant bano cerca de mi and so yay for working that all out! I´ll still try to ease my way in to a full nalgene of it...but that day is coming and I think I shall survive! yay!