My days have developed a bit of a routine (well, except for all the random things that break up the routine!):
Every day except Sunday, I work with Timothy (age 11) and Benjamin (9) on reading, writing and 'rithmatic.
Tuesday afternoons, I walk a mile up the mountain to Lupita's house to teach English to her and to her 5-year-old daughter, Dayana. They are such good students. By Lupita's request, I spend two hours every week going over the alphabet, vocabulary, Bible verses to memorize, etc.; by the following Tuesday, they have memorized almost everything that I taught them, and they're ready for more!
On Wednesdays, usually I either run the house or go with Mrs. R as she drives 1.5 hours to Saltillo for groceries, violin lessons (for Anna and Samuel), dentist appointments, etc. It's interesting to note the differences between life in the city/town versus life in the ranchos were I am. The ranchos, being a community of tiny farms chiselled into the mountains, remind me a lot of the valley in southern Colorado where my Granddad and Grandmom farm, whereas Saltillo is... I don't know how to explain it. It has roughly the same population as Charlotte, NC or Fort Worth, TX - but it seems poorer, dustier, and shorter than cities I've seen in the States. Saltillo - and all of Mexico that I've seen so far - has an interesting feel that is hard to explain; it's just Mexican. Monterrey is different from Saltillo; it's huge and, unlike the latter, has tall and impressive buildings - and roughly four million people.
Thursdays don't usually contain anything special except that once in a while there is a guitar lesson in San Antonio.
Friday afternoons, I help pick up people for Church meeting, bumping down and up and around the rough mountain roads for a couple hours, then sometimes doing it again to take people back after the service.
Saturdays are when I help do laundry, house cleaning, and various projects for the Richardson, but it's usually a little more laid back than other days.
Sunday morning brings another Church meeting, and therefore another few hours of bus route, and then (usually) time in the afternoon to rest and enjoy time with God!
When I'm not doing these things, I help with meals and dishes, cleaning and organizing, taking care of the kids, reading to Anna and sometimes to the others, doing laundry, visiting with neighbors (in Spanish = hard!), and getting ready for home school conferences that the Richardsons arrange. In the past couple of months, I've spent hours and hours taking inventory of the home school resources and books that we'll sell at the conferences, ordering more, and then counting the new books, recording them in the inventory, and prepping the boxes to be taken to the conferences.
Well, enough about myself. Hopefully that gives you an idea of some of what I'm doing and helps you imagine my world better. :)
