This is it. The first phase of fun and excitement has passed and I´m beginning to realize how badly integrated I am and how little I know about my surroundings.

I was surprised by how easy it was to live in Caracas, depite its bad reputation. Of course I was aware of the fact that I did not "fit in", that is I felt that everybody who sees me in the street must know that I´m a foreigner. But somehow I it was not as difficult as I had imagined to lead a normal life, go to work, meet with friends, go shopping etc. So it is not as difficult to survive in this country as I had imagined. Positive surprises everywhere: the people in the steet were very helpful, I met some people I felt comfortable with, I liked the city and the variety in it. I knew people from Aiesec, from work, I had wonderful housemates, the finnish girls form the embassy etc.

Then I came to Marcaibo. Again, I was positively surprised. I was prepared for an unbarable heat, deserted streets, rude people etc. Instead I found that the heat can be lived with, there are people in the streets and sofar nobody has been rude to me. I learned where I can go grocery shopping, how to take the bus to work, I got to know many wonderful people and have experienced some excellent parties and nights out.

The reality strikes. My Spanish is insifficient to communicate anything beyond the very basic. My understanding of Spanish is insufficient to understand what other people want from me. In the language knowledge is included, naturally, also the nonverbal communication; all the touching, kissing etc. which I sometimes find difficult to interpret. Of course, these are not straight forward things in any language or culture, and some people are better communicators than others, but I do feel a bit lost in what I am communicating and what is being communicated to me. Sometimes.

One day, I think this was during my first week in Maracaibo, we went looking for an appartment with some people from Aiesec. I remember that one guy asked repeatedly where the closest farmacy (specifically Farmatodo) was situated. I didn´t want to ask why the farmacy was so imprtant for him, but I thought it was a bit peculiar. Today it all dawned to me. I went (all by myslef, I´m pround to announce) to the bank and asked for a debit card (to withdraw cash from a cashdispenser). I got it and asked where I can withdraw money: at Farmatodo. OK, I guess they guy wasn´t so strange after all. On my way home for lunch I scanned the streets for a farmatodo. No farmatodo. I need to ask the girls when I return to work.

The coordinator came to work late this morning, so I had to sit outsde for ca 30 min waiting to get into the Idiomas Ruge office. It´s quite nice to sit there and watch people. The difficlut thing is that in the street there is always the risk that people came and talk to you.

The first person who approached me was an old man. He came up to me, offered his hand as if to greet and asked if I speak any Spanish. I did not shake his hand and gestured that my Spanish is minuscule. I was trying to avoid a conversation. Well, I was stupified when the man started to speak to me in English. His Englihs was not very good, proabably the level of my Spanish, but nonetheless he was speaking English. I looked at his clothes and realized that the man probably wasn´t a beggar. He asked me the usual questions: where are you from, how old are you, and are you married. Then he compliented me on my beautiful eyes, wished me a good day, we shook hands, and he took off. I was amazed.

Ten minutes pass and an old woman approaches me. This time I was right, she came to ask me for money even though she was not badly dressed. Also the old woman starts by asking whether I speak any Spanish. Again, I gesture "very little" and hope she´ll go away. But, to my amazement, the woman starts speaking English to me. Again, her English isn´t very good but she can make herself understood. She explaines that she has cancer or has had an operation for cancer or something and needs money to buy medicine. I tell her that I only carry enough money to take the bus. She starts asking me about how long I have been in Venezuela, what I do, where I´m from etc. Then she explains that everybody on the steet knows her, in other words that she is not a thief, and wishes me a nice day. When my students arrive (the musicians) I tell them about what happened to me when I was waiting for the coordinator and they are amazed. These things happen only to foreigners, I guess.

Kasia has her own place now, she moved in yesterday. I haven´t seen it yet, but as far as I know it is similar to mine, that is she rents one room in some student girl´s apartment. Kasia is all happy and excited about it, although there is no air conditioning in the room. What I really wanted to say about Kasia´s place is that she has to open the door to the house with a credit card. I don´t know exactly why, maybe the landlady does not have a key for her yet so she has to pick the lock every time she wants to enter the house. So, yesterday evening we stood outside of Kasia´s buliding at maybe 3 in the morning picking the lock with a credit card. It was surreal.

