The universal appeal of Ke$ha.

She's trashy, obnoxious, and probably intoxicated as I type this, but Ke$ha provided the soundtrack for our first excursion outside of the walls of Casa Bernabé. More accurately, she was the artist of choice for the DJ who stood by the front entrance of Hiper País, a megastore so big that I could hear the bitter tears of Costco splashing against its cold and lonely cement floor.

Now you might say, "Matt, Costco is more than just size, it also has friendly customer service and food samples!" Yes, you may be right, but the employees of Hiper País (of which there are soooo many) not only provide you with a much grander assortment of free samples (such as THREE different ladies all providing some kind of yogurt), but they also sort of hunt you down to give you those samples. That's right, they're mobile. Using biceps of steel which have been honed by years of holding gift-laden trays aloft, these wonderful working women roam around just waiting to serve you with a smile so radiant that the sun was able to take a break.

We bought a lot, mostly necessities such as candy. I almost fainted with joy upon seeing National Geographic en español, and almost fainted with shock upon drinking an orange soda that had 78g of sugar in it. We also bought coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. And a coffee maker. I'm guessing by the end of our time here that it will become so much a part of our existence that we'll probably give it a name and at least two of our members will actually begin to think it's a real person.

Anyway, it's bedtime. Tomorrow will be interesting because none of the kids have school, so they are home the whole day. And they don't have homework, which seems like such a bad idea because then they actually want to play and stuff. Weird kids.

Talk to y'all later!

-Mateo

We miss our teammates, but their house is beautiful and we know God will bless them. I also miss that blessed existence where I wasn't sunburnt on 50% of my body, but we can't have everything.