Happy Birthday Dad/Grandpa!
We gave my dad a call this morning to sing Happy Birthday to him. I think he was surprised to hear from us!
Night report: I slept soundly again. Perhaps I’m leaving my light-sleeping days behind me. That would be awesome, except if there is a fire.
During Spanish class this morning, Madi was a bit distracted by the fact that Kier was getting her braces off during that class. Half way through the class she kept saying, “By now my sister has her braces off!!” We should have learned that phrase in Spanish, but the teacher didn’t know the Spanish word for braces. It’s not a common word here. After Spanish class, I asked one of the teenaged boys if he could help me figure out how many minutes I have left on my phone. Three boys helped and eventually found out I have over 400 minutes on my phone. They weren’t sure if I have to use them all up this month or if they will roll over. I’ll have to ask someone else that question. I don’t want to wear-out my help, so I spread my questions around.
I went for a quick coffee and then came home because I needed to be online while Kier and Paul went to the guidance counselor to determine her schedule is for next year. While I was having coffee, I’m usually approached by at least 3-5 kids who are selling items. Today there was a girl who was perhaps Madi’s age. She had two younger children with her, a baby strapped to her back and a little sister who could barely see over the table. The little girl lifted her hand put a little doll on the table that she was trying to sell. Some kids are working the streets from when they can walk. Beautiful kids living tough lives.
Cali is a shopper, and wants to go daily. She told me yesterday that it tortures her that we are at home when we could be out on the streets shopping. She thinks we don’t go out nearly enough to buy things for her. Madi is the opposite, doesn’t like shopping without a definite purpose. Kier is somewhere in the middle. I suppose I have the full-range of girlness. Mini shopoholic to antishopper. The kids who sell things on the street have built in shopoholic meters. Cali throws off an aura of, “Please come sell me something.” Then when they see her face light up, we are committed to a 5 minute presentation. The kids I see during the day are obviously not in school. Often they will take a pick-up from the country. They are dropped off and then spend some time preparing their wares, draping them on their arms, arranging the necklaces. Then they spend the rest of the day walking up and down Santander looking for tourists.
There are definite gender roles when it comes to selling items here. Gender customs always fascinate me, in any culture. The girls sell the textiles, table runners, squares of traditional cloth, long decorative straps to braid into your hair. You won’t see any young boys selling textiles. They usually sell key chains, sometimes necklaces, sometimes little purses. For the boys that’s a bit more of an entry level to selling on the streets. Boys around 7-9 often sell embroidered cards/stationary, but I’ve never seen a girl selling those. After selling small keychains, it seems to be a natural progression for boys to move into the shoeshine business. No girls allowed (just like driving tuk tuks). Older boys (no girls), young teens perhaps, sell cds or dvds. That’s at the top end of the walking vendor hierarchy.
For adults you will see many grown or older women selling textiles on the streets. Men, on the other hand, often ride their bikes down the street and will call out what their services are, such as sharpening knives. Women don’t call in the streets with their wares. Calling is not for women. It is acceptable for men to have a push cart where they sell fresh fruit or coconuts. From what I can tell most of the fried chicken carts are run by men–I suppose hot grease is a man’s business. But the fast food stands, where they are serving meals in the evening, are all run by the women, but occassionally I’ll see a man helping out. Mostly the men help set these up, and leave the women to do the rest. You’ll never see a man making tortillas, that would just be wrong. Waiters can be either gender, but only women cook in the restaurants.
We got an invitation to go fishing on Saturday. I also found out about an art exhibit tomorrow evening, 4 artists. Can’t wait for that. I absolutely love the art that is created in this area, the colors, the content. Excited for that. I found out that the yoga classes are mostly offered during my Spanish classes, but I will be able to go on Fridays.
Last night as I was tucking Cali into bed, she started crying. Sidenote: First cry was 20 days into the visit, that’s not bad. Last time we did this trip, two of the girls had significant crying episodes before day 10. But back to Cali. Cali had said to her friend, “Estoy inteligente and estas inteligente.” She was trying to say that she was smart and so was her friend. Her friend burst out laughing because Cali used the temporary “to be” verb rather than the permanent “to be” verb. So essentially she wasn’t saying she was smart overall, just temporarily. But Cali was upset that she was trying her Spanish and her friend was laughing at her, but actually what Cali was saying was funny. I figured that out today in Spanish class, now I’ll need to tell Cali when she gets home. Her friend wasn’t being the most sensitive, but wasn’t mocking her as much as Cali said something funny. The second part of her sad day was that some of the kids said they could see veins through her skin, next to callie’s eye. The other kids have darker skin, so the whole vein thing may be a bit of a novelty. They were gathering around her and she felt like a bit of a freak. I told Cali it’s because her skin is so fair and it’s not as common to see the veins of people with darker skin. She was sobbing, “I don’t want people to look at my veins!” Part of the reality is that when she is tired, small things that happened during the day become more amplified. For her to function well, she needs to be asleep by 7 pm.
