So I was online twice during the entire month of December...definitely incommunicado for awhile, partly by choice. It has been incredibly boring without school...I have been able to spend some time with the youth from the church so that has been good.
December started with me going on a hike with the church to some hot springs. It wasn't a hot spring in the sense you would think...or at least like I thought. Instead of a pool of water it was more like a little waterfall coming down into a river. But it was nice, hot water. I didn't want to leave... (Here's some of the girls from the church enjoying the hot spring)
I also got my face eaten by some barbed wire. I got a nice little cut running across my lip and upward, a gash under my nose, a cut inside my nostril as well as a small scrape on my cheek. The gash under my nose is still healing more or less...and I'll have a nice raised scare to remind me of the hike.
I also helped to harvest beans...what work that is! And its not like the nice flat fields in Michigan. Its literally on mountain sides...with rocks, trees, spiny plants and tarantulas. Okay...I only saw one tarantula, but if there's one there must be more. So the way they harvest beans is they leave them in the ground until they're dried. Then you go around pulling up the vines from the roots and collecting them until you have a pile. You put the pile on the ground and repeat. (The Padre has 6 acres!) Later you come back and pick up the piles of beans and carry them to a plastic tarp where they get beat with sticks to knock out all the grains. I think total we got about 8,500lbs of beans. Pretty good for 10 days of work...though it was hard and I wanted to cry. I had about 1.5hr of walking one way to get to the field. I definitely learned that I was a lot tougher than I thought...though I also learned that I'm not nearly as tough as I thought I was. Don't know if that makes sense or not.
The library closed down on the 21st and just reopened today...part of the reason I haven't updated. Which also gave me absolutely nothing to do besides hang out. Christmas Eve was a little sad...Deyvis had left for the mountains to finish some of the corn harvesting earlier in the week and didn't get back until later in the day. Between me with the beans and him with the corn we didn't see each other a lot for a couple of weeks. But the 24th he came back and I went over there to visit with his family before going to my host family's house for dinner. I had already met his youngest brother and sister and his two middle brothers had come into town to spend the holidays. Wow...do they all look alike! His whole family is super nice and really friendly...I enjoy them a lot and they've been good company. So I went to my host family's house for dinner and had tamales, coffee and sweet bread. Along with a shot of coffee liquor that is actually made nearby. There was a dance that night, but Deyvis worked the first shift and said it was pretty dead so we watched a movie instead and called it an early night. Christmas Day here is really nothing special. I went to Deyvis's house around 11 and we watched x-mas movies on tv most of the day. Ate another tamale for dinner, played some basketball and that was the extent of it.
The 27th the library put on a Festival de Cancion (Festival of Song) with a dance afterwards. So once again, gringa busted some moves with the boy.
For New Year's I convinced my friend from Choluteca (one of the bigger cities) to come out and visit me in Florida. It started with us just planning to go to the capital for a movie since neither of us had work to do. Then with the promise of Smores I got her to visit here. So I took off on the 30th and we watched Madagascar 2 and hung out in the mall. Ended up going to Chili's for dinner around 9ish. God...did that rip me up! I think I'll be sticking w/ beans and tortillas next time. We travelled back to Florida on New Year's Eve and meet up with Deyvis and his siblings a little later to go check out some festivities. They have this Toro de Fuego (Bull of Fire)...which is a man running around with this wooden contraption made to look like an archaic bull over him. So this man ran up and down the streets while this "toro" shot off rockets in random directions. Not the safest thing for the runner nor the observers. Unfortunately, neither of us brought a camera to caputre the action. There was also a dance going on...where it was basically just us dancing.
A neat tradition here is a type of scarecrow they make for New Years which represents all the bad things that happened during the year. Then at midnight it gets burned to represent the starting new. I wish I would have taken pics...2009 I will do better!
The 1st was quiet...we slept in a bit then went to the feria (festival) in the next aldea but it was pretty boring. We waited around and watched Deyvis's soccer game then left to eat. We also played with giant leaves...
Later in the night we built a fire, made Smores and chatted...Here's Deyvis with his first Smore! He enjoyed it, but thought it was too sweet. Next time, he doesn't want the chocolate! In this photo you can see above me the coffee plant and above Deyvis the mandarin tree in my yard.
Just wanted to let everyone know that I am alive and well...December was a little rough. Between the lack of things to do and being away for the holidays...but much thanks to Deyvis. He's such a wonderful guy and has been more help than I think he realizes. I guess that's about it...I'll try and upload a few more photos soon...the house, Florida, etc. But since it takes awhile to upload photos I'll leave off with one more of Deyvis and me. Because we're that cute...
Posts
