It looks like I’ve already managed to acquire a Peruvian boyfriend. Unfortunately, he’s only eight years old and less than half my size. Perhaps the Spongebob Squarepants drawing he used to declare his love for me is indicative of our age difference. My friend Sara returned home the other night to find that her host-brother (my suitor) had left a card for me on the back of her chair. The self-labeled “papel de amor” included instructions for Sara to tell me that he loves me with all of his heart. He is apparently undeterred by the rather significant age difference as the other night he slicked his hair into a ridiculous side-part and bathed in his dad’s cologne to impress me.

As for my progress with the Spanish language, I have determined that my skills lie somewhere far below those typical of a 6 year old. My host-brother Alan is 6 years old and he rarely makes grammatical errors. The other night he made a simple mistake and my family started cracking up. I can only imagine how hard it is for them to keep a straight face while I talk. For example, the other morning my mom was trying to get into my sister’s room but it was locked. She came into my room and asked me for something which I assumed to be the key. So I tried to hand her the key and she looked at me funnily and asked me what I use to brush my teeth. Clearly I responded that I use a tooth brush and tried to hand that to her wondering what on earth she was going to do with it. She still seemed puzzled and asked again what I brush my teeth with. Thus, I handed her my floss figuring that maybe she was going to try to pick my sister’s lock with floss. At the time it made more sense than the toothbrush. Finally I realized, after running out of all possible teeth-brushing accessories, that she was after my toothpaste. But at this point I was still trying to connect brushing teeth to opening my sister’s door so I was kind of concerned about what she was planning to use my toothpaste for. Once I gave it to her she proceeded to put a small dab on her hand. Apparently she just wanted to brush her teeth but the toothpaste was in my sister’s room. It probably would have been easier and certainly faster for her to bust down the door. So much for my supposedly “advanced” Spanish level!

My mom also tried to tell me yesterday that I can not bathe for the next week because she discovered that I´m on my period. She’s convinced that I’ll get sick if I bathe while menstruating. Luckily what Spanish skills I do have came through and I was able to convince her to hand over the water for my bucket bath.