The past few days around the CCS house have been quite dramatic - Monday there was an incident I was involved in at CAASAH where a girl picked at a scratch till it bled and then tried to get my attention by grabbing my arm. She also had blood on her hand when she grabbed my arm, so it was a little bit of a fiasco for a second, seeing as how we were walking out the door. The problem isn't that I'm worried I'll get HIV (I had no cuts on my arm) but that there were no saftey precautions taken, and there was no nurse around, and I had NO idea what to do! I washed off my arm (CAASAH doesnt have soap) with water, and put on some hand sanitizer I happened to have been carrying. I was really scared though, because it was such a close call. If I HAD had a cut, I probably would now have HIV. Yikes. Regardless, I still have to get tested for the next 2 years. Anyway, I had several talks with the CCS staff about preparing their volunteers better, and I think in the future they are going to, and we were told some of the procedures around CAASAH. So, I think it will be ok. Oh - and today I saw lice on the heads of one of the babies. Yikes. Now everyone at the house is freaking out about it.

Anyway, apparently some people were not ok with the fact that I was upset about what happened- and were talking about me overreacting and stuff.... I knew living in a house with 20 other girls was going to be dramatic.

Today we went to this lagoon and went to a museum about music. They had an exhibit on this one pop singer who sings at Carnaval - her costumes were AWFUL!!! On one of them the top was actually headlights. Seriously. They worked! I also tried a traditional Salavadorian snack - Acarage. Very tasty. But, they serve it with dried shrimp, and the shrimp still have all their parts. Its kinda strange. Very fishy tasting.

Daddy - Don't read this. Apparently yesterday there were some riots in Salvador - I'm not sure what about but they were close to where we live. Not very close but, close enough. People were driving back and forth around here playing something out of their stereos that was all talking (of course, I understood none of it) and I assume some of it was about the riots. Now they are playing music. A lot of people have huge stereos attached to the tops of cars - its totally not uncommon to see stuff like that just driving around.

Don't worry everyone. I'm being super careful. Buddy system is in place.