in the dark of the night

chriiiiistmas. i stayed with morena and her family in las delicias for christmas. we did the typical salvadoran christmas things, like eating chicken sandwiches and bashing pinatas and setting off fireworks. morena's father in law climbed this mango tree and brought down a backpackfull of mangoes.

jungle CHRISTMAS

mango CHRISTMAS

beans + avocado + cheese + CHRISTMAS

i was excited to see las delicias at night. darkness was everywhere. it is easy to forget that night should mean that you can't see where you're going. i was concerned about the large piles of animal poop that i happily avoid during the daylight. there was a half moon. you pay a lot more attention to the moon when you see it as a source of light. and lots of stars, mmm, many stars. it renewed my desire to spend at least one lunar cycle in a place where you can see all of the stars, very far away from cities. apart from the darkness, the village was very much as i expected. the biggest nightlife hotspot was the evangelical church, which was much more popular than the catholic church, probably because they have better music. i went to the catholic mass with morena and her family and i zoned out real fast. i stopped kneeling during the kneely parts and clapping during the clappy parts because i really hate clapping. after clapping for about a minute i usually get nauseous or dizzyish and have to stop. i also did not participate in the part where everyone lines up to get their cookies. man now i sound like a church party pooper. the proper praying pose here is to rest your forehead on your hand and look pained, but it's hard to tell who is moved by the spirit and who is asleep.

soccer practice CHRISTMAS

fernando jose, morena's son, plays with a sparkler

GOOOOO CHRISTMAS

mostly we ate and chatted and napped in hammocks. then morena's father in law, rupe, starting telling stories of yore about how he escaped a gang massacre where 120 people were killed, some by decapitation. he continued describing various atrocities, such as finding human heads in trash piles or watching someone get shot down from the top of a tree and falling to the ground. was this during the civil war? i asked him. no, he said, this was 2 years ago, maybe 3. uhhh what. apparently it happened in sonsonate, where i've been a few times. fernando jose, who is 4, wandered in while rupe was telling this story, and morena sent him away saying "the adults are talking." it just struck me as such a quotidian normal thing to say when adults want privacy, but i haven't heard it in the context of talking about surviving a mass gang murder.

a fruit is worth a thousand words

look how cute these bananas are! fingerling bananas!

remember the paint cards from my old house? i started putting them up on my wall here and then all the power went out and i spent half an hour taping them up in the dark. this is what it looked like when the lights came back on. i can't tell whether i like it. i think i do. it reminds me of tetris.

the guy who lives next to the clinic came up to me very determinedly as i was leaving today, shook my hand, and handed me a guayaba, a fruit which he grows in his yard. i asked him if it was ripe, and he said yes yes yes. then he shook my hand again. people often give me fruits and vegetables, but it's generally it's multiples, not a single unit of fruit all alone. on the way home, as i was examining it for ripeness, i noticed that there were some letters on it.

as far as i can tell, the letters spell "ME OTS." what the hell does that mean? i also tried to read it upside down as "STOEW" but the E is backwards so it cannot be. OTS is not a word in spanish. or english i guess. if the O was supposed to be a G, it could be some kind of shorthand for ME GUSTAS ("i like you"). this is pretty likely. what other messages do you carve into fruits? "thanks for helping me move?" "your baby needs to see a doctor about that rash?" maybe he ran out of space. why not choose a larger guayaba? improperly executed. i don't think i've ever received a fruit with a cryptic message carved into it before. now what do i do? i really don't think it's ripe yet, for one. he also added that anytime i want another one he will pick it for me. maybe i have to pick another one to get the vowels for this one? maybe it was because i wore a normal bra today instead of the usual sports bra.

dashing through the snow

my organization started renting a house for volunteers and i moved in too. the house is gorgeous and clean and breezy and light and i float through it with gusto. i am so delighted. sure, i am giving up some privacy to live 24/7 with volunteers, but come on, look:

this is my new secret garden

look how much fun!

