La Locura Automatica

So I have officially reached my over halfway mark here... Which is weird, and I don't like it. Hahah. But I have to face reality at some point I believe.

As this past Sunday was the International Women's Day, there were things going on in Santiago for it starting last Friday. Friday morning early I went with some girls from my program to a march for women's rights with the organization that I am working with-- Fundacion Mujer y Iglesia. It was neat to be part of something and to see all the women that came out to support the event. We walked for a while, in silence, in memory of the women who are killed in this country due to violence. So far, since January around 35 women have already been killed here due to violence; it is a huge problem in this country.

Sunday was the actual day of the woman (the march was on Friday just because it was more convenient) and it was interesting to me because it seemed to be a bigger deal here than it is the United States. Sunday morning I was out running some errands and a man at the phamarcy handed me a rose and told me it was because it was the international Women's day. I also recieved texts from Dominican friends saying like happy international women's day. I found this interesting only because Americans who come here are very quick to judge this society, saying that it is far too machoist and degrades women too much. And while it is a very macho society and culture and does need to improve in women's rights, I honestly can say that in the States I never knew when International Women's day was. Much less have I ever randomly recieved a rose from a stranger for such a day.

In other news, my ability to speak English is deteriorating rapidly. My native language is now becoming some strange blend of Spanglish. I think my brain is honestly completely confused about what is going on. Several of my friends decided to "give up" speaking English completely for Lent, which has only proved to be more confusing. Now I am getting accustomed to hearing them speak Spanish all the time, and responding back half of the time in Spanish to them and half of the time in English. As I discovered last night, this then proves confusing when I go back to speaking to people who only speak English, like my mom, and Spanish words accidently are coming out of my mouth. On top of which, I have my friends from Montecristi who are here, and we usually switch back and forth from English to Spanish depending on the sentence. The other week I went to go visit one of them and found myself saying in the middle of the conversation, "When yo fui..." as if it was normal that half the sentence was in Spanish and the other half in English. Hahah. She almost died laughing and so did I once I realized what just came out of my mouth. I remember having this problem only slightly before when I would come and spend a month here, I can only imagine how difficult it will be when I go back to the States after four months here!

Anyways other than that I am very much looking forward to the weekend... Friday we are going to the sold-out Wisin y Yandel concert and Saturday my little host brother turns 3 :)