Monday, July 31, 2006

un dia typico

19-Julio-2006

 

Hi everyone!

            Thank you all for your concern about my health the past week.  Sorry to be writing again so late, but this week just flew by.  I am feeling much better than last week and my knee is also doing a lot better.  Aside from the week ending pretty poorly I had some other realizations the weekend before last that kind of set a bad week into motion.  Let me explain.

 

            Two weekends ago my neighbor (Heidi) and I went with our uncle to visit his finca and another mountain that is home to a 'typical' agricultural pueblo.  The finca that Yeti owns is right next to the one that my host mother owns and harvests each year.  I found out this past weekend that she harvests so many frijoles that the whole family (I think some extended parts we well) does not need to buy frijoles for the whole year and they is plenty left over to sell.  This is A LOT of frijoles, considering we eat them todos los días .  Anyway, we went and checked out his crops, he grows corn, beans, several types of squash plants, and many fruit trees.  He told us what everything was in Spanish, I got most of it but in general it was just nice to get out and see what a real finca looked like.  It was raining and the hills were steep and muddy but the whole side of the mountain was green beyond belief.  I took pictures that will hopefully get posted in the next batch. 

 

            After leaving his finca we drove out of Santa Lucia a little bit to a road in between Santa Lucia and Valle de Angles.  We drove up this very steep dirt road in the rain with no windshield wipers, in an old Mitsubishi pickup truck.  If I had known we were going on this side trip I might have opted out.  But clearly we made it because I am here writing now, but this was basically my worst nightmare, even in the states.  We made it up to a school and got out and checked out the school, it had open classrooms, solid walls but they were not all the way to the tin roof.  They had an internet project going on at their school, with three IBM laptops, that was pretty neat to see especially after what we saw next.

 

            After leaving the school we stopped first at a 'friends' house to say hello, and I think Yeti wanted Heidi and I to see what a real farming family lives in.  The house was made of wood, we walked a little off the road, to get there.  There was a little overhang in the front.  Heidi and I hung back when Yeti knocked, but soon we were standing in the kitchen, dining room, and living room.  It was probably about four feet wide and ten feet long with adobe walls and a dirt floor that was damp from the rain.  Through another doorway was another room I could imagine was a sleeping area for three people that might have been ten by ten feet.  The old man that lived there was eating frijoles and tortillas when we got there.  That's all they ever eat Yeti told us, for every meal and everyday.  They offered us food but Yeti told them that we had to go home because Maribel had lunch waiting for us.  We left that house and stopped at another 'friend's' house.  This lady had two young girls both walking around barefoot, six or so kittens and four or so puppies running around.  This house was larger but still had dirt floors with two rooms and no furniture.  I wanted to know how they slept but I didn't want to ask.  The stoves both families used were adobe lit with wood scraps and the smoke from the fire had no ventilation so the roofs are charred black.  I wish I could describe these scenes better because they were my first taste of a real Honduras, but it's difficult.  We left the mountain and came back to our house and ate boiled Honduran shrimp with cocktail sauce and watched the World Cup.

 

            Clearly my English is getting poorer the more days I am here.  But I wanted to tell everyone what I've been doing, what a typical day is and what kind of concepts I am learning in training.

 

            Monday through Friday we start class at 7:30.  So I wake up around 6:45 and eat breakfast, which is usually fruit (mangos, papaya, and banana), and cereal (a cornflake type or granola) and often fresh squeezed orange juice.  A little note about the oranges here:  they are actually green and the juice is pretty, well not very tasty.  Another fruit that is very confused down here is the lemon, or is it the lime, I'm not really sure, but a lemon is green and a lime is green.  Also for breakfast I get two pieces of toast, not really knowing what to do with all this food I started taking a pb & j for a mid afternoon snack.  Luckily, she understands what I am doing and gives me a piece of plastic to take it in.  Sometimes for breakfast I'll have pancakes, which was good, but I'm VERY happy with my fruit and cereal.

