July 31, 2006

I don't feel too well today. I guess a lot of people in the group are sick. Oh well. I went ahead and started the meds the doc gave me "in case". The site was very bad for smoke today. Usually it's every morning between 9-10, usually for like 20 minutes. Today, it was all morning, so I walked way down the alley and sat. Two of the kids from the soccer games came and sat with me while I wrote some English to Spanish translations for the mason, Manuel. The very small boy with the red cap I had seen before - I thought he was like, maybe 5. He said he's 11. He sure is small! I wonder if it's nutritional or something. The kids at the house we're building seem exactly the right size for their ages.

Iris is already working in law and teaching, and working toward a degree in law. She seems extremely dedicated and hard-working. I guess all the all the neighbors hate the people who burn that stuff every day. Also today, after all the smoke it started pouring rain, so we had to stop working. The other day, the boys had some cartoon characters on their shirts and I was curious what they called them, so I asked. Turns out "Taz" is "Taz" but the other boy referred to Eeyore as "el burro". Those little guys are so cute and so cool. I had my camera and I said "chicos!" and they turned around. When they saw my camera, they immediately stood arm in arm smiling. The sense of community here seems very strong.

Manuel is trying to learn English words to communicate with the workers. He's made good progress with his pronunciation. We watched a bit of School of Rock today while we couldn't work and he seemed to really get a kick out of it.