the house is in a very tranquil neighborhood where instead of waking up to roosters i wake up to some other kind of bird, but i'm sure it's a more refined bird, since this area is fancier. also, we can see the brand new skyscraper called "the future tower" from our backyard. the future tower lights up at night just like philly's cira center. it is quite pretty. the future tower unfortunately emanates muzak during some evening hours. however, the next-door neighbors have a very elaborate fountain/waterfall system in their backyard which provides the soothing sound of moving water.

the most important part of the move is my new location relative to a special landmark. today i went to get a lighter and on my way back chatted up the guardian there. his name is ruben. they were having a party with diplomats and i asked him to invite me next time. he laughed but i was serious. i told him i can be the diplomat of a tiny, ethnically ambiguous country so no one will doubt my presence in such an esteemed hall. i bet christmas will be a big deal there.

comes from somewhere

i have recently discovered what lou discovered on his trip to china in january 2001: poinsettias are trees. like lou, i was overflowing with smiles. poinsettia trees are in full bloom now in el salvador. of course they are trees. of course they are trees that bloom in december. this is obvious now, but i had never spent much thought on the origin of the ubiquitous christmastime poinsettia-wrapped-in-cellophane. the more you know.

today a woman in the community was telling me excitedly about how her 4 year old and 7 year old daughters went with her to cut coffee. sure, that is amusing, children make amusing day laborers. she then excitedly showed me pictures of the event on her cameraphone. i thought, this is some kind of moment of clarity. you might ask, why does she have a cameraphone if she makes roughly $1.50 an hour cutting coffee, a job that will not last more than a few weeks? do not ask that question. she has some other inconsistent sources of income of course - selling handicrafts, maybe money from family in the US. but the moment is typical. people with dirt floors may have televisions, and sometimes dvd players. this confuses americans who visit. do not be confused. if you live in a house with a dirt floor in a village in el salvador, your desire to connect to the larger world is probably very strong. best way to do that? radio, tv, sweet american pirated dvds and their fanciful worlds of pretend. it's the easiest way to connect to the outside reality and also join in the outside fantasy, the promise that with all your new shoes and gadgets and t-shirts you can forget about the fact that you went into early labor from shock because you saw someone get shot outside of your house.

yesterday i met an 11 year old girl named marta. she was very bright, going into 6th grade, but she said sometimes she didn't have time to study. why's that? she gets up at 5am so she can make coffee for her mom before she goes to work. then she has to make breakfast for her siblings, clean up, soak the corn, go to the mill and get the corn milled, make tortillas, etc etc. 11 year olds - busy little beavers! she has an older brother but obviously he cannot do any of that as it is girl work. she said she liked drawing, and that although some people found it difficult, it was quite easy for her. i snuck her two big H1N1 posters from the training we were giving and told her to do some drawings on the blank side and come show me. i asked her what she drew with, and she said a pencil and sometimes colors but she didn't have any colors right now. it's hard not to feel guilty that at her age i was taking weekly art lessons and my mom brought me to meet the town watercolorist and i had all kinds of brushes and pastels and colors and encouragement and marta has a pencil and no time to draw. well, now i have a box of colored pencils with her name on them, and depending on how the epidemic goes, a lot more H1N1 posters.

smattering

today at the grocery store there were free samples of vodka and tonics. pretty ample as well. but there were also samples of butter cookies. i had 3 kinds of butter cookies and zero vodka and tonics but i appreciated the offer nonetheless.

the grocery store was also offering an interesting sale combo: some kind of lysol spray taped together with...pantiliners. how is that for gendered marketing. there are also some really irritating new fashion billboards up that say "buy something just because you are depressed!" or "feel like a goddess when you put on high heels!" or feel like a cripple. just saying.

whilst frolicking at the clinic, carolina, who you may remember from before, asked me "what is that on your face?" hm, i thought, i must have smeared a something on my face. here? i asked. no, there. oh right, there is a zit on my forehead that i had considered barely noticeable really, but carolina has eagle eyes apparently. i told her, oh, that is a zit. what is a zit? she asked. ummmm. ehhh searching for culturally appropriate answer that will make sense to a 4 year old "it is like a volcano," i explained. she made a weird face. i did not elaborate.

