Hi all! Yesterday was my first day of community service and it was really great. I am currently working in a school for the mentally disabled. I´ll be doing that for two weeks and then I´ll work at the orphanage. I´m actually not really working...I am just participating in the classes alonside the students. For example, yesterday I worked in the art class and paper-mached a breakfast tray and container. The students were very interested in what I had to say and were always trying to help me. The girl next to me seemed to be about my age and always moved the supplies closer or told me when I missed a spot. I asked her how old she was...and she said 23! Another boy was asking all of the girls for our numbers but the other students told him ¨Chao!¨ and said he does that to every girl...it was funny. They were looking after us! It was heart-warming to see them all work like a family. The teachers had made a presentation for us in the courtyard of maps from where we live. Then at the end of the day, one teacher took string and connected the places we are from, to the map of San Juan. She said that we were here on an exchange and the students were very lucky that we happened to come to ¨this country, this city, this school...¨our of all the places in the world. Then they rose the Argentine flag and we left. But they were so grateful that we were there!

It was also really nice to talk to some other AFSers. They are all experiencing similar things. We talked about the crazy driving, the plaza, our families, etc. They say that they have a lot of free time and so we are going to exchange numbers to keep in contact so we can hang out. One girl asked me and another girl if we wanted to take tango clases and we said yes. Why not! We´re only in Argentina for a month...and there´s no better place to learn to tango.

I forgot to say: My host mom is a history teacher for the highest grade in secondary school and my host dad is a geologist. I got to see where he works today and it was interesting to see all of the maps of the Andes and where the gold and silver was along the Chilean border.

That´s all for now! Love to all.