water fight! (Mitch at Aldea)

Dear Southern Cross,

Friday was definitely the highlight of the week, maybe even of our whole time here at the Aldea. The month of February is supposedly known as the month of water fighting. All month kids have been secretly filling water balloons and attacking their friends, enemies and every once in a while us. All the water that was thrown during this month does not even compare to the massive water fight that we had yesterday. It was supposed to start after lunch, but I was completely soaked from head to toe around ten in the morning. War had then begun. I decided to leave and buy some water balloons for us to fill up. We soon realized that water balloons really were not as effective as pitchers, buckets, and hoses. The portable swimming pools were filled with water as well, and I think that every kid in the Aldea had at some point taken a dip. many kids spent all day in the pools. We all ate lunch together and the water games continued until 5 or so at night. Then we all danced around a tree that had been prepared with toys and presents hanging from its branches. The kids were to each take a turn with the machete until the tree fell down. Well, there was no machete, so we tried with a large butcher knife but soon realized that if we continued like this, we might find ourselves still hacking at the tree in the morning. One of the older boys then brought an axe and within minutes, the tree had fallen, and kids were going crazy trying to get their hands on a toy! We then had rice pudding, cake and popcorn. What a fun day.
I ate in casa 1 this week. We had a fun time together. With the older girls, I often played checkers with them after lunch and dinner. Sometimes I won, many times I lost. I taught one of them how to play chess. I liked playing that over checkers--I always won :) One of the older girls is Evelyn. I got to know her a little better this week, but not as well as i would like to. She is 13 and very close to a girl named Elvia that lives in the same house. They are always together. She doesn't seem to open up to many others. She is always cheerful and is always smiling. One thing I like about her is that she is very respectful of others and is usually always happy to help out. She doesn't really get involved in too many physical activities, but would rather sit outside her house and talk or think. She seems like she would be a reader to me, someone that could devour book after book and be completely happy. I'm going to have to ask her about that and see if that is something she likes to do. Oh, and she doesn't like to lose at checkers either! If anyone could get away with cheating, it would be her! Because this week the oldest children of the Aldea left on a religious camp out, there was extra milk each day for us. So I bought some little bags so that we could make marcianos (popsicles). Each night after dinner and after checkers, we made some delicious milk marcianos. I averaged about 4 or 5 a day-Yummm.

The internet is up and running in the direction so all is good there. We are just still waiting for computer desks for the computers before they put them in the houses. The kids LOVE learning things on the computer. I taught quite a few new kids this week and had some repeat customers as well.