In the absence of real drama, I seem to have no problem creating my own. I started my day by locking myself out of the house at 7:15 a.m. I went out with Cali to put her on the tuk tuk for school, shut the door behind me like I always do, forgetting that Madi was at her sleepover and Kier was camping. There was no one inside to let me back in. I was outside without a key, and what’s worse, had no money for coffee!! I was just glad this wasn’t one of those mornings when I rushed outside in my pj bottoms and unsupported, if you know what I mean.
I knocked on the neighbor’s door, but he didn’t have a spare key. He must have read my mind because he asked if I wanted a coffee while we figured out what to do next. Yeeeesssssss. We sat and talked about his kids for a while. Next he considered riding his bike over the the campground to get Kier’s key. But after weighing the option of interrupting a teen camping trip he convinced me it would be less painful for the two of us to climb on to the roof, even though we didn’t have a ladder and our combined age was well over 100. I had never seen a Guate teen camping trip, so I had to trust his judgement (and felt concerned simultaneously).
After a huge amount of effort, both of us on the roof, a few skinned knees later (his unfortunately or fortunately), he hoisted me over a wall from the roof, and I was in the house. Neither of us sliced our legs on the tin metal roofing, fell off the roof, wall, or balcony rail, even though I would count three rather dicey moments when I must confess I thought, “I could pay a small boy 10 Q to do this and remain alive.” I’d already opened the doors at the back of the house earlier in the morning to try to remove spiders from our covers, otherwise this plan would not have worked.
Last night Cali got a three more bite-welts, the size of quarters, minutes after she crawled into bed. It’s as if they were waiting for their evening meal to arrive. They aren’t mosquito bites, more like spider bites. Since Kier’s and Cali’s mattress is on the floor, I had to get it off the floor. The bites are painful, then unbearably itchy for days.
After the lock-out fiasco, I asked my neighbor what the Spanish word for boxspring is, so that I can get the mattress off the floor. My neighbor said he tried to get one and they had to bring one in from the city. He paid way too much for it and it took a couple of weeks. He offered to help me figure out a cheaper alternative if I was interested. We rode our bikes up the street to a place where they sell lumber. I took the measurements of the bed. They said they could make a basic frame by 5 p.m. for $13. Done. Then we rode up to a different place, bought 6 cinderblocks for a base for 24Q or $2.70 (crazy cheap, I know), threw them in a tuk tuk, followed the tuk to the house. Done and done. It was only 8:30. Turns out locking myself out of the house was rather productive.
Next I stripped the beds and took the sheets to get laundered and tied up in bows. I moved the mattress, found two medium sized dead spiders by the bed, one in the bed. They are spiders bites, mystery solved once and for all. My neighbor says we don’t have scorpions, they live closer to the riverbed. Well, thank goodness there is one type of insect that won’t likely be feeding on our bodies like we are an all you can eat buffet. Comforting. He also said if one is stung by a scorpion it hurts badly enough to wake you up.
Needless to say I also got a few extra keys made when I was in town. I’ll give one to the neighbor so he doesn’t have to scrape any more skin off his knees to help me out. That really was above and beyond the good neighbor clause. I probably owe him a bottle of some kind of liquor.
Kier came home from camping. They had fun. The campground was on the lake, so some of them went swimming at midnight. They roasted two bags of marshmallows, ate lots of junk food, did other campy things. She thought it was funny that they had never had a brown-toasted marshmallow before, they only burned them in the flames to a small black puck. They toasted a few and showed them, they were amazed like she had invented the actual fire. She had a great time. This group of friends have been going camping since they were 13, a year older than Madi. I can’t imagine letting Madi go camping with her friends and no adults. I had a hard enough time letting Kier go and she is a junior in high school. Different culture. But don’t worry mom, the boys slept in 2 other tents, far away from the girl tent, just in case you are wondering, and I know you were.
Madi came home from her sleepover in the afternoon. Then Cali and Madi and I went to go get the dog Max and took him for a walk. Jan is away and she usually walks Max. Madi has been looking forward to this since Thursday when it was arranged.
We walked down to the lake and Cali played on the beach for almost an hour.
She was finding “glory rocks.” I asked her what those were, she said they were rocks that we so beautiful, that they must be full of glory so had to be called that. They were white and extremely porous. I don’t know if they are from the volcano somehow. She collected many of them and we took a picture which we’ve posted, in case you’ve never seen a rock chalked full of glory.
Madi was playing with a group of 6 indigenous girls. They were absolutely fascinated that doggie Max could fetch a ball. Then I realized most of their dogs don’t do any tricks, they just lie around. Teaching your dogs tricks is more a North American interest. They giggled with delight as Madi threw the ball down the beach and Max brought it back. Each of the girls wanted to try it. Max got a great workout.
The guys came to deliver the lumber for the bed at about 5:30. Turns out they nailed the entire frame together, which was a bonus, carried it down the street to my house, all for $13. Madi and I will test it out, but I think it will hold. Worst thing that will happen is that we end up on the floor, a bit startled in the middle of the night.
After that I went to a small singing group, the one run by Kier’s guitar teacher. K came and read magazines in the back just to hang out. The group is practicing for a performance on Saturday. Funny thing is they had never practiced the song, didn’t have the lyrics, and are expected to do it in 5 days. So disorganized, but people just fly by the seat of their pants here. One person got a computer to try to find the words, another person walked over the the place the performance is taking place, trying to figure out exactly what we are singing, and when. It’s part of a play that is being performed 5 times and they needed a group to sing a song at some point in the performance. We ran through the song about 8 times, they said wear black pants, white blouse, there are five performances, try to memorize the song because we’ll be in the dark. 20 minutest of prep and done. There you have it, that’s all the prep we get, see you Friday for the performance (no time given). Nobody stresses about it either, they’ll just go and do their best. Perfection is not a common expectation here. It’s a bit of an adjustment, coming from a culture of planning, preparation, and perfection. But I do think there is value in learning to sometimes settle for less than perfect.
Kier stayed in town to watch a movie with her friends at the porch. She was writing a paper the entire day, since she got back from camping. She finished her online course, and is absolutely thrilled. She came down to the lake (earlier in the day) dressed up in a sundress, sweater, pretty sandals. I asked why she was dressed up, and she said she was celebrating that she was finished with her course.
Madi’s sleepover blog: At our sleepover we played a game where you go inside a sleeping bag on the trampoline and you try to find the rest of the people on the trampoline. Then we played a game where someone is underneath the trampoline and try to touch the feet of the person above them. We watched the end of a James Bond movie, and then had yogurt for a snack, lots of yogurt. We slept on the trampoline in the courtyard all night. In the morning we had toast and more yogurt for breakfast. The bread was made in their bakery next door. Then we washed the trampoline. We put soap on it and it was all slippery, so we bounced on it. We played on the slip and slide on the ground. I slid on my stomach in all of my clothes, but only scored an 8 out of 10. Not sure that was worth getting my underwear all wet. We played Monopoly. We had some yummy pasta with homemade sauce for lunch. It was really good, I actually ate it. Then my mom came to get me. We went to get Max the dog and I we took him for a long walk. We walked down to lake. I was a bit concerned that the other stray dogs wouldn’t hurt him because he is a smaller dog and there are so many strays on the street. We played fetch for a little while, and there was a crowd of girls around me who had never seen a dog fetch. I let each of them have a turn. They were speaking to me a mile a minute in Spanish. I kept saying si. Then we had to take him back. We got a new bed, that we are switching with Cali and Kier. We watched a Disney movie in Spanish and then went to bed. It was a really good day.