mucho caos en la calle

The past few days have been a little crazy! There has been a lot of protesting in the streets and unfortunately two students from the public university have died. Luckily, I attend the private university in the city, but obviously it affects everyone. Therefore, we have been suspended from school for a few days until things calm down and we need to be VERY careful. It is so crazy... the national guard is just camped out on the street to stop anything that may start. The biggest form of protest that I have physically seen has been tire fires in the streets, but it is still really scary, especially being a GRINGA which means AMERICAN>> we stick out like sore thumbs. The reason for the protests is because recently Chavez has dropped 6 tv channels, devalued the dollar, issued power and water outages, and neglected to clean up the garbage on the streets. In general, people are just frustrated with all of the unnecessary changes.

On top of the chaos in the city, there was a loss in our host family. We are just trying to be supportive of the family, as we attended a mass service tonight, and are awaiting our REAL parents arrival. They are currently in Caracas trying to get tickets home.

I absolutely LOVE my classes and the people here. I am actually sad that classes are suspended which is a really weird feeling. Tomorrow we plan to go to the pool again and this weekend, the hot springs. Tonight we had such a fun time with our "aunt". We drank some wine and just laughed. I think it was really good for our aunt to relax and smile since she has had such a rough week with her uncle dying. We also gave her a candle and Jack Johnson CD and I think she really appreciated it. She is so funny and cute.

Overall it has been a little more difficult lately since we have kind of been on lockdown and for the first time in the past week, I felt unsafe. But I think once the city calms down, things will be much better. Whenever I get down I just look outside and see MOUNTAINS and SUNSHINE and everything seems to be much better :) I am also thankful that I don't have a parasite because 3 people in our program do and they are miserable :/

anyways.... sorry if my English is bad. I am finding that when you speak two languages, you start to struggle in both! :)