 

            In the mornings we have Spanish class usually until lunch (sometimes for a few hours after lunch).  At 11:30 we eat lunch; lunch for everyone I think, is usually a fun surprise.  Some days it'll be fried chicken or fish with rice and tortillas and fruit or vegetables, sometimes its pasta, or soup (especially when I don't feel good).  The only thing I haven't liked that I have gotten in my lunch so far was this shell pasta thing that had a red sauce on it that tasted like ketchup (the ketchup here is another issue – its sweeter and people use it as a tomato sauce). 

 

            Usually after lunch we have tech training or a CORE activity (I have no idea what CORE stands for).  This will either be about our individual projects (there are 3 in training right now: Youth Development, Municipal Development (this is where all the other IA majors are), and Protected Areas Management) or about things that effect all of us, like learning styles, teaching adults, AIDS, or health presentations.  In tech training we haven't gone over very many specific things yet but last week we made a traditional compost piles and another type called bocashi, which is faster decomposing but more expensive to start.  On Monday we planted, by shoots and fruits several different types of plants: pataste, sweet potato, bananas.  We also learned the proper way to plant a grafted fruit tree.  On Tuesday we planted seed beds for transplanting in raised beds.  After that we actually transplanted some vegetable plants into plots that we cleared, plowed, pick axed, and fertilized.  This is a lot more work than one would imagine.  I'm pretty sure all of us have blisters and one of the guys in my group (there were 3 to a group) cut his finger open on a machete that he was sharpening (he ended up needing stitches).  So now we have these plots to keep an eye on and water when needed, although it hasn't stopped raining for more than 30 minutes since we finished that project.

 

            Today we went to a farm called Loma Linda, it was originally run by a famous innovative agriculturist in Central America.  But he has since passed away and his wife has taken over running this farm.  This farm is considered a 'human farm' because of its use of natural fertilizers, crop rotation, use of mixed plants in beds to prevent pests and finally because everything produced there is consumed there as well.  The farm mostly serves now as a training facility for farmers in Honduras, with rooms for board and a mess hall and conference room.  The produce we saw today really was amazing, a three year old mango tree was producing mangos twice the size as they are in the states and a lime (or maybe lemon) tree that had fruit bigger than a softball.  I have no idea what one would do with that but it really shows that natural methods work in the long run.  This farm has been operating for 28 years though so it's going to be hard to relate it to the right now for many people in Honduras.

 

            We get done with classes around 4:30 (Honduran time, so closer to 5).  And we all walk home.  One day a week I have a Spanish tutorial that lasts an hour so then I get done at 5:30.  Once I get home I do my Spanish homework, talk to my host mother about what I did in school, to practice my Spanish.  Around 7:30 or 8 I eat dinner, the way they cook here does not really allow for more than one meal to be ready at once so I'm usually sitting there eating by myself and then Cristobal is served and then Maribel comes and eats.  So my whole waiting till everyone is served has become a painful habit to break.  The typical dinner around here is frijoles (refried), avocado, eggs (scrambled, fried), queso (a white cheese), and 3 or 4 tortillas.  That's usually what I have every night but some times there are variations.  I've eaten Chinese take-out, homemade pizza, lasagna, and a casserole.  After I eat I'm usually headed off to bed around 9ish and asleep around 10.  In fact, it's getting about that time now.

 

            Saturday my project is going on an overnight fieldtrip to Campimiento to visit a coffee research center.  We will return sometime on Sunday afternoon.  Nothing else planned for the weekend right now, looks pretty tame but hopefully I will have some entertaining stories when I return.  The first weekend of FBT (Field Based Training) I will be making up my volunteer visit with a guy who lives closer to our new city so I will not have t travel through Tegus by myself, but it would have been cool to go and stay with the girl I was assigned.  I heard she was doing some neat things.

 

PC Amor –

  Bridget

 

Oh yeah "bolos" in Spanish are drunks.