apparently the guys at basketball were asking where i was the last two weeks because they want to bring their female friends too. ballller.

no fly zone

so i went home for thanksgiving. i flew out of guatemala, not el salvador, because the airfare is roughly twice as expensive from el salvador. on my way back to the states, the bus stopped at the border in el salvador and an immigration official came aboard and looked at passports. it seemed he didn't like mine when he looked at it. then he took it and reassured me "i'll be right back." yeah take your time WHAT ARE YOU DOING OH NO AHHH. then he came back and said "can you please get off the bus." no i won't get off FLOOR IT AHH. as it turns out, my completely faulty assumption that aug 20 - nov 19 was fewer than 90 days slapped me real hard. $114.85. why the 85 cents? really? i was two days over my tourist visa. i was very angry but i really could only be angry at me, and that made it worse. plus, the whole bus had to wait for me. it took a shockingly long amount of time. they stamped my passport with a very unfriendly stamp that said "you have 5 days to get out of the 4-country zone." then they released me and we drove across the bridge into guatemala and they stamped my passport "you have 4 days to get out" and the official asked "when are you leaving the country" and i said "today" and she said "good." thank you for your hospitality, central america.

it was chilly in america, and sometimes even cold. i did not appreciate that. i did, however, enjoy casually tossing toilet paper into the toilet, slurping greedily at public water fountains, ordering tap water at eating establishments, and pie for breakfast and lunch and later. i liked that there were no flies. i accomplished little and didn't see all of the people i meant to or do all of the tiny errands and collect all the small things i yearned for. i distributed the horchata i made with vilma, and people liked it or did not like it.

but most importantly, i learned how to change a tire. i heard a loud bang while driving in dc, the car got clunkety and made sounds of stress, and the tire deflated. i pulled over safely and all that and stared at it for a few minutes, seeing if perhaps it would transmogrify. nothing. i called roadside assistance and they estimated 50 minutes. while waiting, i decided to fiddle about with the tire, because i had that one experience where creepy whatshisface private investigator kinda taught me how to do it but wouldn't let me actually do it ("id hate to see a woman changing a tire by herself") yeah, well id hate to see a man get punched in the face. the tirechanging in dc went swimmingly. various dudes on bikes and in pickup trucks approached to rescue me but mumbled "oh you seem to have it under control" and shuffled off. when the geico dude got there, he said, i just want to shake your hand, you are the first woman i've ever seen take the initiative to change it yourself. well, i'm glad he'll never be able to say that to any women changing tires from now on. all he did was screw the lug nuts on tighter, probably because my fragile lady hands were too slippery what with all the scented lotions. i admit that he tightened them much more thoroughly, but he also used a drill, and that is cheating.

now i am back in el salvador. i am wearing a purple dress and flip flops and i sweated a little bit on my way back from getting groceries. the guardians on my street were extra enthusiastic today. however, i am probably moving soon. anyway, blogging hiatus is OVER. oh, an update in the spending money on good food campaign: today i spent $19 on groceries and $11 of that was a 2.5 pound bag of prunes. yayyy!! next time, almonds.

this is what i did at home!
i broke the cork and almost totally ruined this bottle of wine which had been brought from spain by my family's spanish exchange students
but it turned out fine

i wasn't even hungry in this picture

let me see you waltz, child

as the school year here starts in january, november means graduation season. right now we are entering "summer," even though we are above the equator. curious. the point is, this is a great country because they make their children waltz. the school in las delicias goes from kindergarten to 9th grade, and at the ceremony only the kindergarteners and 9th graders dress up fancy and are made to waltz and sing. and oh yes did they dress up fancy. here is the kindergarten:

behind them in that photo is the stage where there is a "table of honor" where the teachers and the "queen" were seated. the queen was a kindergarten girl in a red gown with a crown and a wand and a sash, of course. the criteria for election to such a post are not clear to me. all of the kids were made to dress identically, except for a few who did not. many kindergarten girls wore high heels. ehhh.

