...por que?

I have a special Mexican story for you:

We have a friend named Ivana, a neighbor of Sean and Jeni's, fifteen years old. She's about to have a baby, and her baby shower was yesterday. All of us girls chipped in for a present (3 onesies and some diapers),but only Chutney and I planned to attend. It was supposed to begin at 4:00, so we went at 5:30, because nothing starts on time here. However, we were informed that the party had been postponed until 6:00, so we should come back "whenever we want." We returned at about 7:00. We ate some food with her aunt and grandma, met her brother's friends, and met people as they came. At about 8:20, we went upstairs to tell Ivana we needed to go. The baby shower still hadn't actually started, but we were both really tired and Chutney had a stomach-ache. But they wouldn't let us leave. "This is her baby shower, we haven't played games! You're going to go to sleep at 8:00??" haha. So we hung around until about 10:00 before insisting that we needed to go. We had fun, ate good food, and made a new friend. But the fact that it started 4 1/2 hours late really cracks me up. Yikes.

Again, can't wait until I can have an unbroken conversation. But I'm learning to be patient with myself. Hopefully we'll hang out with one of the girls in the youth group, Clara, this weekend. I'll invite our new friend Ave (short for a name I can't pronounce or spell). I like the fact that I'm actually making friends here. It's really hard, but it's making me feel more at home. I think something I didn't realize about the language barrier is that it prevents me from completely being myself. I'm looking forward to being able to joke, to explain myself, to ask deep questions, etc.etc.etc. But again, I just need patience. They're more patient with me than I am with myself.

In other news, two people got married this morning at church. Well, let me explain. In Mexico, if you don't have certain government papers, you can't get legally married. Because of that, and sometimes because people just don't want to divorce their previous spouse, there are many "married" couples that never were actually married. So we had a ceremony for two couples this morning. It was a beautiful service - I loved the fact that they literally tied a knot, and all the singles (first girls, then guys) played a sort of London Bridges game. There was a group from Kentucky visiting, and I'm pretty sure they thought I was Mexican. I take that as a compliment.

And finally, I cannot for the life of me figure out why Mexicans think it's ok to ask me why I don't have a boyfriend. Seriously, any time people find out I'm single they ask "Por que?" How do you answer that? Even the Mexican girls I worked with in Tulsa asked me that. Weird.

Ok, that's more than enough for now. First full week of 6-hour Spanish classes, coming up!