Madi’s rash disappeared once she stopped eating the ramen soups from here. But we aren’t sure if it is a coincidence. So today she is going to start eating them again and we’ll see if the rash returns. Kinda like a human experiment.
After Cali got home from school, we decided to go out for lunch. We went to Chinitas, which is a place that has good Asian food. But since I had Cali with me, we ended up with a large pepperoni pizza (sigh). While we were there, Cali’s friend came into the restaurant with her mom. So we arranged for a playdate on Friday after school. Cali is very excited. She was trying to explain this fish-like thing her friend has. I have no idea what she is talking about. Is the think alive or not?
After our little lunch we walked up to get Madi from school. They were decorating a gingerbread house, having a roaring good time. Who knew one small house and a couple of bags of icing could make so many kids happy.
We went directly home because both girls had a fair bit of homework again. Cali had to draw a diagram of a heart, brain, and liver. That part is fine, except that she was supposed to label it in Spanish. We didn’t exactly do that part.
Cali’s Frog Blog: Today I had lots and lots and lots of fun, because my friend brought her little fishes to school. They aren’t actually fish, they are little circles, almost like balls. They can pop more easily than balls. She gave me two, but they had cracks in them, so we had to pop them. They are very toxic when they pop, so we had to plug our noses and close our mouths, because if you don’t you’ll get very very sick. This is how you take care of them. They have to be in sun once in a while so that they get harder, and don’t pop as easily. Sun is like their food. They are like fish because they have to be in water a lot. You’re not allowed to touch the bubbles if your hands are dirty. If you have just cleaned your hands with hand santitizer, you’ll have to wipe all those products onto your pants or a towel, before you touch them. The bubbles don’t like hand sanitizer. If you touch them when your hands are dirty they’ll pop. They pop easily. That’s how you take care of them. When that happened we had our science class. Our teacher told us about our homework. We are learning how our brains control the rest of our bodies. Then we had sports. About sports day. I wasn’t allowed to play because I didn’t know I had to bring other shoes. Now I know that on Wednesdays we have sports day. Then we ate. After that we went outside to play lava monster. When the bell rang we came back in and brushed our teeth. The school gives everyone their own toothbrush and cup, but we share one toothpaste. It’s SpongeBob toothpaste. Then we had computer classes and we did an experiment. Next we had our English class, we sang a song that went like this, “There was a farmer who had a dog, and Bingo was his name-O.” You all know how the song goes. We also sang Apples and Bananas next. Then I went home in the tuk tuk. I pass a pet store everyday. Today they had two white bunnies, not just chicks. When I got home we went to a restaurant to celebrate that Kier got her braces off. After that we went to pick up Madi from school. Then we came home and I did my homework. I had to draw a picture of a heart, brain, and a liver. I love homework. Now I have to go to bed because yesterday I went to bed too late. I have lots of ichy bites all over my body. They started to show up this morning. P.S. I love you all.
Madi: Today is our first day experimenting whether or not I’m allergic to ramen. I had a rash for a long time and we couldn’t figure out where it was originating. Eventually we started cutting out different things from my diet. When I stopped eating ramen soups, it went away. But we wondered if it was a coincidence. So today I eat one ramen to see if the rash would come back. After school we made a gingerbread house that Tom brought from Texas. We were all covered in icing. We were all laughing and talking like one big family. It was so fun. The entire school is going to the city (Guatemala City) to see Avatar on Saturday. Sid is driving us there. Before Jobi knew he was, she was telling us a story about how once Sid was driving and there was a pig in the middle of the road. Jobi started saying, “Sid, Sid.” But Sid kept responding, “What? What?” He turned around to ask the question more formally, “What is it Jobi?” Well, you know the rest, bump, bump. He also ran over a dog. So all the students are taking bets as to how many animals he will run over on Saturday. We are all very excited to go. My bumps have returned, so I guess I am allergic to something in the ramen. Dad thinks it may be MSG. I’m the first person in my family to be allergic to something, no one else is. Kier got her braces off. I was excited for her and kept bringing it up at school. I’m writing my rough draft of my essay on clean water in Haiti. I have to get back it. A large band of screaming kids just ran by our front door. Things like that happen all the time here.