and then they waltzed!

vilma's daughter gets her waltz on!

the waltz was mostly a fervent rocking back and forth with a forcefully executed spin every few measures. also, no smiling.

recovering from aforementioned spin

vilma's daughter woke up at 5am to have her hair done. just like my kindergarten days!

then, obviously, the 9th graders waltzed too. no pictures of that - it is not cute awkward like with small children who are concentrating very hard and wearing stiff fabrics.

there were of course normal graduation exercises - the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place students in each grade had to come up to the stage and receive certificates. then they had to come back to receive medals. rather inefficent. only one song played repeatedly for three hours, except for the brief intermission where the principal presented a brief budget report. now that is admirably efficient use of time. this is not all pomp and circumstance, it's also how many toilet paper rolls were purchased in the last year. actually i think that'd be zero, i don't think the school provides that. BYO, even you, "queen."

everything i know about basketball i learned from space jam

first of all, i'd like to announce that i just made some highly delicious curry squash fritters. i am announcing this to balance the recent sardine tragedy. i am indeed quite skilled and creative in arranging and heating and mixing foodstuffs most of the time.

i have actually been doing a lot of asserting my skills and abilities here, obviously in work, but also in leisure. probably because of machismo here, i've noticed that women tend to spectate instead of participate. certainly this happens in the states too. the guys i've been hanging out with aren't saying things like "you can't do that," nothing of the sort. they are just a bit surprised when i am good at something it seems. we went bowling a bit ago and the other girls kept saying "i'm so bad at this." who cares. is bowling really about being good at bowling? there are a whole slew of activities of this ilk - recreational things that you never really practice often, so no one is skilled at them particularly. later i played pool with two male friends and one of their girlfriends. she wanted to just watch. i let her for the first game and then i forced her to play (in a friendly, new friend way). she was my partner. she got one ball in and i got the rest in and we won and it was glorious in all ways.

it is important to me to be able to hold my own in such activities, especially playing against males. you might be saying, oh, it's because i grew up with 4 brothers. not really. we were not competitive, we were quite harmonious, right, brothers? i'm not particularly competitive, but when it comes to these activities where i see a lot of women apologizing for being bad, or not wanting to participate, i feel i have to demonstrate that yes, i am quite good at this and i enjoy playing and i will crush you without mercy. especially here in el salvador where gender divisions are more stark, i have something to prove. yeah - i just beat you at ping pong - don't look surprised. after twiddling around on the guitar in my house for the last three months, i can play some songs. this has been useful at parties where a guitar comes out. i am not watching the whole time, i am playing too, i am improving my skill.

yesterday i even accepted an invitation to play basketball. it's true. i played in a four on four game. i was marking an old man who was wearing blue armwarmers or whatever those are. at one point he was smoking a cigarette while playing, but he was nimble. i took shots, maybe a dozen of them, and got zero in, but many hit the rim, so that's close at least. i made sure i did not apologize or make apologetic faces. no apologies. the guys i were playing with were about as welcoming as i could expect, and only occasionally did not pass to me when they should have. but mostly good, fun, highly participatory, and a bunch of little girls in the park cheered for me. next time no cheering from the sidelines, niñas. get out there and block that old man's sneaky loop shot, even if he smells kinda weird.

most of the women i'm talking about are from the city, went to good schools, middle class families, etc. i was out with two guy friends last night and one said, i like going out with you because i don't need to watch you or take care of you. um, of course not. who do you need to watch, i asked? he said, well a lot of the girls i go out with are shy or wouldn't know how to deal with it if, for example, some guy was bothering them, but i know you would handle whatever on your own. uhhhh yes, i am fierce obviously, but i am concerned that you think the rest of your female friends can't handle it. i find the idea that women need to be protected or supervised hidden in many other attitudes. and i bring them out and challenge them, to women and men alike. in many of these sporting activities, i find men telling me encouragingly "don't be afraid" and i quite emphatically say, i am not afraid. there's nothing to fear here except fireballs in my oven, electrocution in my shower, earthquakes, and hurricanes. ping pong? no problem.

