Brrrr in Dulce Nombre

Well right now I can't fee my hands from the cold here in my town. Well they are not quite numb but it is close. Who woulda thought it got so cold here? And apparently it gets worse. It's been cold here the last few days because of the remnants of Hurricane Beta that came through. It dissipated before it got to us though, so it just drizzled for about 3 days here and got chilly. I can't wait for my parents to bring me some sweaters and warm fuzzy slippers. I have been living in my rain jacket and black fleece and walking around my house in socks and flipflops...it's a very attractive combination by the way! Haha. A lot of families don't have many warm clothes or blankets so I feel for them. If anyone wants to send things down with my parents, second hand clothes, they would be welcome. But mainly people are staying indoors and drinking a lot of tea and chatting about the cold. (A very typical conversation: Enter person, "Argh, it's cold out there huh?", "Yeah it's pretty cold out there", "I can't stand it, it's giving me a cold too", " Yeah, I have a bad cold too."....then that repeats for the next newcomer. So at least it's a conversation starter, although not very interesting. I spent about 5 days in Santa Rosa over the weekend, including Halloween. Angela was passing through to collect her things before going back to the states, so my friend Michael came down from the coast and with Sarah we all hung out all weekend. We went through a few bottles of wine and watched movies and went out to restaurants and were generally pretty lazy. Because of Hurricane Beta we were made to stay where we are and not travel, so a bunch more volunteers ended up at the Santa Rosa house and it was pretty full. But the "standfast" ended up being only a precaution when the storm broke up. I was excited that my friend Tim called on Sunday...the very first non-family member, non-boyfriend who has made the effort to call me down here, which is not that hard....so congrats, Tim! I am hoping he'll come down in March with Heather, Sarah, and Rachel. I got back to my house in Dulce Nombre on Tuesday and have been sleeping a lot since then with a cold and post-gringo-time tiredness. Today I went to the last day in the kindergarten to give an "English test" to the kids there. They have pretty much mastered parts of the body, simple commands, the ABCs, greetings and farewells, colors, numbers 1-10, and songs like the Hokey Pokey and If You're Happy and You Know It. I'll miss going there for the next few months until classes start again in February. Well that is just about it! Not too busy a like at the moment. Just hunkering down until the cold weather takes a break. A little sad cuz I have more than 2 weeks of laundry to do and the water is too cold to take and the weather too cold and wet to dry clothes. So I am getting creative in my wardrobe and wearing lesser-used items, which is good I guess :) Lots of love to all and hope to hear from you soon!