Deyra in 2012!

Once again it’s been awhile…what can I say, I’m a procrastinator by nature and with a blog there’s no deadline! We’ve of course been very busy as usual. Deyra’s English is steadily improving but she still can’t really have a conversation. She still generally talks to me in Spanish but seems to talk to everyone else in English. She is making more of an effort now, perhaps because of the little incident we had right before New Year’s Eve.

Deyra had asked if she could eat with some friends from Nicaragua. I said fine and asked her to call me during the day and tell me when and where she needed to be picked up since she did not know beforehand (she was already in Reedley volunteering during the day). She never called and I finally called her at 4:00 or so. Deyra still reported to know nothing and was very vague. She asked me if “las chicas” could spend the night because they couldn’t stay in the dorms and I told her that she needed to give more notice if she wanted someone to spend the night (we’re working on not asking for things at the very last minute). To make a long story shorter, Deyra never called me, I got mad and called her around 6:00, a host mom explained that some girls from another SEED program were coming and when/where Deyra needed to be picked up.

Needless to say, I was a little upset about Deyra’s lack of communication. We had spoken in Spanish the entire time so she really had no excuses. Both Kevin and I talked to her about it the next day and explained that she needs to tell us what is going on (like that people were coming from out of town, I thought that it was just local kids and that she wanted them to spend the night) ahead of time. I also talked to her about spending all of her time in her room and never speaking English. Deyra told me that she spent all of her time in Nicaragua in her room (in a one room house with at least five other people?) and that she didn’t know that it was weird.

Our little talk seemed to have worked because Deyra spent the rest of Christmas vacation hanging out with us in the living room. She even went to our friends Jon and Sarah’s house with us for New Year’s Eve and stayed up late talking to people. Deyra now asks us to take her places well in advance of the night before like she used to and comes with us when we go out.

Deyra on New Year's Eve

One of the other host parents had all of the first year students over at the beginning of January and they all made gingerbread houses. Deyra really enjoyed this and had her house on display for weeks. Every time a candy would fall off, she would stick it back on until we finally told her it had to go before it started decomposing.

I was gone a couple of weekends ago and she asked Kevin is she could have a friend over. Of course, three friends came but they had a good time. Kevin was a very good dad and taught them to play Yahtzee, made them fresh squeezed orange juice, and watched a movie with them. He said that they had a photo shoot complete with the cats and a stuffed bear!

Deyra with two of the girls that came over

Deyra is taking a couple of animal science classes and came home the other day talking about what a good day she had. She told me that she got to draw blood from a cow’s tale and that it was something she had never done before. She seems to be enjoying her classes for the most part. She’s taking aerobics and volleyball for PE and is having a little trouble with those, especially volleyball. Deyra almost dropped it, but decided to hang in there. She’s never had to take a real PE class before and says that they are hard and she is tired afterwards.

Next up: Deyra gets a computer!