dispelling debunking dissecting delighting

i've had some good discussions in the community this past week. a talk i gave about male reproductive health (to the micro health insurance women) first became a praisefest for vasectomies and then became a very active discussion about homosexuality. the older, more strictly religious women kind of tuned out and looked a little offended. the younger women started throwing out lots of "but isn't homosexuality caused by..." ideas. many different ideas floating out there. "isn't homosexuality caused by getting raped as a child?" one asked. another responded, "no, i have a nephew who was raped as a child and he's pretty macho now." oh...good response i guess? mostly the beliefs were that homosexuality was a result of an event, accident, or habit formed in childhood, or that people decide to be gay or lesbian all of a sudden. i didn't have to do much talking - the women were very animated and many of them defended the fact that you are born gay or lesbian and that there's nothing wrong with that. i was pretty impressed and delighted. but again - the older generation was not participating.

we've also been doing a series of talks/activities about budgeting with the micro health insurance women. this week we talked about buying on installment plans versus saving up and paying everything up front. one woman had paid for a $500 refrigerator on the installment plan and the total was $800. whoaaa. a lot of goods that are very cheap in the US are expensive here. this rack, for example, might be $50 here. there's no target or ikea here to go pick up your plastics for $5.99. i guess it costs a lot to ship large empty plastic containers that are not stackable. after this discussion, i gave out newspaper advertisements and each pair of women analyzed their ad - at what gender/age is this directed, what is the message, what are they selling, is there a clear price, what does the small print say, etc. they were really into it. "this ad is full of lies!" yes.

i don't remember whether i ever had any kind of "anti-advertising education" or whether i just developed my own bitterness towards ads of all sorts. cell phone companies here, as in the states, are brutal with surprise fees and restrictions and nothing is ever clear. sometimes ads appear here in places that i am not accustomed to - an extra panel above a street sign pointing you towards a kfc, a giant floor-to-ceiling sign in the class room at the gym sponsored by dove that warns that "communal soaps leave residue on your skin." rut roh! the newspaper also runs what i believe are supposed to be sincere articles about things like "chili's adds new menu items." sorry- that is not news. both here and in the US, i think there should be more consumer education and many more restrictions on ads. but you all knew that already.

just call me rachael ray

i just did something i may never forgive myself for. so don tito, one of the guardians of the clinic, gave me 6 very cute eggplants today, so i says to myself, i will eat some. i cut up 3 of them all nice, throw out one when i find a wriggly maggot in it, fair enough right. get out the ol fryin pan and throw it some olive oil and garlic and red pepper flakes whabam eggplant. cookin. throw in some scallions. cookin. throw in a whole lot of hummus - rather edgy perhaps. oh yeah and cumin. i go to get the pasta to start that up and next to it i find that tin of sardines in spicy oil that i bought on a strange whim a few weeks ago. i suppose my thinking was, i need protein, i like spicy oil and this tin looks fun to open.
i guess i didn't consider the consequences. the tin was in fact fun to open, but in doing so i sprayed spicy red oil all over my khakis. i was inexplicably dismayed to discover that the tin was actually full of tiny fish. but i had no choice now, i thought. i poked at the little fish and found out that they had spines, and then i went through and poked all the spines out while the eggplant-hummus was getting a little fried. then i put the sardines in with the eggplant hummus. what the hell was i thinking? hindsight is 20/20, as they say. but i knew it was a terrible idea even as i was letting the little fishy parts rain down on the eggplant chunks. i was looking hopefully towards the spicy oil as the rug that ties the room together, you know.
with great skepticism i scooped a whole bunch of the mixture over the pasta and mixed it all around. it looked kind of, um, sinewy. look i'm sorry you have to read this. but you have to. it didn't taste as weird as i expected, nor as fishy. while i was eating it, i was thinking, this is not so bad. towards the end my opinion was transforming. my eyes were tearing a little bit from the spicy oil. the hummus, because it is not translucent, masked the eggplant and the sardines, so when i picked up a chunk with my spoon and bit in it was sort of an awful surprise. juicy or fleshy?
i ate it all. then i went back to the kitchen and gazed upon the large remaining portion of the hummus eggplant sardine paste. it had gained a crustular appearance in the pan while i was away. i stared. do i...containerize this...to eat...again...later? do i have to? i can't eat this later i shall not. but to just throw it out? rather harsh. OH perfect! i will feed it to the clinic dog tomorrow, i thought, as i scooped it into a black plastic bag. i am teaching her to play fetch - what a delightful reward. OH wait. i am taking the bus tomorrow morning - no one likes to sit near that person on the bus with a bagfull of yesterday's sardine hummus baba ghanoush paste for an hour and a half. i twisted the bag closed and held it in my hand. it was warm and squishy and lumpy and i threw it in the trash and went to wash the spicy oil off my pants.

