Hello everyone.. first of all, some of you have been asking for our address and it is below. However, let me warn you, we do not know if letters will actually arrive seeing as we’ve never seen a mailman or a post office, and even taxi drivers have never heard of our neighborhood, plus we don’t have a mailbox… but our neighbors say that mail does actually come… so we’ll see.

Timoteo y Karina Reimann
312 Calle 32B y 27A x 29A
El Rosario, Chuburná,
Mérida, Yucatán, México 97206

Yesterday we left at 5pm to go to the pastor’s daughters quincenera (15-year-old birthday) and got home at 1:45am. It was so much fun. It was the first quincenera that Tim or I had been too and it was quite a production. It was at an old plantation and was beautiful. It was more extravagant than most weddings I’ve been too. It included a religious service welcoming the girl into womanhood, for which Tim played trumpet in the worship band and did a wonderful job!

The service was followed by appetizers, drinks, and dinner. Throughout the night the birthday girl’s group of boys and girls – which is the equivalent of a bridal party, did many awesome coordinated dances. There was a father-daughter dance, and a chance for any men to dance with the birthday girl. Also, our pastor went up and said he wanted one more dance with his daughter… but they busted out this coordinated dance and it was hilarious. Overall it was a very interesting and entertaining evening. (ps we took our cool new wedding-present camera and got some great shots! We’re having so much fun taking pictures with our camera!)

At the end of the night Emilio and Eva (the parents of our neighbors who invited us to the birthday party that first week), asked if we wanted a ride home. We accepted and on the way home they told us they had been by our house 3 times in the last week trying to come by and take us around town or to an event in downtown but we weren’t home. So we exchanged numbers and have plans for sometime this week to go to a festival downtown and go out to dinner with them. Also, we have a set date in September for when we are going to Chichen Itza with them (Chichen Itza is one of the Seven Wonders of the World and is a huge Maya temple and city in ruins). On the way home they took us on a driving tour of the nicer part of Merida and then we stopped for ice-cream at 1:15am! They are such a nice couple and we’re excited they are taking us under their wing! This past week we had our first 3 days of teacher orientation. It went well and we had fun meeting all of the other teachers at our school. The school has 300 students this year- which is incredible because it is only the 4th year of the school and last year they had 150 students. Therefore about half the teachers are new to the school so we are not alone in that. This week orientation continues but will be more focused on how to teach English, as well as time to set up our classrooms. I was getting pretty nervous about teaching realizing that I have to both manage a classroom of little kids while still trying to make sure they are truly learning English, but I got my teachers manual for reading yesterday and after reading through the first couple weeks of lessons I feel like “okay, I can do this.” Tim and I just have the attitude that it is going to be hard for the first couple of months, but with prayer, patience, and time we will get better and better at teaching!