Headline: Fire in the House!!

This week has certainly been a busy one, starting with my change of families on Wednesday afternoon. It was not a pleasant departure, with only Raquel home, but I still managed to move my stuff all the way across town and meet Josefina and her 92 year old mother, as well as Irene, her daughter who studies law.

Though it now takes me over a half hour to walk to school, Josefina is so amazing I think these next two weeks will be my best, if not my busiest, here. And when I told her my schedule I included the Combat classes at the gym of Tues/Thurs nights, which prompted her to ask who was the instructor. Not thinking too much of it, I said 'Ricardo,' and soon found out after being shown some photos in the living room that he's her son! Small world!-- or as we say in Spanish, 'El mundo es un panuelo.'

But the surprises still weren't over yesterday. Soon after that revelation a friend came visiting who already had heard of me from my conversation partner, Tati! Things were starting to get surreal. However, the real clincher was later that afternoon as I headed out to Combat class after a quick dinner (french fries and bacon/egg cooked in the same huge vat of oil! Ah!).

Upon saying goodbye (kiss, kiss!) I began walking down the stairs from our fifth floor apartment. As I neared the fourth floor I noticed smoke was in the air. Figuring someone had possibly burned a tortilla or something I continued down the stairs. But by the third floor the smoke was getting so thick I could hardly breath, and I started hearing shouts and the floors below me. I ran straight back up to the apartment yelling 'FIRE!' and helped Josefina get the abuela ready with jacket and shoes. She stuck the cat, Musi, in his bag while I wetted some cloths to stick over our mouths.

But what I didn't realize was that abuela can't walk down stairs (and the smoke was probably too much to do it anyway) so we hopped in the elevator, an act that goes against any fire drill I've ever done. We made it safely down, coughing and smelling of smoke and as we exited the building we could see a huge crowd of people, an ambulance, and firefighters arriving.

In the end, Josefina told me to go to Combat class (she had made a point of grabbing my stuff for class on the way out) and said she'd send me a text message when everything was okay. So I headed off, shaking still from the whole experience. I found out when I came home that, fortunately, no one was injured; the fire started with a senora on the first floor and she was taken to the hospital along with one other man because of the smoke. Besides that, nothing too serious, but quite an experience!