horchata!

so i'm coming home to visit for thanksgiving starting next thursday. yayyy hello everyone! i bought bags of horchata mix in the market to bring home. horchata is a rice drink. the bags look like this:

i told vilma, a member of the micro health insurance program, about my plan to bring horchata mix home and make horchata for everyone to try. she informed me that i would need a mill to grind up the ingredients, and suggested making the horchata powder in her house. ah ok yes let's do that! i bought 4 pounds of rice and giant cinnamon and the 2 pounds of horchata ingredients. vilma had the fire going when i got there.

first we toast the rice

until it is toastylike

meanwhile i hang out with some of vilma's kids

and they play with my camera

anderson making his angry face

next we toast peanuts, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, and some little black seeds

mmm we ate some of the peanuts

then we break up the cinnamon and toast that too

everything is toasted. to the mill!

the mill! i think that is a leafblower motor?
you pour in the stuff in that gray cone and it comes flying out into the tray all ground up

scooping out the powder
vilma made the miller put it through twice so it would be finer and less chunky

the mill looks good in profile

powder is ready and delicious smelling!

kickin it back at vilma's
the whole process took about 3 hours

so get ready america - if customs/security allows, here comes 6 pounds of unlabeled brown powder in my carry-on!

planet earth

as some of you have heard, hurricane ida passed through el salvador this weekend. right now the death toll is around 130, mostly due to flooding and mudslides. rescue crews can't reach some towns because of damage to roads and bridges. to read more go here. the president has declared a national state of emergency. although more than 60 people were killed in san salvador alone, i haven't seen any kind of crisis mode within the city. the low, vulnerable part of the city is pretty far from me. yeah, it poured on saturday, and friday, and thursday, but i haven't seen any major damage. it's weird to be only reading about this online and seeing pictures when it happened so close. the clinic is fine - it didn't even rain there on saturday.

to put it in context of el salvador hurricane history, in 1998, hurricane mitch killed more than 10,000 people here. earthquakes have also been equally fatal, killing a little more than a thousand people in 2001. since i've been here i've felt a few little earthquakes - people say "está temblando," it's shaking. the first earthquake i felt was at 11 pm and i was home alone. suddenly everything in the room starting shaking. er-should i get under a doorway? maybe a table? should i unplug my computer? once i decided to just stand up the earthquake had stopped. it is unnerving though, because you don't know when it will stop. when i've felt earthquakes in public, people kind of freeze and look at each other seriously until it passes. even though people here are more used to little earthquakes than i am, they also know the serious danger which any earthquake could bring.

yesterday i went up to one of san salvador's volcanoes with my friend. it is called el boqueron, which translates mysteriously to "anchovy cured in a brine made partly of its own blood." it might more sensibly come from boca (mouth), as volcanoes are sort of the mouths of the earth, but actually are more like pimples if you think about it, am i right. on the road up to the mountain, there were in fact many little mudslides and a lot of debris from the hurricane. the last eruption of el boqueron was in 1917. it is all foresty and fresh and lush up by the crater. check out the crater. it is about a quarter mile deep. there were clouds forming in the bottom of the crater, and when the sun hit them, they rose up and engulfed us and evaporated. SUPER cool. i didn't bring my camera because my friend told me we were going to get coffee but instead we went to a volcano. MLIA.