--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

mosquitera

It's 7:45 PM here and I'm exhausted.  I think the sun from yesterday in the finca wore me out (by the way a finca is a farm).  I started packing up some things today because on Sunday my project is heading to a different town for 4 weeks for FBT.  Actually all I did was take down my mosquitera.  The city we are going to, Catacamas, is much bigger and will hopefully have internet and phone though I haven't heard yet.  There will only be 17 of us there, everyone in PAM, the other projects will be in different cities.

This weekend my project took a fieldtrip to Campamento to visit a coffee research center.  While it was extremely interesting, many of the practices were not ideal for rural poor coffee farmers.  The entire complex was amazing though.  They used natural pesticides, hormones that the bugs are attracted to.  We learned how to make two kinds of these traps, one with manufactured products and another with an old liter bottle of coke or whatever.  They are both kind of labor intensive, the traps need to be cleaned and refilled every 2-3 months which could be a lot of work for a single farmer.  He would still need to buy the hormones too, which could be some money that they just don't have.  Either way it was interesting.  After we put the traps together we went down to the Tilapia ponds that are continuously receiving water from the irrigation.  They harvest the fish for food once they reach a pound or so, however only the largest fish were in these ponds, the others are moved from holding tank to pond as they grow.  So clearly they have some time and money invested in these little guys.

We also checked out some of the other integrated projects they have going on in their farm.  They use manure from bunnies and chickens mixed with coffee pulp to make a fertilizer, though it is a little more complicated.  The lectures were entirely in Spanish and very fast so it made it hard to understand at time, but we had our project trainer there to translate for us, which helped but I caught on to most of it.  I learned more than I ever wanted to know about coffee and I may never drink another cup in my life, but I will spare all of you the details because I don't want to ruin a good thing for the coffee lovers.

After we were done for the day we went into down for dinner and they were having a fair type thing.  There were rides and booths, also a stage for music that occasionally had an American rap song playing.  The booths were pretty interesting; they were selling everything from clothes to bootleg DVDs and CDs.  The rides were all powered manually, not something any of us were itching to try out.  Ohh yeah I forgot they also had a rodeo, but I didn't get to see any of it because I headed down to the other part of the fair.  We left before the things really got hopping though because most people wanted to head back to the dorm type things we were staying in.

We all hung out there until about 3:30 AM.  And then the next day we headed back to Santa Lucia.  Oh I forgot, on the way there we got a flat tire in the PC vehicle we were taking, so we all had to pile out on the side of a Honduran highway and change it.  It was defiantly a new experience.  Many of the roads here are considered 3 or 4 lanes, when clearly they are 2, so several large trucks and buses came rather close to the side of the road.  Sunday ended pretty tranquillo so not much else to report on the weekend.

This week has flown by, on Tuesday we had a guy come a talk to us about AIDS in Honduras, and he had a pretty unique story to tell.  He is a volunteer right now and once he got to his sight he found an artists there, who it turned out had AIDS, he told us the story of how he had to go to the hospital and the experience there and how he ended up dying and his experience at the funeral.  He showed us a lot of photographs he had taken of his work and it really was touching.  It kind of made the day rather somber, but it was a very touching story.  We're finishing up the week with some work at Loma Linda, another integrated farm.

Also I wanted to point out that Amanda was right, I was told before I left that I would be very saddened by the poor people of Honduras as well as the dogs.  I guess I was so ready to see it that when I came across the dogs I was ready and then settled in I wasn't ready to see the people.  But it is a harsh reality here that I think it going to be hard for all of us to come to terms with, I was lucky I got to see it so soon in country, others will be waiting until September to see the real Honduras.

Hopefully there will be a great place to access internet and use the phone in Catacamas, but if not don't worry if you don't hear from me.  Thanks for all your encouragement and emails.

 

PC Love,

Bridget



--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

Sunday, July 16, 2006

The ER, part 2

16-Jul-06

 

            So I know it's been a while, but I have another great excuse!   Wednesday I was going to send out an email about my weekend, which I will get to later, but I had to go back to the hospital.

