I woke up at 5 from the pitter-pat roof alarm. A few hours later Cali got up and packed for her sleepover. She was going to her friend’s house directly from school, in her friend’s tuk (always exciting). I told our tuk driver that he didn’t need to pick her up after school. At the time he seemed to understand what I was saying, but when school was finished I got a call saying the tuk driver was looking for Cali and they couldn’t find her in the school. I guess somehow the message didn’t get through or our driver forgot. I’m glad the called me immediately to tell me she was missing, not an easy call for them to make, I’m sure. That school may be glad when we leave.
Madi and her sleepover buddies got up in the morning and watched a couple more movies. Then they all went in to the school together while Madi had a math lesson.
Coffeeeee. I woke up Kier because she said she didn’t want to miss breakfast with me…awwwww. She would rather give up sleeping in to hang out with me. A few times I didn’t wake her up and she was upset that we missed our coffee time. Feeling loved by the teen, am not stupid, will savor those moments. While we were sitting at the Dehli a long parade (by Pana standards) passed by the restaurant. First came little children in dresses, then bigger children in costumes, another bunch in cardboard cars. There were older teens doing a marching band. The parade was celebrating the school’s anniversary. They were marching all around town.
Next we went to buy shoes for the play. Kier needs shoes she can dance in with about a 2-inch heel, in beige. At home we would take a quick drive to the dance store, but we aren’t in Kansas anymore. Here, let’s just say drafting a successful long-term middle east peace agreement would be easier. You can’t buy new shoes in our pueblo (with a few exceptions), so you have to go to used clothes stores and start offering up your first born to the shoe gods (hmm, that would be Kier and as a result we wouldn’t need to do this, birds/stone). We found a black pair that K originally said were ugly and not an option. After numerous stores and a generous dose of hopelessness, those shoes were looking less ugly and more viable. Eventually it was the pair we bought. If the shoes have to be beige we will spray paint them. The clerks in the store sensed our desperation and charged us top gringo dollar for the shoes and didn’t even budge on the price. Now take a step back. The way she was feeling about buying a simple pair of dance shoes it how hopeless many people here feel about their lives, making a living, feeding their children. Hopelessness times 100, with serious stakes.
As we left the store, we got to see the parade for a second time. A bunch of stray dogs joined the march and seemed to have their own little section. I cheered for them, especially since at least half of them were limping. They were all disheveled and matted and one dog was hopping along with only three legs. Kier named him Tripod since Madi wasn’t there to do the naming. Tripod was a-wagging his tail, head held high as if he was the Grand Marshal. We renamed the event Tripod’s Parade.
We hurried home to get Madi and the sleepover girls off to school. After they left, Kier and I walked to the hardware store to get more paint for the garden walls. That took us a while. We also went to pick up the cushions for Mia’s kitchen table benches, but the place was closed.
In the afternoon my girls, plus the sleepover girls went to the three hour play practice. While they did that I went with another one of the moms shopping at the second hand clothing stores to look for costume items. I was curious if there were places I hadn’t looked to find beige dance shoes for Kier, and my friend was looking for black pants and a white dress shirt for her son, who has the lead part. We looked in about 10 different stores. No shoes that would work for Kier, also no pants or shirt for her son. There were lots of indigenous women’s shoes (2-3 inch heel, no strap on the back, chunky heel, usually black and strappy) and lots of white shirts that were XXL which don’t fit any of the men here.
I got the girls from play practice and we went to the laundry mat to pick up the laundry for the sleepover girls to take back with them to Santa Cruz. Madi was going back to their home for another sleepover, yes a double. We went down to the peer and had to wait for about 15 minutes for the boat to come in. Once the boat was in, we waited another 40 minutes until it left. It was the last boat of the night. The girls amused themselves by swatting the mosquitoes swarming around my head. Who says there aren’t toys down here, one just has to be extra creative when using nature.
Meanwhile, the guys finished painting the walls at the house. The original price that was agreed upon was 550Q. When the job was done they wanted 620Q. Seemed reasonable, and Kier was not going to ask for clarification or argue with them. I told her to pay them since I was still at the dock waiting for the boat to leave.
I rode my bike home and bumped into a friend who lives right on the river. She invited us to come to Santiago tomorrow, a village across the lake. She is volunteering in a children’s reading center there. Sounds like fun, we will consider it.
Kier and I were on our own for the night. We went into PanaRock for supper. Even though I was there last night, it was Kier’s choice. The band was already playing inside, so we sat by the street so we could hear each other. Kier told me more about Honduras, because we haven’t had a lot of time to talk, just the two of us. But her stomach was bothering her and she thought it would go away with food, but it got worse. Even introducing her to my bff Rolaids didn’t help, so she didn’t go out. A first in quite sometime. It was nice to spend an evening with her, even if the reason was because she wasn’t feeling well enough to go out with her friends. With her at this age, I’ll take what I can get.