Today I felt happy and calm in Maracaibo for the first time. I had just arrived to work (by bus) and realized that I was quite comfortable.

Yesterday I took the bus by myself for the first time. The day before yesterday I was accompanied by an Aiesecer, Veronica, who was kind enough to warn me about not wearing jewlery or displaying my mobile in public etc. Sweet, I don´t know how she imagines that I survived the first month and a half. No, I really should be grateful when people give adivce. So, anyways, when I took the bus for the first time by myslef (yesterday) it was a show. When the bus arrived on the stop there was a guy (this is common) hanging out the door. I thought he was the one we are supposed to pay. but it turned out that he wasn´t. Well, so he asks me immediately: where are you going. I said: I don´t know the name, and went in. They never (as far as I know and I asked some people about this afterwards) ask you upon entering where you are going, so this guy was just ..well, wanted to say something. So, I enterd the bus and sat down. Everybody started looking at me. They would turn around every two minutes to look at me. I felt awkward in the extreme. Then I asked the driver to stop and got out and that was it. I don´t know why everybody was staring at me. Today I took the bus again and nobudy payed me any special attention.

I find it difficult not knowing what the proper way is to react to people´s remarks. Here someone yells (whistles or gestures) after me on the street every day. It´s unbelieveble. Once I got a blow kiss (?) from a guy on a bus, which was quite sweet, once a guy called me hermana (sister), today two older men talked to me, one said good afternoon, madame (buenas, seniora) and the other one I could not understand. Then some guys called me "morena", which means something like dark girl, and when I did not react (or I don´t really know if they expected me to react, I don´t think so) thay said, "gringa" instead. And once a beggar woman started calling after me in streetlights, which was quite uncomfortable.

So...still feeling a bit awkward, and I don´t know if I will ever feel totally at home here. We´ll see. I´ll let you know.

One thing that I really hate...or find extremely difficult, to be more diplomatic, is that I can´t walk to places. It´s the heat. People just stay in the shade and take the bus and move in the sun as little as possible. But since I don´t know how to use buses I´ve had to walk a little bit. On Sunday I found out that my working place is only a 30 min walk away from where I live. The problem is that in order for me to be able to walk to work the working place should be situated max a 10 min walk away from my house. And now we are in the cool period. I can´t wait for the real heat to begin.

I took the bus to work for the first time this morning. A guy from Aiesec, José, whose place I stayed at for the first five days, has been driving me to work. I could get used to someone driving me around all the time, but I´m afraid I´m just going to have to learn to use buses. Naturally there are no schedules for the buses, and I have to tell the driver when and where I want to get off. What a wonderful opportunity for me to be able to practise my Spanish.

Today I walked to the supermarket. It is a 45 min walk from my house, but really I can´t buy any milkproducts or cheese or anything that will spoil in the heat as long as I am walking. Fortunately my flatmate said that we can go grocery shopping together on Saturday.

What else, I had my welcome party on Saturday and met new Aiesec faces and I have some new numbers on my mobile. Everybody keeps asking me how old I am, which is always a good way to make one feel at ease (since everybody else is 22). And everybody highlightes the importance of learning the magic word "verga" only used in Maracaibo and which the Marracucho dialect, or language I should say, is based on. You say: "como esta la verga", when you meet someone, "vergacion" when you are surprised, and so one. The ways to use this word are numerous. Anyways, the people here are very proud of their region (I was warned about this in Caracas) and more religious than the people in Caracas. One thing I have to mention about the party was that we were playing drinking games and!!! some guys took the drinks for some girls. Girls really do not drink a lot here. José kindly offered to take my drinks for me and I (rudely) informed him that I am quite capable of drinking my alcohol myself, than you very much. Was a nice party, really.

I´m happy to be able to inform you that the roach has not visited me since the first evening. There are some small roaches in the bathroom and kitchen but they are really cute compared to the big ones and don´t bother me.

I finished reading the first short story in Spanish in my book of cuentas (short stories). I understood enough to enjoy it. Yeppeee!

