Well, Our Girl actually got off on her class trip at the crack of dawn this morning, to  study rock formations and have “fellowship with students and teachers” –  to Tapalpa – a town up in the mountains about two hours from here. Rosa, who was really opposed to her going  till she brings her English grade up –  is fine with her going now. I had to intervene and say “look, she’s studying like mad, we have a meeting scheduled next week with her English teacher, this is a great chance for her to get out of her village and see something new and have some fun with her friends in a supervised way with a bunch of teachers chaperoning – let her go…her grades will be fine.” So Rosa reluctantly gave her permission for her baby to take off  on the trip and spread her wings just a little. And of course, as one could have predicted, last night I got a call from Sofi about 9 p.m. saying “please, madrina, can I borrow a proper suitcase from you? My mother wants me to put all my stuff in a nylon market bag and it just won’t fit” – I said, sure, come over, we have lots of luggage, you can borrow something.

Reading between the lines I thought that all the kids were going to show up with sort of reasonable duffle bags and trendy “weekender” luggage, and here comes Sofi with her mother’s plaid nylon bag for carrying onions from the market – NOT cool. Anyway they came running over here (ferried over by Danny in the truck as it was late) and we found a very nice black duffle bag of Arnold’s for her to borrow with lots of compartments, plus I gave her a quilted vest and a polarfleece jacket (was going to give them to her anyway as they are HUGE on me since I lost weight) so she’s got nice warm things to wear, Danny lent her some gloves too. The kids were all supposed to gather at school to get on buses at 7:30 this morning, so she’s off!

She gets back home Sunday night and I will be really curious to see if she had fun! Bet she will have a blast. She’s never spent a night away from home. I thought Rosa would be all teary-eyed but she has accepted the inevitable – that it’s time to let her break away from home and the familiar just a little bit – and she’s here cleaning and seems perfectly content. Only bummer is that our usually superb, warm, February weather has been displaced by a nasty ‘frente frio” – a cold front – and it’s cold and nasty and drippy-rainy out there. But I am consoling myself by saying “look, these kids are fifteen, they will still have a blast and it’ll be a big adventure for them all to be out of the clutches of their parents for the weekend….” One can only hope.