Last night the evil viking wind still blew with a vengence. I had the proper weight of furniture wedged against the front door to prevent it from bursting open and freaking me out. Then around 1 a.m., someone turned off the blower and it stopped. Eeerie calmness. Just in case it was a trick I left the furniture doorstop in place, but it was finished.
Immediately after waking up, Cali said she wanted to stay home all day and relax, that we were doing to much all the time. Here I thought we were relaxing all the time and getting precious little done. So the girls decided to live in the hammock all day. Cali eventually got tired of being in the hammock and washed some clothes, correction, one small item of clothing. Madi was in the hammock with a book and a bag of pretzel for nearly the entire day–her version of a little slice of heaven.
I walked into town solo, and was at the internet cafe for another good chunk of time. I’ve figured out how to quickly download pictures. I had to resize them, that made all the difference. The slow internet connections here just cannot handle pictures in a larger format. I was at the cafe for over two hours and only paid $2.50.
This little town attracts people from all over. For being in such a remote area, Pana does attract people from all over the world. People wandered in from New Zealand, Germany, England, the States, South Africa. People are freely swapping travel tips, where to go, must sees. Lots of young people in their 20s travelling around, not so many 44 year olds with kids in tow. So I’m a bit of a late bloomer.
On the way home I stopped by the bike store to price bikes. The bike I bought last time was stolen. I enjoy riding around town, so even if this one disappears after our stay it will have been a worthwhile investment. I would buy another for the girls, but it’s not like riding bikes at home. They could make it into an ipod app, riding a bike in Guate. You would have to avoid the pick-ups full of people, tuk tuks, motorcycles, other bicycles carrying propane tanks on the back, stray dogs fighting over food, women throwing water out onto the streets, random unmarked deep holes in the street, barbed wire sticking out of fences. I’d get that app.
Then I stopped by the grocery store picked up about 10 items only to find out after I’d paid, that they were out of bags. I usually have one with me, but not this time. So I carried an armful of stuff, like toilet paper, 2 small pillows, spaghetti, juice, etc. home in my arms (less humiliating that trying to hail a tuk tuk). Oh no, that didn’t make me look like a totally crazy gringo. But only a couple of groups of boys laughed at me within earshot. The rest, undoubtably, waited until I was further away.
The window for upstairs didn’t arrive today, but we heard it may be delivered tomorrow. The pick-up truck needed to deliver it to our house, has many different duties it is juggling. Busy truck.
The girls enjoyed being at home all day. Guess they needed some downtime from their downtime. We went to the lake, endless soccer game still going, men still digging and sorting. Grueling work, really.
When we got back, our Guate family was waiting for us, sitting in their yellow tuk tuk. The mom still wears traditional Mayan clothes, always beautifully dressed. We invited them in, gave them drinks. We showed them pictures of our backyard in Canada with all the snow. They couldn’t believe it. We asked what age all 6 of the kids are now, where everyone is going to school. The oldest now drives the tuk tuk along with his dad. He’s 18. I asked if he has a girlfriend, since a tuk tuk is a major drawing card. His sister joked that the tuk tuk IS his girlfriend. (Madi asked me later why no girls are allowed to drive tuk tuks and thought this was incredibly unfair.)
I was saying to Yulissa that she should come and visit us and work on her English. I was trying to say that we have an extra bedroom, but didn’t know the word in Spanish. I grabbed the dictionary to get the word for bedroom, she trying to help me by giving me the word for “bed”. Then I realized that the eight of them live in one small room and here I’m trying to say we have a whole for just her to sleep in, like our other girls. It would probably creep her out to sleep by herself in a room. Good thing I didn’t tell her we actually have a whole extra floor complete with a bathroom, kitchen and family room, where my mom used to live. How crazy would that sound to her?
With the exception of the dad, we all played Uno together. Games are amazing ice breakers. The mom was so excited when she won. We laughed and laughed. We are going to teach them Dutch Blitz next. Meanwhile the dad was playing Scoops on the ipod. Then he got into the other apps, played some music, watched a bit of the Sweet 16 movie. They often ask how much certain things cost, they’re curious. Luckily the laptop wasn’t out. They wanted to know how much the ipod costed. I felt a bit sheepish disclosing, because I know it’s equivalent to a few months income for them, but it seemed rude not to. That’s just one form of entertainment for just one of my kids. I explained this to the girls when the family was gone, they couldn’t believe it. New perspectives.
Cali was exhausted and went to bed as soon as the family left. She is still fighting a cold.
Madi was happy that there wasn’t a church service this evening. She can tolerate the singing less than I can and will walk around the house with her hands on her ears making tortured faces and melting to the ground. Instead tonight there are lots of kids outside on the street yelling, running around, having lots of fun. This is the first night we’ve heard this much laughter. I’m not sure if they have been doing this every night and we just couldn’t hear them because of the service? Perhaps they were also celebrating in their own little way, just like we were. That’s not nice. Wait a minute, I hear a service starting up, but it is a few neighborhoods away. I can only hear electric guitar and drums. I can live with that.
Cali’s Frog Blog: Today I wanted to stay home all day for a change. So I stayed home and played with Madi. I washed my underwear while mommy was gone, for a whole hour. My underwear is very clean. Yesterday I learned how to skip rope, which was something I have needed to do for years. When Mommy got home I went to the store by myself and bought Doritos. We went to the beach and had lots of fun. The stream is getting higher and it’s hard for me to cross. We tried to put more rocks, but it’s not working very well. I got my feet wet. When we got home we saw Dominga’s family waiting at the door so that they could come in. But we were at the beach so they waited until we got home. We played Uno and when they left I washed my feet. That’s how my day went today. I was very tired when I crawled into my Queen bed with the mosquito netting. I love you all.
Madi speaks: Today I read an entire Karen Kijewski mystery novel in the hammock while in my pjs. It was amazing! Meanwhile, Cali washed one pair of underwear for an entire hour and listened to Veggie Tales, a lot. At about 4pm we left for the beach. The men were working on their rock/dirt piles. But today there were a few guys shoveling bits of dirt up onto a dump truck that was much taller than they were. They threw the dirt way up in the air and mostly none of it missed. They filled the entire huge dump truck this way. There was a guy inside with a shovel spreading it out and they never got it on him. When we got home, Yulissa’s (16 year old) family was waiting for us. Then we all went inside and played about 6 games of Uno. The dad looked at Cali’s ipod touch, played all the games, listened to Taylor Swift and watched two cartoons in English. He thought the app where Meatloaf the bulldog is licking the screen was especially funny. There are lots of ants in the kitchen (lucky you Kier). We can’t seem to find ant traps only sprays and mom doesn’t want to put ant killer spray on the counter because we might get poisoned. She says we’ll have to come up with a creative way to trap them. We are wondering what would happen if you mix glue and honey. Then Yulissa’s family invited us to their restaurant for breakfast. The only problem with these invitations is that I don’t eat anything and that can be seen as rude. I usually choke down a bite or two and then when no one is looking I shove the food onto my moms plate because I don’t want to seem ungrateful that they are feeding us their precious food. Especially since they have six kids, I know they don’t have much money. The eight of them live in this little room, but they are always so generous when we come and want to share their food with us. I finished my mystery book and went to bed. Last night was the first night with everyone sleeping under mosquito netting and we didn’t have any bites. That’s good news because I had big huge bites. But my bites have been replaced by a rash on my stomach. I hope that goes away. Soon. Very soon. Hopefully. There is no church service tonight which means no out of tune singing. But there are lots of kids yelling and playing in the streets.