First night in my new home. In the evening I noticed, to my horror, that I don´t live alone in the room. This was my first one-on-one encounter with a cucaracha (spelling?). The cockroach (spelling?) took a tour around the room, starting at the top of the wall and by the time I came back from the bathroom it sprinted through the floor. At least I hope it was the same one. So, after being paralysed for the forst two seconds I started to think that it is just like a spider. They are supposed to be harmless and they are not really interested in people. This is something I´ll have to get used to, I´m afraid.

Rainforest soundtrack was changed into street noise. I don´t mind a bit, I feel less alone when I hear that there are people and cars out int he street. My flat mate left early in the morning, she went somewhere for the weekend with her workmates. I stayed in bed until 12 and decided that I need to find a supermarket. Czecze was kind enough to take me there. I bought my survival kit: ham, cheese and mayonase to make sandwiches, oat flakes to try and make my usual Finnish breakfast (cheap and healthy), yoghurt and milk. Naturally I had to forget something, this time is was the water. Fortunately my flat mate left some behind so I´ll just borrow hers. I also have to wait for my flat mate to return before I can cook myself a warm meal. I don´t know how to use the stove.

Entering and getting out of the apartment is a circus. On the apartment door there are two locks and then there is the lock for the house door and the lock for the building compound. I´ll have to reserve at least five minutes every time I want to enter or exit. Of course, all the keys look exactly the same.

In sum, first impression: Shit, I have to learn so many new things again and get used to new circumstances. E.g. I feel filthy almost all the time. My room is cool but all the other rooms are hot. And outside it is hot too. I don´t think the heat as such is a problem but everything feels dirty and in the kitchen I feel like there might be cockroaches everywhere (and I am sure this is really the case). When I was looking for a plate I found a dead insect in a spiderweba and a baby cuckaracha in one of the cupboards. I never thought I might be a cleaning freak but...well, I think a clening lady will come and clean our place every two weeks. I´ll be counting the days. There is supposed to be less bacteria in colder climate. This sentence has a totally new meaning for me now.

It´s 4 p.m. and I´m tired. I think I´ll take a nap.

I am sittin in my new apartment, or to be more precise in my new roommate´s/flatmate´s room. She brought me strawberry ice cream and has really made me feel welcome. Now let´s reverse a little.

On Sunday evening I took the bus. But first...During my last weekend in Caracas I had an ephiphany (spelling?) or a revelation. People here claim that they drink a lot, but they don´t. Now I know why. It´s not safe. It´s so logical. If you have to take a taxi, a bus, metro, whatever, walk, home in a city like Caracas you can´t afford to be drunk, it´s simply dangerous.

Anyways, on Sunday I took the bus to Maracaobo. I was a bit worried cause I like to be able to use the toilet whenever I want to and I was afraid I´s be stuck in a bus for 12 hours. Often, thank god, I stress for nothing, but this time I was right to be worrked about that. The first time when the bus stopped I was watching people, looking what they left in the bus and what they took out with them and decided not to take my backpack and go out. I was not the only one who stayed in the bus but the majority of the passengers went out. So, I was sitting there and I noticed that a guy is standing behind my seat. I turned around and he started walking back. What the hell was he doing there, making sure I was sleeping or what. So, no exiting, no leaving my things, just sitting on the bus thinking that I am not thirsty and I most definately don´t need the bathroom.

I arrived in maracabo at 6.30 in the morning or something, and at 7 José , or Cheche, was there to pick me up. We had an american breakfast and he took me for a tour around town. He kept asking, "now what do you want to do" and I had no idea. I mean I don´t know anything about this place and I´m supposed to make decisions abotu what to do next. Well, he is a really consderate guy and everything.

Work is exactly the same here as in Caracas. I teach two classes, one from 9.30-12.00 and one from 14.30-17.00. The atmosphere is more laid back here than in S. Ignacio but other than that the work is exactly the same.

Maracaibo is very different from Caracas. I miss Caracas, to be honest. Maracaibo is totally flat. Every street looks exactly the same (this will change, for sure, when I get to know the place better) and I am totally lost. My first impression is that guys are more vulgar here. In Caracas it happened a couple fo times that strangers (men) would salute me in the street, but they would just say hola, and that was all. Here it happaned that guys pass and ask "German or English" or make funny noises when I pass. I feel a bit stupid.

