El Norte was blowing all night. If you leave anything on the clothesline when the wind is this strong, it will likely rip it free from your little pansy clothespins and wrap it around the spiral razorwire on the top of the wall. Then you have to climb up there and unwrap it like a crazy puzzle. We don’t make that mistake anymore. El Norte blew all day without tiring.
Paul and I decided to walk out of town toward Santa Catarina. I didn’t make it that far, but we did walk along the lake, which is stunning all day every day, without exception. The main form of transportation for the villages coming into Pana is by pick-up, the smaller ones, not like the F150. One pickup passed us packed with 30 people, maybe more. The pickup was practically dragging its bottom on the ground with 7 men turned sideways, standing on the back bumper and holding on with one hand. I was looking at all the traditional Mayan outfits, blue representing this particular village (each village has a different pattern of colors for their traditional dress). Since all the people were coming from the same village, the women were all wearing the exact same pattern of blue weaving. From far away it could have looked like one piece of cloth. Meanwhile Paul was remarking on what an amazing invention the combustible engine is. We were both in awe of the scene before us, but for different reasons.
We got lucky and skyped with both of our families today. With the exception of my dad, we saw every single person in both of our immediate famlies. Skype is amazing.
We came home and did a lot of relaxing. Paul and I needed to recover from yesterday’s food prep. Don’t have the same food prep stamina that the woman here have, that’s for sure. I’m more of an alreday prepared food buyer in Canada, but that’s not even possible here. Paul read his new book that he found in the bookstore, the girls were playing with their gifts. We played some Wii, then watched a couple of movies. It was a good relaxing Boxing Day.