Buen dia! They say buen dia here instead of buenos dias. But buenos tardes and buenos noches are still said in the plural. Also they pronounce the LL as "sh" in Buenos Aires and something similar to a hard "chz" sound here. That's how the country folk are distinguished from the city folk. So when trying to pick up some recognizable words during a conversation the difficulty is compounded by a simple word like ella sounding like echza.

We went to the volunteer center Friday and just hung out with them. I played some puzzles and their version of tick tack toe. Ginny gave massages and they are loving that. Especially on hands with arthritis.  Around noon lunch is served, and a cook makes a delicious hot meal. It's always something simple like chicken with something that looked a cross between rice and grits with a reddish broth over top, or a stuffed pepper looking type thing. They love their bread here. Each gets a half loaf bread (the loaves are much smaller than a typical loaf of Italian bread) with lunch as well. Then we head out after serving lunch.

Yesterday we got a Loma at some residential side street takeaway restaurant. It's a sandwich with a thin slice of beef, thin slice of ham, a fried egg, lettuce and tomato, and something that looks like mayonnaise. It was just okay, but everyone here at the house loves them. Eh. I like the empañadas much more.

Four new volunteers are coming this weekend and they almost moved us to a huge room by the stairs with no closets and the walls facing the main hallway are made of a yellow glass. Thankfully, we got to keep our room and the few creature comforts it offers, but will have to share with two new people. The word "volunteer"is used loosely because many of the kids never go to their placement. The nightlife around here is crazy, and many times they don't come back in until 5, 6, or 7am. Just now one of the girls we went into the city with last night JUST walked in. It's 12:30 the next day.

The "normal" time people go to dinner is 10am. Then to go out afterwards the clubs don't start hopping until 2 or 3am.

I'M going to get lunch now before everything shuts down for siesta. We slept in and missed breakfast. About the only schedule they keep here is when breakfast and dinner are served. Other than that, it's pretty much a free for all.