Kasia came on Saturday, early in the morning. The welcoming comittee consisted of four Aiesecers: Daniel, Cheche, Jesus, and myself. It was great to see Kasia and she was happy to be in Maracaibo. We had pancakes for breakfast in a restaurant where the interior is supposedly German influenced (I would not have noticed). It was the same restaurant where I was taken the morning I arrived in Maracaibo.

Kasia had the good fortune of arriving to Maracaibo on a special day. The new Aiesecers were organizing a day of activites for the old Aiesecers. The newies asked if I could do something Finnish for the party. I promised to teach them some Finnish drinking songs. In this way I was kind of recruited to the team of newies an I attended the two planning meetings and I was made resposible for decorating the party venue. The theme of the day was "Superheroes" and everybody was supposed to dress up in a superheroe constume. The day was to start at Aquamania, a waterpark, where we were supposed to play games and have fun out in the open. Then, at 6 we were supposed to meet at Daniel´s place to play some drinking games.

This is what actually happened. After welcoming Kasia and eating breakfast we went to Ruge to get Kasia´s schedule etc., and then we drove to Daniel´s place. We had planned to meet at Daniel´s at 10, but we arrived at ca 11. We were the first ones to arrive. We sat around and waited for the rest of the decorating crew, which arrived at ca 12. Sandra informed us that Aquamania is closed, because one of the lifeguards was killed by a lightning the day before. People started making phone calls trying to organize a diffrent venue for the swimming and games-part of the day, but somehow there was no other place (all the discussions were in Spanish so I didn´t get all the details) so we cancelled the swimming. So, instead we were to meet at Daniel´s at five for the drinking games. At 4.45 I tried to call Cheche. He didn´t answer and was obviously sleeping (I was supposed to get a ride with him). Well, I didn´t really mind being a couple of hours late for the party, and figured that maybe the plans changed again an maybe there is no party after all. Many people had called earlied to inform that they couldn´t attend the party. So I waited for a couple of hours until I found Albert on msn and asked him what was happening. He had tried to contact the people at Daniel´s and failed, so we decided to go there and see what the -beep- was going on. I called Cheche and woke him up. He wanted to come with us. And then we waited for two hours until Alberth and Cheche decided whose car we were going to take and where we could park. Apparently there was no place in the garage in Daniel´s building and Cheche (eventually we ended up taking his car) didn´t want to leave his car out in the street. A lot of cars get stolen here. So at maybe 9 we arrived at the pary. People were drunk. In the Finnish definition of drunk. I found out that they had started drinking at five. Well, there were till some beers, and rum, and coke and drinking games left for us to enjoy. Without getting into too much detail I am proud to report that any Finnish person who comes to Maracaibo after me will have my reputation to live up to.

I was also very touched when Kasia told me that she can see that I am very well integrated in Maracaibo. According to her I am "the center of attention". Obviously I was flattered and walked around with a stupid smile on my face for two days. But it is true that I feel very comfortable with the Aiesecers and am probably therefore more confident. I hate to seem repetitious, but I have to admit, once again, that the people here are really something else. They are taking very good care of me and I am happy to notice that they like me as much as I like them.

I had a small adventure yesterday. A friend, Rocio from Peru, asked if I wanted to go to the movies with her.

The dialogue went something like this (by sms):

- Movies? tonight?
- Sure when, where and how?
- Sambil at 7.30.*
- How can I get to Sambil? Can we not meet somewhere and go togehter?
- You can take 5 de Julio to delicias tostados 25 6.30

At this point I took out my map and found a street called Avenida 15 de Delicias. Here all streets have a number and some also have names. So, what the hell was tostados 25? I found no street like that. I wrote Rocio:

- So, we meet at the corner of 5 de Julio and Delicias?
- there is a restaurant called tostados 25, we meet there. It is safer than in the street.

