The girls are in official countdown mode for the day their sister arrives. Actually, they have been in countdown mode from the day we got here. They miss her very much (yes, I do, too). After that I’m sure they will start the next countdown, which is when their dad arrives, then their uncle, aunt, cousin, and grandparents visit in March. Seeing family is always a highlight for us no matter where we live.
Cali bounced out of bed and off to school, probably wouldn’t have needed the tuk tuk. She cannot get there soon enough nor stay long enough. Madi got out her brand new jumbo box of Nesquik only to find tiny little ants in it everywhere. These ants were so teeny tiny, almost translucent, you have to squint to see them. Are they pre-ants or a different kind of annoying insect we had yet to encounter? Madi and I were pretty freaked out. I like to think I had my just-all-part-of-the-adventure face on, but truthfully my skin crawled. The whole box of cereal had them, so b’bye. I sprayed raid under the counter like I did the last time, but when we got home later, they were still everywhere. I’ve created an ant super-race, immune to raid. I’m clever and doomed at the same time.
In town, away from the fumes, I dropped off laundry, put more minutes of Madi’s phone. I had a breakfast and felt [almost] neglected that no one tried to sell me even one keychain. Where was everyone? On the one hand it was peaceful, on the other hand I missed my persistent and creative little entrepreneurial visitors.
Cali came home from school so incredibly happy, saying how much fun she has at school every day. Music to my ears. After I gave her more to eat, we walked into town to get ice cream. She was going to try some purple stuff, but decided on her favorite pistatio. We picked up our pretty laundry presents, did some homework while we had a limonada con soda. Next we found just the right containers to keep our cereal from the ants at Mismo Precio, so bought four of those. If the ants start snapping open plastic containers, I’ll wave the white flag and then can officially take over the world.
We went to pick up Madi and they were having a meeting at her school about testing the lake water. The lake has been diagnosed with cyanomas bacteria. All that I can gather from everyone, is that this is bad. Bad enough that the president of Guatemala made a special trip here to stand at the edge of the lake and officially scratch his presidential head. Ya, THAT bad. Cleaning the lake is a great area of concern here, and rightfully so. But solving the problem would require a solution, money, a plan on how to do this, an even better plan to make sure the money isn’t embezzeled, and people to implement the plan.
This particular group of people gathered at Madi’s school were science teachers from the different schools. They hope to test the water regularly around the lake to collect data that can be used to find a solution. One of the solutions they were discussing was carp. One person sent their opinion via phone that the carp already living in the lake (imported from the U.S.) were creating the problem, changing the ecosystem. There was another theory on the table that adding neutered carp (don’t know why they need to be in that condition) would consume the bacteria in the lake diminishing the problem. I told them that since Kier is bringing down something to help test the water (at their request), perhaps she could also bring down a suitcase of carp. Save the lake one suitcase at a time. With all the tourists that pass through here, they should impose a one suitcase of carp tourism tax. You laugh, but I do think they will need to do something creative to fund saving the lake.
Collectively, people are making an effort. There is some type of event that is happening for three days to raise awareness of the lake problem, or perhaps raise money? Or we may simply be funding someone who is concerned about the lake. People have to be creative about making a living down here. Not sure about certain events and one flier is a bit vague on purpose. We may check it out tomorrow out of pure curiosity, mine.
Also discovered a weekly Science club at one of the other schools that both younger girls could attend. Two of the Science teachers were in attendance from that school. I’ll see if Madi and Cali want to plug into that.
During the evening Cali did her homework, Madi washed our new cereal containers and now our cereal is safe. Take that you ants. No, I was kidding, don’t become more clever.
Cali heard the church service start and said, “Must be past my bedtime.” I told her when we get home she may not be able to get to sleep without loud church music. She said at home she would turn up her ipod and play High School Musical. Ummm, kinda different except that they both annoy me to the same extent. Ok, that’ll work.
Cali’s small blog: Today I had lots and lots and lots of fun. I loved my day. When I was coming home from school in my tuk tuk, I saw Madi’s school walking down the street. I was like the queen passing all of my subjects by in the street. But let me start at the beginning. This morning I had scrambled eggs and peanut butter and jam toast for breakfast. Breakfast is a very important meal of the day, so that’s why I tell you what I had. When I got to school we read a book that taught us about skeletons. Then we made a skeleton with scissors and popsicle sticks. We used the scissors to cut the popsicle sticks. If you are wondering if we cut ourselves a million times doing this, you would be right, we did. My partner was my friend. Our skeleton was very nice, and so we named him Freddie. After we made our skeleton, we had lunch and brushed our teeth. I had a big beautiful S on the cover of one of my books, and my teacher says that is the symbol for death here. So I brought my pretty book home. Isn’t that too bad? It’s just one of those things. Then we went outside and played the game at recess that we play always. We’ll keep playing that game until we get tired of that. How long do you think that will take? When we came inside we went to art class. We made a pencil and crayon holder. I have a picture of it so you will be able to see it. Then we had English. I mostly teach the English class, it seems. They have me say the words and they repeat after me. Then they all teach me how to say the words in Spanish. Today I learned these words: cantar, bailar, ejercitar, leer, escuchar, trabajar, pintar, jugar, comer, mirar. They had a lot of trouble saying the English words “exercise” and “watch”. After Ingles, I went home in the tuk tuk. That’s when I passed by Madi. When I got home I made sure to feed my fish by putting them in the sun. They are hungry and are getting smaller, yikes. Now mom and I walked into town to get our clean clothes from the laundrymat. I wonder if they will wrap my underwear up like a little presents. My dad doesn’t wrap up our laundry like that at home with bows. Why is that daddy? Then we went to Mismo Precio to get plastic containers for our cereal. We are having trouble with ants again. They are winning. Then we went to pick Madi up at school and came home. I have homework to do. I have to draw action pictures for my vocabulary. I’m glad I have another day of school tomorrow. I had a dream last night that had Oma and Ruthchen in it. I made lots of fun stuff all evening after my homework. Madi and I often do that in the evening after our homework. Now I need to go to bed. P.S. I love you all very very much and my tooth is loose so I can’t eat market corn on the cob.
Madi’s day: Today at school we watched some of Obama’s speech from last night. Then I started a conversation with the high schoolers on how Obama will get paid a hundred million dollars when he does 5 minutes of a speech somewhere. They all started arguing about how many zeros that would have. It was a funny argument as they were pretendng to get all crazy. Jen made banana bread. I helped her mush the bananas and put in the sugar and the butter. She added chocolate chips. I actually tried some of it and it was good. A girl in my class got hives all over her body after eating fish from her mom’s restaurant. One of the teachers went to his house to get medicine for her. Next we went to Solomon’s Porch without her because she had to wait for the medicine. As we were walking to Solomon’s Porch, we saw Cali in her tuk tuk on her way home from school. We went to watch Cry Freedom because we are learning about segregation and apartheid. Today everyone made a habit of stealing my flip flops. First one guy stole it, then gave it to another guy, who needed one of my pretzels as ransom (“or the shoe gets it, the shoe will get it I tell you”), some other boy hid it under the futon. Mature. Then we had some of the banana bread my teacher made. We didn’t get to finish the movie today. We came back and there were science teachers from the city and they were talking about the problems of the lake. They are trying to organize testing of the water. The teachers were going to learn about the new testing equipment and trying to figure out a system. Then we came home and had my favorite supper again (yay!). I made signs for my massage parlor upstairs. Tomorrow Cali is going to make signs for her yoga studio.