Hayley CP #9

Maria

I with Maria for the last time this week.  She is leaving on Monday and I will be out of town all weekend so we will not get to meet again. It was such a pleasure getting to know her over these last few weeks. At first she was really shy but by this meeting she was much more comfortable and her English has improved so much! Lauren is her other conversation partner so she came along too. We met up with my mom and intended to go to Chili’s but because they close early for summer, we walked to the Pitaria instead.

She was so happy to see my mom again. She really liked talking to her because they are closer in age and such. I asked some questions Maria had previously asked me about the healthcare system in the US. My mom is a nurse who works at the Department of Health so I knew she could provide better answers than I could. My mom was also talking about the protests currently happening in the Capitol over the Hold Your Ground Law. Maria was familiar with the Zimmerman case. I think they have been talking about it in her classes or something.  She told us about the recent protests in Brazil. She thinks that even though the protests are about things that are good (getting more social services, fighting corruption, ect.) that if they continue to elect the same corrupt leaders; no real change will be made.

We walked back to our cars and I said bye to Maria. She said she will keep in touch with me through e-mail and I hope that she does. I also told her to send me all of the pictures she has of us together. All in all, I enjoyed having Maria as a conversation partner and I think the experience has taught me a lot.