It has been wet this week, and in an effort to wrap things up before our departure to Iguazu tomorrow afternoon we all decided to do laundry and hang it in the wildly optimistic hope that it might dry today.
Marcelo and Marcos organized projects for the coming days while we did this. Everyone is tired today, and things feel a little tense. 
Peeling mandioca for our lunch... we do it by cutting a spiral around the root, and peeling off the tough outer skin before boiling it. 
By the time we hung our laundry out it started to rain, so we took it down. Then a small patch of sun came out, so we hung them again. Five minutes layer it was sprinkling again, so we took them in. This is one of Mama Roja's frequent lessons in patience.
With much of the morning spent, we decided to talk about earthen building principles and refrigeration and cooling off the grid. 
Tonight we are having a fiesta for Keren, in honor of her departure. I invited Marcos this morning (in Spanish)... My Spanish is improving slowly but surely. Spanish dinners help. 
During siesta the dogs went wild barking and Kim and Marcelo came running out of their house. A truck pulling a van lumbered into the driveway. Just as the van was about to make its way across the river and up onto the bank, the towing chain broke... 
We had planned to have a women's mud spa afternoon with the medicinal mud from the farm, but with the arrival of six new people (Kim and Marcelo's friends, who weren't supposed to visit until Saturday) it looked like plans would change.
As it went though, we were still able to have our mud spa (incidentally, my hair hasn't been so soft or so clean since I arrived- that mud foes work ronders!)... And we climbed up to the waterfall naked to rinse off... Heaven! 
Our fiesta was bigger than expected, and what a feast it was! We made naan and chipati,
One of Amanita and Conan's favorite places to be: the roof of the kitchen. They chase each other up there, sounding like a herd of elephants! When it gets to be too much, Kim yells and squirts water at them until they come down...
tomato basil salad, queso cremoso, a delicious eggplant dish, and also finished our lemoncello (by mixing 1 kilo of sugar with 1 liter of water, dissolving it over heat without letting it boil, straining out the peels, which got SO hard(!) and adding them together, stirring every now and then as they cool) and made sangria! 
We danced and sang and laughed and ate, had a campfire, and played cards too. What a wonderful way to kick off the departure of our friend! We're going to miss you Keren!
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