Freedom

It was the last day of spanish class. My teacher, Hilda, was very helpful and supportive of everything I have learned in the past two weeks. I'm really going to miss seeing her each day. I learned so much. Luckily, I have my notes, and I can continue to learn spanish and hopefully get the hang of it a bit more.

After spanish, I met some new volunteers and talked with them about their placements and feelings about being here. I ate lunch with the roommates and then we all headed downtown. Three of us went to the Artisan Market (me included, of course), and two went to get Kendria's credit card, which had been devoured by an ATM machine. I showed one of our new roommates, Cindy, the market. I loved watching her face light up when she saw the different booths.

I headed over to Kenny's booth and helped him sell again. My goal was to finally make a sale. A few people would come over and look, but no one was going to buy anything. And then an older couple walked over. They were really interested in Kenny's bottles. Kenny does amazing work with bottles. He take a regular bottle, such as one filled with alcohol, and puts his clay-like material (called resin) on it. He makes so many unique designs; animals, faces, mushrooms. It's really wonderful. This couple was looking at all of them and I was chatting with them about what they were interested in. Finally, they made a decision. They wanted to buy a bottle. Kenny gave me a high five, and I just couldn't handle it. I was so excited!

After a while, Kenny got a friend to watch his booth and he took me down to the supermarket, where he bought me a popsicle and got some food for himself. We had a nice time chatting in the park and he told me about his life and his family. Eventually we headed back to the booth and worked there a bit longer.

After a while of being with Kenny, I went to Maximo Nivel and waited for my roommates there. I found one of my new roommates, Nina, and we hung out a while. I filled out my evaluation cards about my experiences with Maximo, all positive of course, and received my completion T-shirt. The other roommates arrived and we headed over to Mundo Locco, the bar closest to Maximo, and we all relaxed and talked. The people at the bar have grown to know us. They know our faces, they give us things for free. It's hard to believe that I leave tomorrow and will leave all of this behind. But I just know it's not forever. I've made too many connections to leave for good.