Venezuelan femininity, finally I feel like I can actually say something about it. I´ve been observing my students and I am quite amazed. In my class I have a girl who is 4 years old and her mother makes her wear heels. And the heels are so high that I myslef would not be able to walk in them, but this 4 year old girl is expected to be walking around in those heels. Of course the seven year old girls wear heels as well. Another incident: I was trying to teach my seven year old students the words lunch and breakfast. So I asked every day what they had for breakfast. One day the girl, Gabriela (the mean but cute one) said, she did not have breakfast. I asked why, and she said that she is too fat, that she is on a diet. And this girl is not fat, not even chubby.

Now I have to get going. The girl whose room I´m writing in has to get up at 5 in the morngin so I better let her get her sleep.

I though that I´d be in Caracas until the end of August, at least, but yesterday by boss informed me that on Sunday I´m going to Maracaibo. It´s too soon. I feel that there are still many things to see and do in Caracas and, surprisingly, I feel that I actually have a life here now. I think that if I would be given the choise now between doing my traineeship in Maracaibo or in Caracas I would choose Caracas.

I used to think that I can find people everywhere. That where ever I go it is up to me to create a life and that it would be possible to adjust to any place. What naivety, what idealism. The reality is that some places suit people better than others. Vaasa was not the best place for me, Greifswald was very good, Disneyland was not for me, and Caracas I like a lot.

Caracas is not a pretty city. The architecture is not special and the streets are polluted. But...there is something magical about this city. First of all, magical is a word I can use to describe something I don´t understand. And I don´t understand Caracas. It is big and I know that I´ve only seen one small part of it, but what I like about it is that it has many sides. One day I visited a part of town where there were people selling crafts in the street and doing circus trics and I felt really happy to have discovered such a creative atmosphere in the middle of a town, like an... what´s the thing you find in the desert, when you find water in a desert? And I like how life is in the streets here. People are not just on their way to work but talking with friends, drinking, hanging out, taking a break, watching the people walking by etc (and I´m not taking about beggars here). And there is noise everywhere. Horns honking, people shouting, music in the cars, alarms going off, just noises of life.

Now I know what it means when people say that the people in Caracas are firendly. It means easily approachable. Somebody initiates a conversation with me on the bus stop almost every day. And these are normal people not freaks. When people hear me and Kasia speaking English in the streets (although we have been adviced not to speak English but Spanish, cause it is safer) people sometimes ask where we are from etc. I can ask people for directions in the street and more than once people have offfered to help spontaneously.

I think one thing that definately makes this city magic realist is the presence of the Avila mountain. You can always navigate according to where the Avila is situated (unless it is night of course) and you have something green in signt all the time. This is a surprisingly green city. Also, you can start clibming the mountain directly from the city and then you find yourself, again, in a totally different environment. Also, the house where Kasia and I live is near the forest, so we have rainforest sounds going on in the evening and it´s really exotic.

The next update will most likely be coming from Maracaibo.

Yesterday this seven year old girl, Gabriela, who I think I mentioned in a previous mail, came to class half an hour early (god bless) and had nail polish with her. She wanted to paint my fingernails. I got the choise between stars or flowers. I chose stars and got flowers. So, now I have a blue stripe on the top of my nail and a pink and blue flower on each nail. Cute, is all I can say. I also got a pink star on my face, even though I think nail polish is not usually applied on the face. I just couldn´t say no. After class I was quick enough to scrape it off. Today Garbriela showed up with make up. I was thrilled. So I got some blue eye shadow and rouge applied on my face by a seven year old girl. When Ruben (also seven years old), who is the other student in this group, arrived he said: the teacher is a monster. Grabriela just said, Ruben is a boy, he does not understand anything, Teacher, you are beautiful. While Gabriela was in the bathroom getting wet paper (I think even the artist herself understood that her style was a bit radical) I took a look in the mirror. I could kind of understand Ruben´s comment but suggested that I look more like a clown than a monster. "Clown monster", was Ruben´s reply.

Children are crule. Now my Spanish is on the level where I can understand most of what my students say to each other and I can small talk with a taxi driver and people on the bus. Gabriela is really a handful, and today she thereatened to kill Ruben. She said, "I am going to kill you Ruben, it would be so easy". I went to sit between the two, earlier Gabriela had tried to hit him, and had no idea what I could say. Ruben is really sweet, and Gabriela is sweet too but also extremely evil. I haven´t figured out how to handle this situation, so if anybody has any good tips I can use all the help I can get.