            It started around 10 or so I started getting really cold but my face was very hot.   I put on my fleece and sat though Spanish class for as long as I could, we get 10 or 15 minute breaks every hour, so during one of them I asked if I could have my temperature taken, of course they said.   I suppose it was easier said than done.  The thermometer they tried using didn't work and this other thing, a strip you stick on your forehead, wasn't sticking.   So they told me to we had to call the PCMO (Peace Corps medical officer).  I talked to her and described my symptoms, chills, what felt like a fairly high fever, and a headache.   She told me she thought it was allergies and that she would send some allergy medicine up to the training center for me to try, but for now take some Panadol (which is like Tylenol, but the Central American version I guess).   The problem with this instruction was that there was no Panadol around the training site for volunteers.  Luckily, one of the secretaries had some in her desk that she gave to me.   So I took that and went back to Spanish class.  We have lunch at 11:30 everyday and when that rolled around I wasn't feeling THAT much better, but the sun was out so I wasn't as cold.   I kept asking everyone, are you guys cold?  For lunch that day I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because my host mom and her sister-in-law were both going to be in Tegus.   I was excited about the Americanism of it, but I didn't feel like eating, but I ate it anyway. 

            I hate making long stories short, can't you tell?   Anyway after lunch ended we had some other classes to go to, I went to the first one and after it ended decided I couldn't do anymore and asked to lie down.  By then it was only one o'clock.   A little later I was so cold I was shaking lying down.  I went back out to the main office and asked them what I should do, so we called the PCMO again.   By this time my allergy medicine arrived and she told me to take it and drink a lot of water.  So I took it and tried drinking water; every time I did though I felt like I was going to throw it up, so I quite that.   Around 4 I gave up on trying to warm myself up and went back out to the office, I told them I thought I still had a fever and I was so cold my teeth were chattering.   The duty officer told me we had to call the PCMO again, and I had to tell her my symptoms again.  She told me I had to go to the hospital, and that I would have to spend the night.   Spend the night?  Why?  She told me it was so the doctors could monitor me over night.   The next day all of us were supposed to be leaving for our volunteer visits.  Don't worry, Bridget, you'll probably still be able to make it, and another trainee is in the hospital now too, so we'll put you in a room together.  

            By then all I wanted were some antibiotics to feel better.   I got into one of the PC trucks going to Tegus to take some Spanish teachers home, and I don't know if it was because of the driving or what but I started throwing up.  That was fun.   Finally after what seemed like most round about way to get to the hospital we finally got there.  But Junior, the driver, and one of the secretaries went in with me.   They took my temperature and I tried asking what it was but that didn't really work so well.  I think it was 40-something and everyone seemed very alarmed, which didn't make me feel better.   Then the IV came, I knew from the way they were looking at my veins that it wasn't going to be easy.  First they tried my left hand and then my right hand and then my right elbow joint and then my left and finally they seemed to get it to work.   They injected something into the IV that made my whole body go warm and soon I passed out.  Several doctors came in and talked to me, some in Spanish and some in English, but I don't remember what they said.   A person from PC came in too and talked to me, said they were going to move me upstairs, but it felt like I waited there forever in the ER.

            Finally they moved me up to the other room with Molly, the other PCT (Peace Corps trainee) that was in the hospital.   We sat around and watched a Point Break in English and then soon I fell asleep.  During my sleep I woke up several times to nurses fiddling with my IV, I guess I bent the one in my arm during my sleep because they had to redo it in my hand.   Needless to say I didn't get a whole lot of sleep.  When we woke up I felt better and I thought it was a good sign that for breakfast they brought me French toast with syrup and Molly crackers and jelly. But apparently it wasn't because Molly had a bacteria and I had a virus.   She got to leave and I had to stay for another night and they would see in the morning how I was doing.

            The room at the hospital was nice, the nurses were nice but didn't speak English, and the doctor spoke English perfectly, but it was so boring and lonely.   My host mom and dad stopped by to see me and a lady from PC called me several times but the only thing I wanted was to get out of there, anywhere but in that hospital with the IV strapped to my hand.   I passed the day by watching American television with Spanish subtitles.  Dawson's Creek, Gilmore Girls, The OC, some movies, Seinfeld.   I learned how to say great phrases in Spanish like, "oh my god," and "coming up next." 