sunshine on my shoulders

this week i got pupusas with dary (from that epic thunderstorm) and his brother henry. dary is out of work, he said something vague about being dismissed from his job at the church. sketch. henry is 17 and in 9th grade. he was sounding out words while reading the sports page. that is sad. dary and henry did a lot of chatting with people we ran into or who came around the pupuseria. they also kept looking around nervously ("for the police, we ran away one time because henry lied about his age"). henry showed me his blackberry (!!!?) which he said is "borrowed," which is suspicious, but it is full of pictures of their family, so i guess that is good. we also played the fun english-spanish game i like to call "translate this song in real time." i used to do this at the gym i went to in madrid. the uruguayan step aerobic teacher LOVED house music. we stood in the middle (for stereo balance) of the giant aerobics room listening and he looked at me earnestly as the singer yelled "i want to dance dance dance" and i replied in monotone "quiero bailar bailar bailar." likewise, henry held his blackberry up to my ear and i translated such classic as "every breath you take" or whatever that song is actually called. conversation didn't flow particularly smoothly, but at least in el salvador silence isn't awkward. even when you don't have a lot in common as far as background, there is always music, sports, and the universal language of sass. thankfully i am conversant in sass, and people love it when you sass their brother.

yesterday i met up with a big ol group of people from couchsurfing, which is a fabulous organization. of course, we went bowling. possibly the only bowling alley in all of el salvador, but it was quite authentic. i started off with two strikes, talking big about my jersey heritage, but my game suffered after we ate some weird pizza. i felt like i was in any old bowling alley in new jersey, except the bathrooms were impeccably clean. it was a lovely group which included a french canadian guy traveling from mexico to argentina, and an english guy traveling from argentina to mexico. criss cross! somehow i did not pay for this excursion - there is a custom of men paying for women when going out, even between friends and apparently also people you just met. i do not like this custom. it makes me uncomfortable. but it is rampant among the upper class. a veritable EPIDEMIC. it's not really a showy thing - when it's happened to me, i go to pay and i just don't owe anything. i think it is seen as more of an obligation for the men to make sure the women are having a good time. i do not like it.

later we went to some new bar/club where a band was playing "hey jude." there was free champagne for women (wednesday is ladies night in many places). the place was swank because there were umbrellas on the ceiling - you know they are trying. one french canadian woman who has been here for a few years noted that in el salvador, the number of people who have money to go out, even $5, is so small that by now she pretty much knows everyone in that scene. interesting to think about the divide between people who have money to go out for fun and, well, the rest of the country.

i found a store tucked into the bottom level of a shopping mall called "delights from the middle east" and i ate a wonderfully buttery date-filled cookie there today. i also had breakfast at the market in santa tecla - two big fried plantains and cheese pupusas and hot chocolate. super rico!!

drunk plantains

today i went to santa tecla, which has a giant indoor market and lots of stalls that spill out for blocks. after pushing my way off the bus, i saw a sign that said "$2 haircuts." yes! i had a lovely haircutting experience, talking with the three women working there since there were no other customers. they really liked my hair. i went in wearing my orange baseball cap. at the end of the haircut, the woman who cut my hair said rather scoldingly, are you going to put your hat back on? uh, no? i said. i think that was the right answer. she blow dried it very meticulously and put in some gelly substance called "silicone polisher" and i breezed away into the market.

the indoor market is a grimy, chaotic labyrinth. sorry, no pictures - too dark, and i was not brash enough to use a flash in people's faces. there are fruits, vegetables, fish with flies, meat, fabric, ribbons, little places to eat, belts, shoe repair, clothes, etc. it is like reading terminal market in philly, except denser, darker, larger, and without those pesky health codes. throughout the afternoon i ducked in and out, exploring different sections. shop owners yelled out "what are you looking for, princess?!" some dudes grabbed at my arms. good thing i covered my arms in acid. BURNED dudes.