Fine. Some time after 6 I went out into the street, took a carrito to 5 de Julio and stood in line to take another carrito to Delicias. A lot of people, no free carritos. At 6.40 I get an SMS from Rocio asking where I am. I answer that I´ll take a carrito or a taxi if I can get one, and start walking. All carritos that pass me are full, or pirate, and I can´t make out whether the taxis are pirate or not and do not want to take a risk. But it is getting dark. Soon Rocio calls, where are you? I inform her that I just crossed 12 (the street, Delicias is 15). She tells me to, instead of Delicias, go to a shopping center called Kapital. I ask her to wait for me at street 15, she says Kapital is easy to find. OK, I continue walking. When I come to street 16 I ask some people in the street where Kapital is situated. First person says, what kapital, Caracas? and helps me ask another person who knows the shopping center. He says it is very far away, but that I just have to keep walking straight. I am cursing Rocio and it is getting dark. I get funny looks from the men in the street. I ask for directions again, and everybody says "walk straight, it´ll com up in your right". I finally find the place at ca 7.30 and walk into the supermarket called Kapital. No Rocio. I walk around the shopping center and look for her. No Rocio, it is dark. The battery on my mobile fails me. I´m getting scared. I decide to ask the security at the supermarket if I can borrow their phone to make a call, I could instert my chip and they would not have to pay anything. Noooo, Digitel does not work with their phones. One of the guys escorts me to the calling center* nearby. So the guy takes me to the center, of course I am a bit worried, (where is he taking me?), and there I start my explanation again. I need to call a friend, I have no battery etc. They don´t really understand what I want but listen patiently. I am very nervous. Then I try my phone again, I manage to open it and get Rocio´s number and send her a message about by whereabouts. She sends me a message back that she is coming in 5 min. Then I sit and wait for 30 min and finally she comes. Phew!

By the time Rocio arrives I´ve spoken to several people in the phone center, about Finland and how cold it is there, for how long I have stayed in Venezuela etc. (told them my address and given my phone numer :)...hi mom!). When we leave eveybody says: ciao! hasta luego! Rocio laughs and says that I´ve made many new friends. This is what I truly love about Venezuela, how fast people adopt you, how easy it is to make "friends".

The movie was good. I don´t know the name in English but the main actors were Bruce Willis and Mos Def. I enjoyed it. No must movie though.

*Samibil is the largest and most expensive shopping center in Maracaibo.
*There are places with phones people can use to make calls in the cities. There are no phone booths, instead there are centers with many booths. You make your call and then you pay.

It is dangerous take a holiday if you are a teacher at Idiomas Ruge. At the moment there are only two English teachers, Enrique and I. I´ve only seen Enrique, but never spoken to him. He is going to regret the fact that he never spoke to me, and I´m sure he´ll want to speak to me when he gets back from his holiday.

Yesterday I had two classes: one student of my own and one of Enrique´s students, a girl. Also today I had two classes, one student of mine and a group of Enrique´s: two guys. The guys were wonderful. Two musicians, who speak excellent English and were really nice and cute and possibly the most interesting people I´ve met in Venezuela sofar. They promised to give me a new social life and at the end of the class they said that they want to change teachers cause they want me to teach them instead of Enrique. And later I spoke with the coordinator and she said that they actually changed teachers and I´ll be teaching these guys in the future.

I´m sure Enrique will want to talk to me when he gets back from his holidays. He might actually want to kill me. I would for sure not like if someone stole my students = my sourse of income. I mean, for me one student more or less is no big deal, since I get paid the same amount of money no matter how many or few (as is the case) hours I work. But Enrique proabably gets paid by the hour, so ...
Actually I was sure the coordinator would tell the guys that it is impossible to change teachers like that. Cause as far as I know the students at Ruge don´t decide which teacher´s class they attend. We´ll see what happens.

Today I had an interesting discussion at work. There is a problem with my working hours. I´m covering for a teacher who is on holidays and so normally I should work tonight until 8. Well, the coordinator at work told me to try and ask someone to give me a ride, cause it is too dangerous to walk home or wait for carritos in the street at that hour and there are no buses after 7.30. So, Cheche suggested that I ask my student for a ride home. I know that it is not uncommon for teachers to get rides home from students, since my teacher friends in Caracas used to get rides with their students. So, today at work I said to the cordinator that I'll ask my student for a ride and if it doesn´t work out I´ll take a taxi. The cordinator was like noooo you can not ask your students for anything. OK, no problem, I´ll take a taxi then.