I didn't actually eat the breakfast they served me, I just had a banana, and I wasn't really up to French toast.   So I was pretty excited when they brought lunch, but it was only three pieces of toast with jelly.  And dinner was refried beans (which are frijoles – I don't know what they call beans that aren't refried) and avocado and this bologna meat stuff.   I'm sure most Hondurans after being in a hospital for almost a full day looks forward to having a traditional Honduran meal, but after watching commercials all day of TGIF and Wendy's and other American restaurants, all I wanted was one of my dad's hamburgers.  

I slept better the 2nd night but the nurse woke me up in the morning for breakfast, pancakes (nothing compared to home's or Maribel's).   I asked the nurse if I could go home and she went to look for the doctor.  So I settled into watching more American TV.   Finally, after they insisted on me eating their lunch, which I only picked at, I was allowed to go back to Sainta Lucia.  My motorista friend, Miguel came to pick me up and came up to my room to get me, I have never been so happy to talk to someone in Spanish before.  So Miguel took me home and I kind of sat around the house for a while, watched my host mom prepare frijoles and she told me about cooking them and harvesting them and storing them.   Then I went to bed fairly early and didn't get up until 1 the next day.  That was on Friday/Saturday.  Now it's Sunday and I feel better but not completely better.   I still can't really eat a lot, it tires me out.  But the headache and general body ache is gone.  Oh, forgot to mention that the doctor said it was just a three day stomach virus, "as you call it in the states."   I've never had anything like this in the states.  No Malaria, Typhoid, or Dengue (yet at least).  Just wanted to let everyone know I was alive.   I'll write more tonight and hopefully send it out tomorrow with replies.  Take care.

PC Love,

Bridget

 

 



--
Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084

Friday, July 07, 2006

3-July to today

3-Jul-06

 

            Last Friday we were sitting in one of our project classes with a current volunteer.   A few days before he showed up with bandages on his elbow and a few cuts on his hand, that afternoon he told us how it happened.  While traveling on a bus in Tegus he was trying to get off at a stop, when he finally got the driver to stop he stepped out and the bus driver slammed on the gas.   I'm sure you can all see where this is going. 

            Saturday morning at 7 AM a few of us met in front of a fellow 'aspirantes' casa and we were going to walk down to the triangle, which is where the road to Santa Lucia meets the main highway and this is also where we needed to catch a bus to get to San Juancito.   The six of us walked down there, about 2 km, and met up with another trainee.  As we got there a bus pulled up, luckily for me, there were a few of us who spoke much better Spanish so we got on that bus so we wouldn't have to wait an hour for another one.   This bus was only going to take us to Valles de Los Angels so we would have to wait for another one to get to Juancito.  Either way we all got on the bus that was blasting reggaeton at 8 AM in the morning.  It took maybe 30 minutes or so for us to get right outside of Los Angels.  We saw a sign for San Juancito that said 12km and it looked like the bus driver was going to take us but this local Honduran that had been helping us talk to the driver said we should just get off here, at a stop in front of a pulperia.   In fear of being stuck on the bus as the driver slammed on his gas I kind of ran down the steps and missed the last one and landed knee first on a rock.

            The bus left and I stood up and blood starting pouring out of my leg.   Luckily we were still very close to Los Angles and the local guy got off the bus with us.  So Cathie and Ramon (I think, but we could never get it straight) went off to a pulperia to get some supplies while the rest of us tried to stop the blood.   They came back with hydrogen peroxide and gauze and tape.  One of the girls that had worked at a vet clinic cleaned out my wound and even pulled back the flap of skin that was left to make sure there weren't any rocks inside it.   Again, lucky for me, my knee was complexly numb.  One of the guys with us had an ace bandage, so we wrapped my knee up after we put on the gauze and headed back into town for a café.