I´ve been twice to the movies. Last week on wednesday and yesterday. First I saw "Jack and Rose", which I recommend although it´s no must. Yesterday I saw...I can´t remember the name of the film but it was about smoking. I guess it was a kind of comedy. I don´t think I´ve ever seen a movie from that category, it´s a harmless thing and you can definately see it on a Tuesday when you need to relax - not bad.

I should go and check out some news on the internet. I haven´t read a single newspaper or magazine since I arrived and have no idea what is going on in the world. However, I bought an English-Spanish-English dictionary and a book which I am translating. I´m actually quite pround of the book. I found it in the youth section of a bookstore in the mall where I work. It countains short stories, which are all written by two people: en experenced writer and a young person. And all the stories are written in Spanish, and the writers are from various Spanish speaking countries (Spain & Latin America).

It is clear that Kasia and I have tooootally different methods for learning Spanish. Kasia is doing exercises and reading grammar. In the evenings she does a language course on her laptop, she brought some CD´c /DVD´s with her from Poland. She started speaking Spanish as son as she arrived, that is she already had a conversation with the taxi driver who took her to the appartment from the airport. I´m pretty impressed. But there is no way I´ll be attempting to do what she is doing. I am no masochist. I still believe strongly that my brain will just effortlessly pick up the language as I am walking in the streets. Also, I plan to read novels or ....what´s it called... fiction. I know that my Spanish has already improved, but it´s not like I can have an intelligent conversation with anyone in Spanish.

Now I´ll go and see what is going on in the world. I hope the US is not planning on invading any time soon.

6 min internet time

The concert (Serenata Guyanesa) was great. It is the most famous and best Venezuelan band who plays traditional Venezuelan music, this is what I´ve been told. I don´t know how to describe it, it is mostly happy (nothing like traditional Finnihs or Portugese music) and, well like folk music. Easily approchable and the people in the concert were obviously extatic and participated by clappin, shouting and commenting from the very beginning. We did not sit behind a pelar/pilar. Kasia was kind enough to inform me that theatres are usually built so that everybody who has a seat can see. Well, in this country honestly...

I was really proud of myself yestrday. I went and bought coucert tickets to me an Kasia (my room mate). I took the metro all by myself (hi mom!) and asked for dirctions to the thatre and stood in line for 90 minutes, had a littl discussion with the lady in front of me and in the end the helped me buy the tickets and I felt so extrmely proud of myself. I mean, I am able to talk to people and I did all this y myslef. Of course, I would rather have had my roommate with me but sh coud not come. She waited for he bus for one hour and hen the bus came but did not even stop becasue it was full and then it started to rain and... But really, it was simple, I did not even hav to change metro lines.

So we got the last two seats that were next to each other. Probably we are sitting behing a pilar (pelar?) and can´t see a thing but it´s a concert right. We are there to listen to the music. This band is really famous, and the tickets werre not too expensive and I´m looking fwd to the concert tonight.

What else...we have a new house mate. Jeff, a Venezuelan guy who has also (like me) been a foreign exhange student in Minnesota, USA, and earns his living teaching English. He moved in last Sunday and it is really fun havig him around.

Work..is going well. My students love me. I´ve been teaching two groups fo the last week or two and one individual. One group consists of two 7 year olds, Gabriela and Ruben. Gabriela climbs on my lap but is a bit difficult, cause almost every class sofar she has put up a scene: refuses to do anything, lies on the floor, takes the remot control (or ties to take it) etc. The other group consists of five 10-11 year old guys. One of my collegaues said one day that after I have to be either a maryr or a saint to put up with the little monsters. Well, yesterday was their last clas and the asked me if I would be still in September when they´ll take Engish classes.

Internet time up.

A weekend at the beach again, and I´ve got the burns to show for it. I´m a shrimp, but so is my room mate and so are the Venezuelan, Argentinian and Italian who were there as well.

We were a smaller group this time. My polish room mate, a Venezuelan Aiesecer, Davide, an Argetinian trainee, Diego, and an Italian trainee, Dina, me and another Venezuelan, Demetrio. And what made this all special was that I had invited Demetrio to go with us. I´ll have to tell you about this guy, to me it is quite amazing.

