back to business

the burgers are on the grill!

the finished potato salad!  Not
as good as mom's!!

some of the teachers helping dish
out the salad.

most of the helping crew!  My
director is the man just to
the right of middle.

the last of the burgers!

we did a lot of hamburgers
and potato salad!!

THIS IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!

some of the students.

not a good picture of my language tutor
and she won't like it BUT this is
supposed to be a picture of me eating
my 4th of July hamburger(close enough)
and potato salad!

again some of the students.

Oh my gosh!  I feel like it's been forever and I'm sure to you all it has (maybe I'm just blowing smoke up my own @#!)!  Here it is mid (almost) July and it seems like the summer just started!!!   Well, the 4th of July/end of the year party went well, I enjoyed helping my friend Jez with her party, and I got to be apart of a flashmob to Shakira's "Waka Waka" during our mid-service conference.  It was nice seeing all the volunteers again but I have to admit a little overwhelming!  We broke into our program groups (Yd, Community and Organizational Development,  and Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and shared a favorite success story from this past year.  To a "t" (just about) all the YD stories were about a relationship formed and not about a project or whatever.  "Build relationships, not monuments" was suggested to us at out IST this past November.  Mine was the time a man riding his bike waved at me without me doing anything first and the woman who greeted me FIRST at the busstop early one morning before I said anything.  This may seem very trivial but to me it was like "wait a minute!  Did that man just WAVE to me?  Right out or the blue!" and "did she say good morning FIRST???"  It was a moment I DISTINCTLY remember.  Anyway, things like that or a baby sitting on a lap of a fellow volunteer  and feeling comfortable enough when she couldn't find her mom.  I'll try to put up some pictures.  I know, I've said that before and nothing has happened!  Oh!  I almost forgot!  I learned something pretty interesting today.  Sitting down talking with my neighbors, which I really need to do more and make more of a priority, he mentioned his wife's parents.  To Maria they are mom and dad, naturally.  But to Ivan, her husband, Maria's parents are his grandparents, or baba and dyado.  So the parents in-law aren't parents but grandparents!  Love and hugs!