Cali’s tuk was early, laying on the horn. She was on her way out the door, but she wasn’t waiting for her on the street. I’ll have to make sure we are ready early enough, since we complained. But I’m glad he took our request to be on time seriously.
After Cali was off to school, my sister Mia and I dropped her daughter at the Spanish school, which she attends in the mornings. It has a nice little courtyard where teachers give lessons to their students.
Our next project was to figure out how we are going to get Mia to Xela. That’s the city where her lawyer is. Mia needs the deed to her house in Pana so that she can get an electricity meter installed on the house. We went down to where the chicken buses park and waited for the Xela bus. Someone we asked said it came at 10am. We grabbed a quick breakfast, Mia bought a purse in between having her tea and when her meal arrived. We max out every minute of the day when she’s here. Then we walked up to the bus stop to wait for the chicken bus. We found out from a chicken bus driver that the direct bus to Xela doesn’t come until 1pm, but she could take a bus to Los Encuentros and transfer there. So she hopped on the bus. It is a 2 1/2 hour ride to Xela. It would be a long day on the buses. All Mia had to say about the trip when she returned, was that Greyhound buses sway greatly when driven like a gocart.
I went over to my friend’s house. We were going to sort through more clothes for the paka on Sunday. But some of the other women couldn’t come, so instead we sorted through all the craft donations, a managable job for two people. There were huge bins of crayons, scissors, glue, misc. craftsetc. We sorted, threw out the junk. Took us all morning, but I like creating order. After we finished that job, they invited me to stay for lunch.
I went and picked up my niece from Spanish school and we returned to have spaghetti. Delicious lunch. I love salads, should make them more. We started making plans to go to the waterpark that is a couple of hours away.
After that I dropped my niece off at the family’s house to play with Cali, who was already there. I had to run some errands, get groceries, normal life stuff. But when I do normal life stuff here, it usually requires a least an hour of walking. Multi-tasking. After errands I picked up the girls. Mia called that she made it back from Xela. We celebrating her deed-in-hand for her house by eating empanadas and pizza. A most excellent celebration. We went to PanaSuper to get some treats, then we walked home.
We called Paul for his birthday and each of us got to talk to him for quite sometimes. Gotta love the free MagicJack phone calls home. Paul hadn’t spoken to Kier since she’d returned from Honduras. Come to think of it I still haven’t gotten the detailed rundown of the trip. But I’m sure the stories will come out here and there. It’s been busy since she’s gotten home, there hasn’t been time.
The rainy season may be here a few weeks early and here to stay. We can take it. Sometimes the rain comes in handy, case in point. Cali was trying to get to sleep and was extremely frustrated. I didn’t understand why tonight was different from other nights, but there were just too many noises happening. The regular church service was going on, our neighbor was alternating betweeen practicing the trumpet and the xylophone, and it was thundering. She was in tears saying, “I just can’t take it anymore! I’m getting adult headaches.” I brought her downstairs, where the music sounds are slightly muffled by the rain on the tin roof. That worked.
Kier and I went over to my friend’s house for movie night. They wanted to watch Hotel Rwanda. Ugh. I don’t like movies that are that depressing, but none of them had seen it. I took a nap during the movie. We had to take our DVD player over to my friend’s house, because they don’t own one (BYO-DVD). But they do have comfy nice couches. They had panqueques for a snack. It was a fun evening, me with my girlfriend and Kier with her friends. We didn’t have any trouble getting a tuk home, even later on a Monday night.
Cali’s frog blog with guest writer, her cousin: Today I had lots and lots of fun. My tuk tuk was really early so I got to school on time. But my cousin is here so she will tell you about her morning. Here she is. Hi. Today I did the abc’s in Spanish in my lesson. I did number in Spanish to 30 then vowels. Then my aunt picked me up from school. Then we went to the family’s house. Cali was already there. We got a bag of candy. Cali taught me how to climb the tree and she did lots of translating. Last night after we came back from the famliy’s house we went and had pizza. Then we went to bed. Cali: P.S. I love you all very much, especially Daddy who has his birthday tomorrow. Love you daddy.