Wednesday morning, I made some cookies and that night, I wrapped them in some tin foil, stuck them in my purse, put on my new coat and my bright red wellies and set off for Andy, the leader of Pathfinder's house for a team dinner. I was about 99% sure where I was going so I headed down Marston Ferry Road hoping that I would find the footpath that would take me to a shortcut to get to his house. After passing the Cherwell School, I found a sign for a footpath and headed down it. It was dark. Like really dark. And after about five minutes of walking, the path ended and I reached a padlocked fence. Not good. I thought for about thirty seconds about jumping the fence and then decided not to because I really wasn't keen on being shot. So I tramped through a few bushes, well off the beaten track to get back to the main street. Where I was nearly immediatly almost hit by a bus. It whizzed by me and I thought I was going to be knocked over by the force of the air passing by. It was scary. Especially since my back was to oncoming traffic. Oy.
Finally, I found another path, past the river and headed down that. It was even darker. And even muddier. And all I had was my ipod for some light, which I ended up turning off because whenever it was lit up, it just made my world that much darker. Oh the irony. I saw a few lights up ahead of me and just prayed that I wouldn't get knocked upside the head beofre I reached the light. I finally made it to the Victoria Arms pub, turned right and headed down the street. Which you think would have been lite but it wasn't. At one point, because of the light behind me, it felt like I was walking into a wall of black. Really, it could have been a wall because I couldn't see a thing. I finally made it out to an actual road and very easily found Andy's house. And I made it right on the dot of 6:30, which would have been great if the dinner actually started at 6:30. Which is didn't. Awesome. However, they were cool about it-Andy and Dave popped out for a drink and to get some rice and Steph, Andy's wife, and I chatted and it was fine. Still felt like a moron but it was fine.
Eventually, Heather, Jared, Pete and Jonathan arrived (Heather, Dave, Andy and I are the Sunday and Friday team, Jared, Pete and Jonathan are the Friday night only members) and we all sat down to chili and rice and cheese- absolutely delicious! We all squeezed around the table, we talked, we laughed, we had dessert, we talked and laughed some more, we had some deeper discussions, we got to know each other, it was wonderful. I am so, so, so, so excited about being able to work on this team and not only get to know the kids better but to hopefully make friends out of the other team members. Jared, Pete, Jonathan and I had a long, long conversation after dinner that felt totally natural. I loved it! And it's so interesting being one of two girls on a team of seven. It's rare in youth groups that the girl staff members are the minority but Heather and I are the only two. Still, it's better than when it was just Heather, right? Oh, and I got a ride home so I didn't have to walk through dark scary footpaths again. That was lovely.
Then tonight, my Discuss group had their social and so everyone gathered at my house for a Mexican meal. I spent the afternoon cleaning up the place and making some guacamole (maybe the best batch I've made in a long time- AND I got to use the potato masher to mix up the mixture, that was fun.... it's the little things, folks!). Minor fiasco when I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to thaw the meat. Oy ve. Luckily, some hot water in a pot came to teh rescue and it thawed out and I cooked the meat in no time. By the time everyone had arrived, we had a lovely spread of tortillas, taco meat, two types of beans, Mexican rice, lettuce, tomatos, cheese, salsa, guacamole, sour cream and some great drinks. Some people needed a lesson on taco making so Rob, the other American, and I led the way. It was so dang delicious- I miss my Mexican food! Luckily, I saved the rest of the meat and took some of the lettuce and tomato for dinner tomorrow night!
Again, the dinner was so pleasant- lots of chatting, laughter, getting to know each other. We discussed the Olympics and how curling really is just a combination of bowling, ice staking, shuffleboard and sweeping. And seeing as I'm poor in all four areas, I assume I'd be a very poor curler. We had a delicious dessert of cookies and ice cream- of which I did not partake since I have given those things up for Lent- but luckily there was a still a little guacamole left for me to finish off, until I realized that I wanted the rest of the guacamole for tomorrow night's taco and that left me really dessert-less. Oh well.For the rest of the night, we play Imagin-Iff which in a way gave us the opportunity to kind of get to know each other better. For example, we learned that I would be the movie "Around the World in 80 Days" because I like to travel (Although "The Ten Commandments", because I'm Jewish, was a close second), Liz would be Billy Joel, Gareth would be a Golden Retriever, Ed would go to a world-famous museum for his dream vacation (he admitted he had never been to the British Museum), Chloe has trouble remembering to move her piece forward when she gets the answer right, Becky would like Honesty and Sense of Humour in her future children and Rob's fashion faux-pas would be wearing socks with sandals, which he would do in his house. The questions were absolutely ridiculous but we laughed so much and had a great time.
It is so, so, so weird to think that I've yet to be in this country for a month and I'm already having great nights with people who I soon hope to call friends. It's amazing to think that I alreayd have three volunteer jobs lined up, I'm working with Junior highers in another country, I in a way have a life (not in the lame, wow, you don't have a life, sarcasm kind of way). If this is what happens in a month, what do you think will happen in two?!
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