Here is an excerpt from a email I sent to a friend:

The family I am living with is a young family- two kids- a 10 year old girl and a 5 year old boy, and the youngest has just completely accepted me as a playmate since I got here.  The girl is a little more cautious, but I think we’re growing on each other.  She is sweet.  It is incredible how the family dynamic is.  Eyleen (the mama) with always call for Ayleen (the daughter) to have her help her with something in the kitchen or what not, and Ayleen will always respond, “Señora?” and then “Ya voy”.  And little Christian calls her Señora too.  And sometimes they call them mami and papi.  And Eyleen is serving me so much.  It’s sweet, but kind of weird.  I don’t know exactly how to handle it, but she cooks two meals a day for us, does my laundry, and says “tranquila!” every time I start cleaning... ha.  I want to be a help instead of another child to take care of, because goodness, I’m 20 and she’s only like 29. 

Anyway, it has also been great to hang out with the people from GFU I came down with.  One girl has the best sense for sympathy- she is able to meet people where they are.  She runs, so she’s always cheery, and the only reason I’ve been frustrated with her is for not getting us back to the house very quickly when we were out for a run, and that is only because I tired and didn’t want to run anymore, even though I knew it was good for me... haha.  She ran a marathon this summer.  And Mateo has been hilarious.  He makes us laugh so much.  He is the man among many females here, so he has watched a few girly movies and youtube flashmob marriage proposals and rolled his eyes while we cry and then said, “Ay, mujeres.”  Hah, but it is great.  And we’ve been dancing here!  Us four gringos all like to dance to Waka Waka en español as well as this song called “Vamos a la playa”... ha.  So we’ve had dance parties in almost every place we’ve been.  And the kids of my family love to dance, and they’re good!  They have been playing Just Dance for years it seems.  Ha.  Goodness, but things are going well, obviously- much good news.

And when I think about how I wish some things were a little different, I remember that the people here are wonderful, and that’s the most you could ask for- what else do you need? 

Ha, and daylight?  Well, it gets light at like 5, 5:30 maybe and so I usually wake up early, and then sometimes it will get sunny for a while but it usually clouds over by noon if not earlier, and then it usually rains that tropical rain for hours starting as early as one or two... ha.  But even with this, in staying in one city for a few days, I’m seeing variations in the daily weather patterns, which is cool.  Two days ago it was a chill day, didn’t get hot really, just stayed cloudy and rained pretty much all day.  Yesterday, it was clear and sunny for most of the day, and I think it just sprinkled.  But it gets dark around 6pm, so we’re inside by then because we’re not supposed to be out at night I guess..  But, yeah, it’s cool here.  A difference I think even bigger than the climate is going from rural to Urban.  It is really concrete-filled here.  There are plants on every house front and big trees, and parks in the middle of the city, but it is very much city.  :]