The past couple of weeks have just been a random assortment of events. So this blog is just a random assortment of stories.
I got invited to go to a different family’s house for dinner one night. It turns out that the lady, Monica, is enemies with Leonor. Apparently Leonor is extremely flirtatious with other woman’s husbands in town and got butt implants. I now realize that Monica is the gossip queen of the town. The next day she invited me for a day out at their farm. We took a super pretty jungle trail walk to get to her farm. We walked around and picked tangerines and oranges. There is also a natural spring with these cute little crab-like things. For lunch we grilled chicken (the ‘grill’ we used was a plastic coated clothes drying rack). Even though my chicken was covered in melted plastic is was still super delicious. They aren’t fazed by burning/melting plastic here. To start the fire Fausto, Monica’s husband, used a plastic bag that dripped fiery plastic drops onto the coal. On the walk back we picked some bromeliads from the trees for Monica’s garden.
We have mice in our house. Pepito’s solution is to trap them in the structural tubing and let them starve to death. This means that in the middle of the night there is this awful scratching noise of the poor mice trying to escape. I mentioned the noise one morning and said we should just get a cat to eat the mice. That afternoon Danny takes me up the road to get some kittens. We were then gifted two kittens from this random dude. I didn’t want to take care of two kittens so on the walk back I re-gifted one of the kittens to a random kid I encountered along the way. I’m worried that this gesture by Danny was my dowry. Until a few days ago, I thought that Leonor and the kids were the only ones crazy about this marriage thing, but it turns out Pepito is into it to. There are two main reasons I think this. First, when I mentioned the scratching noise he said that it was just Danny scratching on our adjoining walls in the middle of the night. And second, a few days before I arrived in Buenos Aires, the new president came to the house and saw that they had built an extra room. The president asked Pepito about this and Pepito’s response was that Danny was moving back to marry a Gringa. The president then asked, ‘What Gringa? I haven’t seen any around.’ And Pepito responded, ‘She’s not here yet, she arrives on the 21.’ Guess what day I got to Buenos Aires, the 21rst.
I got to prune cacao with a group of farmers one day. I actually got to do some work and Jefferson even agreed to take me out more often to work in the farms. I also checked out the source of the current water. We basically steal water from this large pipe going from the mountains to a treatment facility. There is a hose attached to this large pipe that then crosses the river (held up by two large bamboo sticks) and then has smaller hose hook ups to the houses in Buenos Aires. There are two main problems with this. First, when it rains the hose connected to the large pipe gets clogged. And second, when the river crests the bamboo begins to float and go down river with the hose. Engineering project is in the works. Woohoo.
Buenos Aires had a party on Friday afternoon in celebration for Mother’s Day. About 30 people from the town showed up (apparently that is a really good turnout). First one of the engineers from the Municipality showed up and talked about trash collection. It’s almost a reality now…we just have to cut some branches so the truck can get through and build some platforms to put the trash on so the dogs don’t get into it. After that the party started. Every meeting and party is the same way, a person reads a numbered agenda of exactly what will happen and as they arrive at each new task/event they read the number and title again. It’s very formal and choppy. During the party an older mother was sashed as the mother of the year, there was a raffle for chickens, each older mother was presented a gift basket (filled with the necessities: palm oil, rice, sugar, instant coffee, toilet paper), kids from the school sang some songs and read some poems, and then we toasted the mothers and ate some dinner. After that most everyone left. For those of us that stayed, all the chairs were pushed to the edge of the room and a dance floor was created. Dancing here is super awkward. A man will choose a partner and they will dance a least three feet from each other doing an energy-less two-step shuffle thing and they never ever make eye contact with their partner, they always just look up-left or up-right. Though, as the Puro (homemade liquor) started to flow, people started to get more into the dancing. The night ended around 10 with a group of six or seven of us sitting in a circle passing around a bottle of Puro.
I got invited to a mother’s day dinner at Monica’s house the next night. Her whole family showed up, at least about 20 of them. It was nice but super hard to concentrate on about five people talking at once. The next day another family invited me over for lunch and to kill my own chicken. As soon as I got to the house, I was handed a knife and was led to the back to a live chicken and told to cut its neck. I couldn’t go through with it so instead I just watched. But I told the family when I move into my own house I’ll kill a chicken for them and make them dinner. They cooked the chicken in the oven and we had salad and green beans and fresh orange juice and only a little bit of rice and they hardly used any oil and it was the best meal I’ve had since I’ve been in site. I could really get used to being invited away from my host family’s house more often.
I’ve gone to a few peoples farm lately. Basically a guy will drive up to my house in a truck, tell me to get in, and then we’ll drive around his farm. They act like they’re interested in organic but who knows. Everybody likes the idea of irrigation though. I started teaching English in the school in front of my house. It’s going to be a challenge to have enough patience to do this. Who knows how long I’ll last.
Random Thoughts:
- I got to Skype my brother’s wedding. It was great I got to see the ceremony and chat with some of the relatives. Congrats bro.
- There is an old guy that lives by the bridge from Cumandá to Bucay that speaks pretty good English. He stops me whenever I’m passing by and strikes up a conversation so that he can practice. He said he learned English by just reading books…pretty impressive.
- I have gotten a few different ladies in town to run with me. And by run I really mean shuffle. I did run with just kids one day. They were pretty darn quick and were super into to it…I think this may become a daily thing with them.
- One of my neighbors has a baby monkey thing. I can’t remember the name but it’s the thing with the huge eyes and the possum tail. She caught it out on her farm.
- Angie has a severe attitude problem.
- I was sitting by the park waiting for Jefferson one day when this random old guy sits down next to me. We are chatting and then he asks me where my father-in-law is. I tell him that I do not have a father-in-law and he replies, “Oh I thought Pepito was your father-in-law and you’re married to Danny.”
- People like to drink homemade liquor with scorpions in it.
- We were supposed to have a minga the other day to clean up the park…only Jefferson and one other guy showed up. I’m worried that no one will show up when I want to give charlas.
- Jefferson and I are buds now. He told me his life story one day…apparently he was a ladies man back in the day, then went to rehab for alcoholism, then became a missionary, and then ended up in Buenos Aires.
- I’m getting used to the taste of fresh milk.
- I can hold my own in soccer against the 10-14 age group of boys.
- Leonor asked me one day if I could go on vacation with the WHOLE family. I said I could as long as it wasn’t longer than a couple days and it wasn’t in a restricted area. She says ok great because you and Danny are coming with me to Cuenca. I’ll have to come up with an excuse to get out of that.
- One of the neighbor’s puppies killed two of our little chicks and I was the only one home when it happened. Danny was the first to get back and I told him about it and he told me to lie and not tell Leonor about what actually happened because she already doesn’t get along with the neighbors and this would make it ten times worse. That night I just ignored everyone while they were out searching for the chicks and the next morning when Leonor asked me point blank what happened I tried to lie but she saw right through me and then stormed over to the neighbor’s house…whoops.
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