farmer tan

Yes, I am finally beginning to work on the dreaded farmer tan. And no, no matter what the song may say, every girl does NOT want a man with a farmer tan, much less want one for herself. Yesterday was a family outing day. We went to a water park and it was quite the adventure. In my mind I pictured the water parks of the United States--wave pools, slow-moving 'rivers,' and at least five different water slides of death. Knowing, of course, that I am not IN the United States, I prepared myself to be disappointed, but did not prepare myself quite enough. There were four pools, one slide, and a high-dive. That was cool, because as far as I could remember, none of the pools that I'd been to had ever had a high-dive. The kids had fun, and the three boys under my care did what any normal kid would do--find the thing they like the best and then do it over and over and over again. Manuel took to the high dive while Nico preferred the slide. Tony was more timid and preferred to jump back and forth between the kiddie pool and the water slide splash pool. I tried to teach him a few things about swimming because he said he couldn't swim. However, none of it really sank in. He can swim a little bit, but it's almost as if he thinks he's going to get where he wants to go without moving his arms or legs in any sort of rapid, coordinated manner. He would push off from the wall, kick once or twice, and then move his arms a bit, and hopefully end up where I was standing in the middle of the water. It was great fun. However, I wore a shirt for the entire day for reasons of sun protection and fitting in with the local picture of modesty. The result was the beginnings of a farmer tan. Oh well.
In other news, I've started to become something of a rebel. Sabbath afternoon there was an activity for the kids in the multi-uso. I went around at about 3:00 to get the kids together for the activity. As the kids began to congregate in the sala, Papi Pedro came out and said that the kids couldn't go because the activity wasn't until 3:30. I told him it was at 3:00, because it was. Then he said that they couldn't go unless they were wearing their Sabbath clothes, then that just the girls couldn't go because they weren't wearing dresses. I tried to convince him that they didn't need to be wearing their Sabbath clothes because they would be running around. He was apalled at the very idea. I said that just because it was Sabbath didn't mean that they needed to wear the same clothes all day, and that God loves us no matter what we wear. He had no response for that. The older girls said it wasn't that important and decided not to go. So I went with the other kids to the multi-uso. While we were there, the older girls made a break for it, and I had to go back and tell the adults that it was ok for the girls to wear shorts because the other girls were wearing shorts. They didn't buy it, and I left. After the activity, the girls came and told me thanks for waking them up for the activity and that they respected me. Then the parents started talking to the kids and telling them that I shouldn't have taken them to the activity and that it was all my fault and that I shouldn't go on the Sunday excursion. The kids came back and told me this and kept telling me, "Don't worry, don't worry." It felt nice to have the kids on my side. It turned out that nothing like that happened. I went on the excursion and all was well. We'll see how things go after this.