            We caught the next bus around 9:30, same reggaeton and everything.   We got to San Juancito within 15 minutes or so and started for the road to the National Park, La Tigra.  The entrance to the park is straight up a dirt road.   Three hours later we made it to the entrance.  A few minutes into the walk our friend showed back up that helped us get there or just hang out (I'm not really sure), apparently his mom called while he was on the bus and told him she wasn't home and he had no keys to get in.   He was only 20, very nice and grew up with cuerpo de paz voluntarios.  Anyway so he decided to take the hike with us.

            We talked the guy into giving us the national deal for the entrance fee, usually it is $10 which is about 200 limperias; we only had to pay 20 limps.   We decided to take the shorter hike to the waterfalls so we didn't miss the last bus out of town at 5:30.  We left for the hike and the forest was absolutely amazing.   We heard a couple of birds but didn't see any.  There were some semi-wild horses eating on the trail we took, but that was about it.   La Tigra, hundreds of years ago was a mining town, after the government declared it a national park the mines were closed but some of the structures remained, like the entrance to one of the mines and old houses.   One of the main trails is actually the old mining road.

            After more uphill hiking, we made it to an amazing waterfall inside a cloud.   It was completely surreal.  It was misty, raining too but that didn't matter.  The temperature had dropped significantly as well.   We ate our lunch at the out look by the waterfall and then headed back for the park entrance.  My mom gave me a bunch of tiny bananas to chare with my friends and I made two hamon (which is not exactly ham) and queso sandwiches, one of which I gave to our new friend.  

The downhill part was much easier and went by much faster.  Included in the trail, I forgot to mention, were several bridges that went over other smaller waterfalls that turned into small rivers.   The trail and the park in general had a lot of character.  Also in the welcome center are rooms for rent, it all made sense when we got there why all of our host moms thought we were staying over.

            We ended up getting off the mountain around 4 so we had an hour and a half or so to kill so we went to a café and rested for a little while then we started back up another hill to get to the bus stop we needed.   Luckily, again, our Honduran friend was with us because we would have never found it, we had to walk through another part of San Juancito and down a highway to this little overhang.   After a while our friend's bus arrived, but ours still hadn't.  I think it finally showed up around 6 so we loaded and headed back for Santa Lucia.   This bus dropped us back off at the triangle and we still had another 2km to walk back to where our houses were.  By then my knee had finally started hurting so we decided to wait for the Santa Lucia bus that would take us back to el Centro, where most of our houses were.  That bus finally arrived from Tegus completely packed and other people waiting at the stop got on.  This little kid, who must have been the son of the guy who was either driving the bus or collecting money, or maybe just a nice kid saw that I was limping and opened the back door of the bus for me.   My friends helped me and one other friend on, so I wouldn't have to be alone, and they walked.  Not really knowing where the bus route ended we got off at the entrance to town and right behind us were the rest us our group, someone had stopped and given them a ride.

            We all went to our respected houses to get ready for the dance the town/high school was having that night.   Every year the local high school elects a king and queen, usually seniors, for a fundraising and parade event (at least this is what I got out of it).   The dance that the town was having was in some way connected to that.  So once I got home and roughly translated what happened to my knee I showered and cleaned my knee again I went up the hill to the "club social" to check out the dance.   Basically it was a lot of 16/17 year olds asking us to dance.  It was a good time hanging out with the group but I was pretty beat from the extremely long day.   So I asked two of the guys to walk me home because there were a lot of bolos out in the street. 

The next morning I woke up and checked out my knee, I think it had been bleeding the whole night, or I just tore it back open from dancing and whatnot, but my host my called the PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) and she said I had to go to the emergency room in Tegus, so I waited around for a driver to take me and Heidi, my neighbor whose host family is related to mine.   We got the ER pretty quick, and the driver walked in with us and told them I was a cuerpo do paz volunteer and they immediately took me into a room.   The place was very clean and the doctor spoke English, but the nurse did not and the last thing I wanted to do then was speak Spanish to someone.  The doctor told me I needed stitches, but it was past 24 hours so it was a no go.   He cleaned it out, gave me pain and antibiotic meds and sent me on my way to clean it again every day. 

