Alcaldia y lagartijas

As usual, fruit for breakfast, but with a water pear. . .

Three more days of my immersion trip. . . As much as I hate to admit it, I'm actually glad the immersion trip is not longer than two weeks, at least under these circumstances.  I am starting to feel really worn out.  I'm not really sure what the reason for that is.  Perhaps its the fact that I wake up early every morning, or the lack of control or variety in my diet (fruit every morning, gallo pinto which is rice and beans for lunch, and fried plantains for dinner - it's not really as bad as that, but we do seem to be eating a lot of the same foods).  Or perhaps it is the long hours of class, especially since I've really only felt worn out the past couple of days.  On the other hand, I felt tired yesterday before my classes.  It may be from all the sun I got this weekend.  Maybe that was just too much.

Center for Infant Development

Today I went to the CDI (Centro de Desarollo Infantil) with my teacher.  I talked to the director about the programs that they have for underprivileged children.  They care for children ages 0-6, but only children from families that are more vulnerable.  They provide breakfast, morning snack, lunch, and afternoon snack for the kids.  In the morning they have classes for kids 3-6, but also have developmental activities for children age 3 months and older.  Basically it's like an early childhood learning center with an emphasis on at-risk children.  It was interesting.
After that, we went to the store of my teacher's boyfriend.  He was busy, but I talked with all the people in the store.  It was interesting.  They complemented me on my Spanish, so that made me feel good.  Sometimes I feel inadequate, but at times like that, I realize how much I can communicate and how much I understand.  There was this old guy with hardly any teeth that was very hard to understand.

Inside the center they had this cute little wall decoration
that says all the things kids have a right to, like to life,
health, family, education, and food.

In the afternoon I had an individual reading session again, but I also had to do some reading beforehand.  I feel pretty good about my reading.  I still need to work on my vocabulary, but I generally get what is going on, and get the hidden meanings in things, too.
We had a shorter excursion today where we went to the Alcaldia, which is like the town hall.  There we talked to a women in the agency for the local promotion of the economy.  She told us about some of what they do to help people start their own businesses.  They have a business course that they offer.  Right now there is one course going on, which we saw briefly, but it is the last due to lack of funds.  They also have courses for people who already have a business, and they do a little work with the unemployed who don't want to start their own business.  I'm sure there are other programs, those are just the ones that we talked about.

The mural on the outside of the center.

After that I had another one-on-one, but this time I did presentations.  I really need to work on those more.  So today wasn't quite as bad as yesterday.  Today I only had class from 7:30 until 6:00, with an hour lunch break and two hours to work on my reading by myself.
Hopefully I won't feel so exhausted tomorrow. Oh, and I now know what a gecko sounds like.  It's definitely not like they show on those car insurance commercials :)

Municipal Government Building

The garden inside the Alcaldia

The last business class until who knows when.