Happy Valentines´my firends! (better late than never, I hope)

I have running water in my apartment but still no internet and still no air conditioning. And on Sunday my mobile broke down for good. You see, Kasia and went to Coro (north of Venzuela, beaches etc.) for the carnevals. Well, originally we wanted to go to Colombia, to Baranquilla, where they have the second biggest carneval celebrations after Rio de Janeiro, but I could not get days off from work (even though they are supposed to give me days off to join Aiesec activites and a carneval is clearly and Aiesec activity, don´t you think) and Kasia needed a visa so we didn´t go. Instead we went to Coro with a guy from work, one of the new teachers. So, in Coro we went to the Medanos, a kind of sand dunes that look like a desert. It was beautiful but we had sand blowing in our faces and we got sand everywhere - including my mobile. I used some force and managed to get most of the sand out of my mobile and all keys working except the key for "cero". I got by with my mobile without using cero until I had to recharge it (yesterday). There was a number cero in the recharge number, so I could not recharge. On Monday, when I have some money on my account, I´ll buy a new mobile. All of you who have seen my old one, the one I´ve been using the last six or seven years, will no doubt think that it´s about time I buy a new one.

So we went to Coro. It´s about a five hour busride from Mcbo and we had a good trip. We left on Sunday, and the same day we visited the Medanos (sand dunes). I was pretty happy to go there because people have been talking about the Medanos saying that it´s a place (one of the few near Maracaibo ;)) worth visiting. We stayed at Egui´s (the guy from work) Mom´s place. The second day, on Monday, we drove up a mountain to a cascade. We were not the only ones, the place was packed with people. But we picknicked there and walked around a little and it was nice. Then we drove to a port to watch the sunset. The next day we went to the beach. It was a bit cloudy and rainy but I still managed to get burned. We spent the whole three days with Egui and his Mom, who was driving us around evrywhere, and Egui´s family (aunt, grandma, cousins, etc.). It was nice to get to know yet another Venezuelan family. It´s always a priviledge to be invited to people´s homes, I think.

What else...I started teaching German last week. It´s really fun. The only problem it that there is not too much material to work with. And some of it is a bit...well, tell me honestly what you think: there is a book about "Peppi", a black boy living in Africa with his bird. Peppi is introduced in the following manner: "Peppi is a chocolatebrown niggerchild". Isn´t this racist?

Kasia and I have already started to plan the next trip, which is to take place during easter. My flatmate has invited us to Cumana (northeastern Venezuela, nice beaches) and I think we´ll go there. But I´m trying not to get too excited about it cause you never know where you end up.

I just read my latest blogs. I guess I´ve been repating myself a bit and I think there has been more spelling errors in my blogs than usual. That is because I haven´t had enough internet time to read my last entries or to correct the spelling. And I guess it also means that there is nothing new going on.

Well, now I am out of water. Kasia has been struggling with the lack of water at her place (she seems to get it occasionally and at worst she has been some four days without running water) and I´ve felt blessed since I never had that problem, (We both know what it is like to live in Mcbo without aircondicioning by now and we´ve had to get used to cucarachas running around and car alarms going off at night etc.) but now I have to struggle with that as well. Yesterday my flatmate told me that we have water from 6-7 in the morninga and 7-8 at nights. Well, it´s a hell of a lot better than nothing but...I finish work at 8 almost all days so I´ll only be able to have running water in the mornings. And please keep in mind that we do not only use water for showers, but cooking, washing plates and clothes...sigh.

What else, yes, I actually have my flight back to Finland. I managed to change the flight when I called Air France the other day. I took the latest date possible, cause I am supposed to be working here for one year. I started on July 13th (I think) and I´ll leave Venezuela on July 11th. On Saturday I was told that I can stay and work at Ruge if I want. Well, we´ll see what happens. Right now it seems very unlikely that I´d stay here. But never say never, right?

Well, the computer at my place is still not working so...but I´ve found a new internet café near my place, so maybe I´ll write more often in the future.

I have a cold. I´m trying to cure myself with a combination of Finnish traditional medicine such as garlic, combined with Venezuelan medicine. It´s been successful to the extent that I haven´t had to take days off from work but whereas a cold in Finland would last me for about a week it seems that a Venezuelan cold takes at least two weeks to conquor (spelling?).

Some news from work. We have three new English teachers, which means less work for mee! Jaaa! They are all Venezuelans, or Maracuchos. The Idiomas Ruge here in Mcbo is really getting busier, we´ve even had to open the second floor for teaching. The school has two floors and sofar we´ve been using only the 4 rooms downstairs. Upstairs we have four more rooms. Another (or a third) piece of news is that now we have uniforms. The guys have had their ruge shirts for a while now and since Monday we gilr got our white shirts with a ruge logo. I am not too excited about the uniforms, casu I don´t even have an iron to iron the shirt and besides I´m going to freeze to death wearing that thing. Usually I have a sweater and a scar on me in class...we´ll have to see how many t-shirts I can fit underneath the shirt.

What else...I´m still dancing salsa on saturdays and teaching german on the ocasional Sunday. Ah, and I migth be teaching german at Ruge in the future. Sofar there is no material and I guess they would prefer to ahve a native teacher. But since there seem to be people asking for German they have decided to give me a try. Or we´ll se what happens.