I am a bit surprised by the fact that it is supposedly dangerous for me to be in the streets after dark (after 8). In Caracas is was no problem if I finished work at 8 to walk 20 min to the bus stop. And sometimes when we´d go out for a beer after work we (we=Kasia and I) would take the last bus at eleven at night and no one said that it would be too dangerous to do that.

Later, when I was leaving work, the coordinators were talking about me. About the fact that I was going to ask a student for a ride. They really think that I don´t know any Spanish at all. It is actually quite funny how people keep asking me how I can survive here without speaking Spanish. I try to tell them that I do actually speak sufficient Spanish to communicate in the shops and with the bus driver etc. but I guess my Spanish is so crap that they really don´t see how anybody could understand me. I´m sure you know the feeling when you start talking to someone in Spanish (or whatever foreign language) and they listen to you and then start speaking English. I know that I've done it to people as well, and I truly I regret it, cause I think it is the most discouraging thing one can possibly do.

About the people. My dear mother expressed some concern and maybe the rest of you are interested to hear about this as well. So first of all, I feel extremely safe because everybody keeps repeating to me the same instructions: don´t go outside after dark, don´t take the pirate carritos or taxis, and even at work they obviously take responsibility and make sure I get home safely. So, I feel like I am surrounded by resposible and caring individuals.

Mostly I associate with people from Aiesec. There are Aiesec meetings every weekend, and sometimes also during the week. I speak with my Padrino, Freddy, and the exchange resposible, Cheche/José almost every day and I don´t feel lonely. I do miss Kasia, my room mate from Caracas, sometimes. After all, she was the closest person I had in Caracas, but she is coming to Maracaibo next weekend so then I won´t have to miss her anymore. What else...nothing much. The Aiesec people are friendly, but oh so young. They keep asking me how old I am. Here an introduction goes pretty much like this: you extend you hand and say hello, then you say your name and the other person shays theirs. Then the other person asks, "so, how old are you". I guess I could start to say: come on I´m a woman, I don´t need to answer that or, like someone suggested, just say that I am 21. But I don´t really see the advantage with lying about my age, only possible trouble when the person finds out how old I really am, so I always just say how old I am and anticipate the look of surprise mixed with pity on their faces. The American (or north american, I should say) girl, Kathryn, paid me a nice compliment when she said that I look "youthful" for a 26 year old. I did not know whether to laugh or cry. I have to admit that I still miss some of my friends in Caracas, but I think Maracaibo has potential as well.

Talking about football/soccer...I really would have liked to have seen the game Finland vs. Portugal. For those who don´t know, Finland and Portugal played a tie, and I heard that it was a good game for Finland - that is "we" could have won. Wow! But football is not the sport the Venezuelans are passionate about, here game nr one is baseball. However, the other day the shopkeeper at the bakery where I go to buy my lunch most of the days asked me where I was from and when I said Finland he immediately replied: "Häkkinen" and I said yes, and "Räikkönen". It was a beautiful moment.

Today has been a day of immense progress. I took the carrito by myself, not once but four times! A peruvian girl invited me to come and watch her salsa class. She suggested that I take a taxi, but I decided to ask my roommate and her boyfriend where this salsa thing it is situated and see if I could get there by carrito. And so, I had to take two carritos. It was ok, just that once the driver didn´t understand that I wanted to get off so I had to walk one extra block, no big deal.

And next week I migth start salsa classes. That would be something. The classes looked like a lot of fun, the people were friendly, and the teacher was cute. What more can you ask for?

Yesterday I finally called some friends. There were a couple of phone calls that had to be made to a couple of friends in Caracas. So made my first phonecall entirely in Spanish! I was really proud of myself, tuulettaing (what´s the word in English when you e.g. score a goal and then you go around punching air and stuff. In Finnish this is to "tuulettaa") in my room hissing yesss yesss to myself. Enjoying the small mirakles in life.

