Kid interview, KD's lists

What’s it like going to school where you don’t speak the language?
Rosie: "It’s really scary sometimes and really overwhelming. I, like, don’t know what to do. It’s not like my American school where I just know what to do. I miss my parents more than I would at my usual school."

Althea: "I think of mom translating at home, and then I get teary eyes. Then the teacher goes and asks me to read in Spanish, and I was really scared. Then she said I did 'muy bien.'"

Kristen’s lists -
Things I’m really appreciating having:
Running water, cold AND hot
A second cooking pot ($5 to double the inventory and triple our water-boiling capacity)
A refrigerator and stove
Shoes that fit
A toilet
Fleece
Four bowls to cook and eat with
A second and third teaspoon
Enough money
Company

Things I’m thinking would be really nice:
A pressure cooker (tried beans at 8,000 feet; soaked then boiled 2 hours, still crunchy)
A fourth teaspoon
A slotted spoon
A second pair of jeans

Shopping list for moving with our suitcases into an unfurnished apartment:
4 mattresses, perhaps with beds
Fridge
Stove
Table with 6 chairs, hoping for company
2 Electric shower heads (only cold running water in most buildings here)
Broom
Pillows, sheets, towels
Plates
Bricks, boards, crates, cardboard boxes
(I wonder if they have here those huge plywood spools that grace every grad student apartment?)

Things I saw walking home from the kids’ school Day One (about 3 miles):
A pony tied in the back of a tiny pickup, looking out over the cab
Cement bricks being made on-site for three-story buildings
Cow tethered and grazing on an empty suburban lot
A ten year old girl washing laundry in the front yard, 10 am on a school day (but not for her, it appears)
A huge German Shepherd with her forepaws on the second story balcony railing, surveying the traffic on the Pan-American Hwy
Men sitting at a road junction, looking for all the world like a U.S. day laborer congregation minus the Home Depot backdrop
Girls walking to school in traditional dress with an apron made from the school uniform skirt and school sweater over the top
Pigs, geese, goats, chickens