Day 11

Today we went into town again, and I spent nearly the whole day sitting at the Esso gas station trying to upload photos for blog posts. It was nice having a whole table to myself, watching people come and go. Spanish TV blared in the background, which Marcelo had warned me about, but it wasn’t too distracting as I don’t understand much of it- I could easily tune it out as white noise. For lunch I had two empanadas- one chicken, and one beef, both delicious.

Here's me, sitting in the gas station, taking a picture with my computer:

The beautiful view of our valley during the walk up the driveway this morning:

During siesta, a very drunken young man with a nose ring and a lip ring came up to us in the park, and gave us each a flower he had picked. He then proceeded to tell us that we were really collaborating with him… he gave us flowers, and now we should give him money so that he can buy his daughter Anabelle a birthday cake for her third birthday tomorrow. We declined, and made our way out of the park as he followed us asking if we wanted to smoke any marijuana. Apparently, during lunch he made another appearance at the place my fellow interns were eating, and got himself kicked out by management.

We made it back to the bus stop too late for the 5:30 bus… again. There was a beautiful rainbow (in Spanish it’s arcoiris- like iris arc) greeting us, but no bus… So, we decided to take a bus to Villa Bonita (one stop before our usual stop) and walk the 30 minutes back to the top of our drive in Villa Union from there. An older woman was also walking our way carrying a chainsaw, and we spoke with her as we walked. It was a good chance to practice my Spanish, but gosh, there is still so much I didn’t catch or understand, so by the end of our walk we weren’t talking much at all. Still, it was nice to have the extra company- she was very smily and sweet.

We stumbled home in the rainy dark, glad that we had remembered a head lamp. The dogs greeted us with barks and wagging tails. Kim and Marcelo were nowhere to be seen, but they had left hot nettle-potato soup for us, and fresh bread.

A cool spider we found on the driveway today... she's an interesting rendition of our daddy long legs at home!

I remembered to bring a cup of water up to my tent with me, which I put under my bed to ward off bad dreams, per Marcelo’s suggestion. He said his mom told his brother to do that when he was young and had nightmares, and they never came back. (In the morning, you throw the water far from your bed, and wash the cup. Each night you set out a new cup full of fresh water.) It’s interesting to hear about treatments that other cultures use… and I am always fascinated when faith is part of that. It often seems that we are so skeptical of such cures in the US… and I wonder if this will help! I am trying to be open-minded and believe that anything is possible.

This interesting grass hoppery guy was flying around the kitchen tonight. You can't tell from the picture, but he's huge! 3 inches long, perhaps.