Maybe I should add that I have some mobile problems - I can´t send any SMS or make phone calls from my mobile cause I can´t rechange it. Two phone companies, Digitel and Infonet, are merging and for some strange reason I can recharge my Digitel phone card only after September 15th. So msn, email and my fixed phone have been my means to communicate with the outside world.

I´ve actually been fine without my mobile sofar, but last night I started getting strange phonecalls and I was unable to call the number to check who was fooling around with me. At 1 a.m. my phone rung, and at first I thought it was the alarm and turned it off. Then it rung again and I answered, "Elina", and the other person ended the call. And then s/he called again, and ended the call as soon as I answered. Then s/he called again and I turned my phone off. I still have the number and if I wouldn´t be such a coward I´d call there now to see who it was. Maybe later....at 1 a.m.

Today we had a water desaster at work. There was a thunder storm and water started pouring from the sky. And pretty soon water was pouring into the Idiomas Ruge office. I didn´t notice anything at first. At the time I was probabaly trying to explain (with drawings, my folder, hands and feet) to my student what x-ray is. But when the class ended I noticed that there was a process going on in the office. All the books had to be taken out of the shelves and folders dried. I could not help but wonder how the building would survive a snowstorm. It probably wouldn´t. Somehow I managed to restrain myslef from explaining what kind of weather conditions buildings in Finland have to suffer.

By the way, when I was giving my presentation about Finland to the Aiesec gang, I was asked what was the biggest choque (I´ll never learn to spell this word, I really need to learn how to use the spellchecker) for me here in Venezuela has been sofar. I could not think of anything. But today when I was in the supermarket I remembered when the guy in a supermarket in Caracas told me: I only have one life, when I asked him to help me (or he offered to help me and when I was unable to say what I wanted immediately, he said, "I only have one life" and walked away). That was the biggest choque. It was unbelievably rude. So I´ve had it pretty easy here sofar.

The student I had today was Colombian. I asked him about the differences between Venezuela and Colombia and he said that the people in Venezuela, especially in Maracaibo are much ruder.

I´m no longer the "new" trainee, or the only new trainee, in Maracaibo. Kathryn, from the US, arrived on Friday. We were ca 10 people who went to meet her at the airport and from there we went out to party. Kathryn is from Chicago, and she´ll be teaching English here like me, but in another school. She is living in the same house with another trainee, Neka (we are three trainees alltogether) from Nigeria, who also teaches English.

So, from the airport we went to a place to dance. Peoeple were teaching me to dance again, or to move my ass I should say. I know it is all in good intention, but I can´t help feeling extremely selfconscious when people look at me and start saying, you have to do this and move this part and don´t move that part etc. I guess it is inevitable, but I wonder when they´ll stop commenting. The funny thing was that after playing latin American music, Reggaeton etc. for some hours they played some house, and then I got to shine. Then I was the expert on how to dance and people said to me that they want me to teach them. I felt even more conufused. But I had a really good time. And when the disco/dancing place closed at 3 we went to a really posh area (there was a security guard with a gun) and danced around and in the pool until 6 a clock in the morning. Drinking cuba libres, rum, and what not.

Now I need to figure out what is happening today. I know that there is some Aiesec meeting, but I don´t know if I´m supposed to be going there or not. Some people said to me yesterday (we had an Aiesec meeting yesterday, I had my presentation about Finland (which went well, with a routine)) "see you tomorrow" but since the meeting was in Spanish, apart from my presentation which was in English, I was left in the dark concerning today. So I think I´ll have to call some people and try to find out whether I´m supposed to go and if so, how to get there.

Yesterday I took a carrito with my room/flat mate for the first time. Carritos are a Maracaibo thing, a specialty found nowhere else. I heard about them already in Caracas and I thought they were some kind of buses. Well they are but not quite. Carritos are normal cars that function like buses that is they have fixed routes. You get in and say where you are going and depending on how far it is you are going you pay either a corto (short) or a long (don´t know the word). Then you tell the driver when you want to get off. I never appreciated metros before, but now I know that if there would be a metro in Maracaibo life would be a million times easier for me. I would not have to keep asking people how to get to places (at least not as much) and I would not have to be able to tell the driver where I need to get off. I´m not even sure if I´d recognize the house I live in.