After we left I asked the driver if he would mind stopping to get ice cream and he said that was a wonderful question.   So we stopped at a Texaco and there was a Wendy's inside!  So I got all three of us a frosty, I've never had a frosty that tasted that good.  When I got home I called my mom and explained all of it to her, so sorry mom, here is everything in detail.  And then I watched Rush Hour 2 in English with Spanish subtitles, for studying of course.   That is one thing about these Hondurans, they LOVE their movies.

Monday, Miguel, my driver from Sunday, picked me up because I was supposed to take a week off, which we all know was NEVER going to happen.   On the way we ended up picking up a bunch of other aspirantes, so everyone was really excited about the rides in the mornings.  By Wednesday though my leg was kind of green and mentioned something to someone and the next thing I knew I had to go back to Tegus to get it looked at in the PC (Peace Corps) medical office.   So off I went and had to get it cleaned again, but I got to check out the headquarters and its pretty sweet with free internet and a huge outdoor stage thing.   The doctor there said it was a little infected but it was healing ok I just kept reopening it when I was walking on it, so again she told me to take it easy, which is very hard to do on cobble stone streets and hills.   Anyway it's forming a scab but like the doctor in the ER told me, I did do an enchilada on my knee.

Happy be-lated fourth to everyone.  Ours was kind of tame, but for lunch at CHP (that's the name of the training site) we had Honduran hamburgers and hotdogs with baked beans, not quite like the ones my dad makes but they were fun.   The staff also got us two piñatas that we got to take turns at, so much fun and a lot harder than I've ever seen before – someone holds the ropes and moves it and everyone around shouts at you where to swing.   After class we went home and had our respected dinners (well most of us did some might have gone right after class) and then met up at this bar for a 'dance party.'   One of the local restaurant owners had a big room connected to the main outdoor covered part and played music for us all there and gave us a deal on beers.  I was still on my medication so it was a very tame night for me and I headed home fairly early, but late for what time I've been going to bed here every night, around 11.

I forgot to mention also, when I got home on the 4th my host mom was very busy coordinating something and I found out later that someone in our community daughter died in a motorcycle-drug related accident in Tegus and her father who lives in Santa Lucia is very poor so Maribel was trying to find money to buy a casket; she's on the town's city council.   Anyway they were all dealing with that and I was told we might be having some sort of thing at our house because the father also did not own a house.   So when I got home from the party there were candles lit on the floor and all over.  I thought I was going to walk into some mourning ritual, but my host mom and her friend were sitting in the kitchen and they told me we didn't have electricity.   That's what I get for assuming.  The electricity went back on before I went to bed.

Tomorrow my Spanish class in going into Tegus to go to a market for a lesson, well it's more like a learning activity.   We have to take a bus into the city and then get a taxis to a location where a teacher will be meeting us.  There are six people in my group and three groups going tomorrow, everyone that went the rest of the week said it's not so bad.   But after my trip last weekend I feel like this will be a piece of cake!  After the market we go back over to the PC office and wait for everyone to meet up so hopefully I can send this out and post my pictures.

On the way home I think we're stopping at Wendy's again, I asked Miguel today and he said yes.   He really is a nice guy, very helpful and enthusiastic!  But if not, it's ok because all of the food has been awesome anyway.  On Saturday I am going back to Tegus with my family to go to a different bigger market to get food for the week and then on Sunday I am going to a family friend's finka (farm) to check out his crops and whatnot.  

Sorry this is soooo long, I'll try and recap the weekend by Monday and have that sent out but like I've been saying, the internet is not a sure thing, so we'll see.   This following weekend we have volunteer visits so as soon as I know more about where I'll be visiting I'll keep y'all posted too!

If you made it this far, thanks.  Love you all so much.   Take care.

 

PC Amor-

Bridget



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Bridget Kathleen French
954.650.5084