We met on the airplane from Paris to Caracas. I was sitting in a row of three people: me, Demetrio, and Demetrio´s mom, both from Caracas. They both spoke English, especially the son speaks very good English so it was easy to communicate. Naturally I was curious to meet some people from Caracas. I was impressed, there seemed to be no interultural communication problems whatsoever and Demetrio and his mother helped me out at the airport in Caracas, which was a great help. We exchanged phonenumbers and I was determined to get in contact with him. After all, I knew nobudy in this huge place.

So, one weekend Demetrio invited me to go to the Avila (a mountain which you can see from almost everywhere here, it´s right next to the city) with his friend. It was very nice. And this weekend he came to the beach with us "Aiesecers". The funny thing is that he was supposedly coming with us, but in the end he invited us to another beach where his family has an appartment and we ended up staying there the whole weekend (instead of a one day trip, which is what we planned) and ...it was really really nice. And I was extremely pround because I had discovered such a great guy (read between the lines: scarse in Caracas :) :))and was able to introduce him to everybody.

My internet time is over. Thank you a million times for your encouraging comments. Love you, miss you!

So...where to begin. Someone asked me about Venezuelan men, whether they are hot or not. Well, I know that the appropriate (but boring) thing to say is that it is like everywhere in the world, some are nice and some are not. But I´ll try to be a bit more descriptive than that. Well, this is difficult...Hmmm...there are some really cute guys around but, but, but I have to say that the style here...well, it´s not quite my style. I like dark skin, it is not about that, but the men here are a bit too macho for my personal taste. How can I give some kind of objective description? I won´t even attempt it. I without getting into details, it´s not like I walk around in amazement. However, I think the feeling is mutual, I mean, I am just not sexy enough for these guys. Venezuelan women are HOT! They dress in a very revealing way and I...don´t dress like that. I´ve also heard from multiple sources that local women do a lot of plastic surgery, silicons are not unusual at all.

Let´s change the subject. I have to try to forget that everything I write will be available for everybody to read, so mabye I should be a bit more careful about what I say.

I went shopping on Sunday. I´ve managed to destroy two pairs of shoes since I arrived here and I had blisters on my feet and had to go buy a pair of comfortable shoes. And I hate shopping. So, I asked some people for advice and they mentioned some stores in the shopping mall near to where I live. I went there and started from ground level and worked my way up (it´s not a very big mall). The cheap shoes felt cheap and the expensive shoes were all the same. So I bought a pair of red converse trainers. I don´t know if it was the best decision I´ve ever made but under the circumstances I could have done a lot worse. I try to see whether people stare at my shoes or not (they are leather) and sometimes I think that maybe I could have a made a more low key choise. But on the other hand, I´m in a Carribean country and isn´t that supposed to mean that I can wear colorful clothes...and shoes! This is what I keep telling myself.

Just in order to avoid misunderstandings. I complained about the dancing earlier. Now, you really don´t have to feel sorry for me. I love dancing and I think it is fun when peole are trying to teach me salsa. Last weekend I had another occasion. There were no parties on Friday (that we knew of) but on Saturday we met a friend of a friend who invited us (my Polish roommate, her Polish friend, and me) to his place for some cuba libres. His taxi driver friend drove us there and we danced. On the way back we were all a bit tipsy, including the driver. They kept telling us that this (drink and drive) is totally normal. Great. This is what we get to hear a lot, in Venezuela this and in Venezuela that. They also say that it is OK for women to get drunk here, but sofar I have not seen a single woman drunk. I realize that people have ulterior motives, after all some aspects of human life are universal.

Yesterday the bus broke down in the middle fo the road. The driver said, sorry but you have to walk. Everybody who knows how marvellous my sense of orientation is (not) can imagine how happy I was to hear those words. Then I just kept my cool and followed some people to the next stop, which was at the mall where I´d been shopping on Sunday. And from there I walked "home". No big deal, but first experience in this kind of thing. One day the bus started smoking from the inside and we just waited for a while, a passenger took his notebook and cooled the bus down a little bit and then we continued. And the people stayed calm during the whole episode. I´ll be a different person when I leave Venezuela.