Becoming familiar with nothing that is familiar

As I am finally becoming familiar with Cusco, I realize that I really miss the things that I have always been familiar with. I know my way around Cusco, but everything that I am familiarizing myself with is all different. I miss being able to go to the supermarket and seeing foods that I recognize. I miss being able to walk down the street without anyone staring at me. I miss being able to call up friends to just hang out for a while. I miss turning on the television and watching shows in English. Sometimes, I just miss how much easier it was when everything was familiar, when I was more confident in life. I really like the people that I have met here and Cusco is a beautiful city, but it takes a lot of getting used to. I dislocated my ankle, again, so I have had a lot of time to sit and think about things. I celebrated July 4th on my couch with a fig cake that said Happy Independence Day in Spanish from my friends and mentors here Herbert and Gladys. I have been in Cusco almost nine months now and there are still days when I just have no clue what is going on. I guess there will always be those days, but they can be tough. I have a new schedule at the bakery, that does not include being at the cash register a lot, for which I am grateful. I check up on the girls to make sure everything clean and in order in their rooms (I am very lenient with this process, as my room is no picture of cleanliness either), I have organized the disaster that was the library and now everyone has to check out books through me. I also created new menus for the store for our fresh juices and hot drinks and advertising, which turns out to have been generally a waste of time. Why a waste? Four new volunteers from France have been here for a couple of weeks, doing a type of internship through their university. They are all very nice and while they are here they have to do a project. The nun in charge here asked them to do the same exact things (i.e. the menus and advertising) that she asked me to do over a month ago. The thing is she didn't tell either one of us that she had asked the other to do the same things. So I finished everything just in time to find out that they had found a company in France that was going to do them all professionally. You can imagine my frustration, but that's just the way things go here sometimes, most of the time actually. I am recently coming off my crutches, so I will be more useful once again. Everyone here can't believe that I hurt my ankle for the second time and it has earned me the nickname of "Clumsy Jersey" from one of the regular customers. All the girls here continue in their studies, most of them doing well. There have been a lot of requests for English homework help, so that keeps me busy as well. Also, all the secret boyfriends give us lots to talk about. We recently acquired 2 baby chickens who have been fondly named Meghan and Catherine, although there is now debate over whether Catherine is male or female. When things get realy hard is when I miss my more familiar life on the United States, but I always try to keep things in perspective. This is all a learning experience and is so much to learn from Cusco.