Last Saturday we had a bingo baile to raise money for the week long festivities that will happen in September. Before the bingo there was a soccer tournament for men and for women. When I say soccer, I really mean ‘indoor.’ This is the sport played more regularly than soccer here. It is on a concrete court a little bit smaller than a basketball court, with small goals, and a small, heavy soccer ball. All of the kids in the community raved about how hard I could kick a regular soccer ball, so I was put on a team. My team lost to the women’s team from Cumandá 4-0. One of the goals was definitely my fault and I screwed up a lot of other things as well. Needless to say, the women on my team were not too happy with me…whoops. When people asked me later about why I was so bad, I just blamed it on the fact that the court and ball are too small for a giant like me to manage. Later that night was the bingo baile. Everybody played a round of bingo and then would dance to a couple songs and then play around round of bingo and then some more dancing, etc. I got bored around midnight (after only the 2nd round of bingo) and left, but when I woke up at 6 in the morning I could still hear the music going. Apparently Leonor was there until 5 in the morning dancing, and she wasn’t the last one to leave. I guess Buenos Aires knows how to party…I need to get with it.
I will be moving out of my host family’s house soon. The new house that I am moving into is a MIDUVI house, a government projects house. It is literally the concrete shell of a house. There is an open area with a sink against the wall that is supposed to be the kitchen/living room, and then there are two bedrooms. To get to the bathroom you have to walk outside but it is an enclosed room that backs up to the house with sink, toilet, and shower. Currently there is no water or electricity hookup, but that should be getting fixed soon. And there is no septic hookup (but there is a large hole behind the house that they are going to connect to the toilet with some tubes and top with concrete…everything problem here is solved with a layer of concrete). Currently the only thing in the house is the town drunk. So after I kick him out I have to think about buying furniture, counters, a stove, a fridge, plates, and countless other things that the concrete shell of my house currently lacks.
On the project front, things are still pretty slow here. I did get a promising call from another volunteer though. She has a woman in her site that is super gung-ho about building septic tanks with leach fields. Apparently, one community had a communal septic tank that collapsed and everything is now going into either the river or the irrigation canal. The government said that they will help out financially with the tanks but the lady needs to submit plans and calculations…that is where I come in! Hopefully within the next month or so I’ll go out to her site (in the Oriente) to figure out how exactly we are going to proceed.
Random Thoughts:
· We finished planting cacao on Pepito’s land. He wants to set up an irrigation system so I’ll be helping with that soon.
· Leonor’s nephew showed up at the house one day with a pack of cigarettes and a fifth of vodka. I am not really sure why he was at the house, but he just sat at the table chatting, smoking, and drinking. Later, after he was about two-thirds of the way through the bottle, he professed his undying love for me.
· It is funny how there are absolutely no regulations here. No littering laws, no noise regulations, no emission regulations, etc. The most amazing one though is building permits. I was walking back in the jungle one day when I saw my neighbor cutting down some caña. He told me he was building a house and invited me to check it out. Turns out he needed some extra room for people to stay at the hostel so he decided to build a house, thought about it for a couple hours, and then bought some nails and started building. The house it actually pretty awesome and quite impressive.
· I was out exploring one day and found the other river that borders Buenos Aires. It is super pretty because it is set back in the forest and apparently when it rains a lot there is a really pretty waterfall.
· My neighbor’s dog got hit by a truck the other day. The owner’s weren’t home when it happened so Danny just dragged the bloody corpse in front of their house and left it. Later in the day I saw the older woman who lives across the street dragging the dog by the feet with one hand and using her cane with the other.
· My cat’s name is officially Milly. Short for Milagro because it is a miracle that the cat has survived the torment of my host siblings. (Props to Kate for coming up with the name)
No comments:
Post a Comment