i bought a pirated dvd of the last harry potter movie for $1. i wandered through the two giant parks, where many little stalls were also set up. here is a park.
one giant used clothing store was having some kind of event. i entered the store and there was a clown with a microphone - terrible. in the sale section of this store, i found exactly what i was looking for that i didn't even know i was looking for:

the salesguy was very amused that i was buying this, but was trying to keep a straight face. on the receipt, he listed the garment as simply "german." the tag says "flexitard" - a great word. obviously there is no size on the tag, it is one size fits none. it was $2. i am elated. please note that it has stirrups. amazing.

naturally, i partook of the food as well. i got some sugarized tamarind balls, which i think did irreparable damage to my teeth. a little cart was selling plantains that were grilled in the peel. oh YES. the lady shimmied the plantain out of its blackened peel and it was all soft and hot. then she did something i couldn't see and put a fork in it and handed it to me. it looked like it had spit all over it. although i was a bit put-off, i obviously tasted it. aha! it was beer, not spit. and it was delicious!

on the bus ride home, i sat next to a guy who i slowly learned was drunk. he turned to me and asked me if he could have my number. i said no. then he tried to give me his cell phone. no, it's yours, i said. no, he replied, it's yours. this happened six times. granted, the thought did cross my mind that my cell phone was very broken, and his was nicer than mine even. but no, that is rude. i think. he seemed quite genuine in the offer. then he tried to give me his sweatshirt. no no. the worst souvenir.

fireball

i have been going to the gym every weekday, enjoying classes in dance, spinning, and yoga. this has been great because it a) creates routine in the otherwise unstructured hours between 4ish and sleep, b) gives me a place to meet sweet 40 year old women and sketchy 50 year old men, and c) exercise.

both my cell phone and our hot water have been broken this week. inconvenient, certainly, but also quite useful to learn to do without. i am much more water-efficient with the cold showers.

i am embarking on a vague campaign to spend more money on good food because i love food and i have enough money. yesterday i saw some fresh bolognese sauce from a pasta store. it was $4.08 for an 8 oz jar but i made myself buy it. it was pretty flavorful but kind of watery. overall, i am trying to convince myself to use money to get things that i want.

we all know that i have mastered the skill of using a lighter. i am very proud. i have been fearful of lighting our actual gas oven, because hey, that's terrifying. well, i got me some tiny fingerling potatoes to roast, cut em up real cute, covered them in olive oil, the works. i opened the oven and lit it and a giant fireball exploded and singed my arm hairs and made a huge bang and made my heart stop. i sauteed the potatoes instead. they were crispy and adorable and the smell of burnt hair had mostly disappeared by the time they were done.

an alarming hat

they just won their soccer game 5-1, look how overjoyed they are

the lempa river starts in honduras
it is dry season now

swimmin in the sun

ooh am i invited?? (no)

mauricio eats a raw plantain, for some reason

una senora in her hammock

this weekend i went to the lower lempa, which is where the lempa river empties into the pacific ocean. i went there to make a small film about a community there called la canoa that partners with a dc-based org called voices on the border. the town is about 2 hours from san salvador by car but i went by bus and it took 5 buses and 1 pickup truck and 4 hours. not too bad. i wore an orange baseball cap but i am not accustomed to it. every time i closed my eyes for a long period on the bus and opened them again, i was startled by the hat's rim above my eyes. GAH what the hell is-oh it's my hat. the girl sitting next to me was even roused from her texting stupor to laugh at me the third time it happened.

while waiting for the last bus, i found a stall that sold riguas and delightedly purchased some that had just come off the grill. riguas are sweet fried corn strips, they taste like fried cornbread and you eat them with a soft wet cheese. they were very hot. abruptly the bus showed up and i got on with the hot greasy riguas in one hand and my bus fare in the other. this left no hands free for holding on, which i needed to do as there were no seats. a young man offered me a seat, i said oh no, thank you. a minute later the bus stopped very suddenly and i fell very completely into his lap. er sorry, i guess i did want your seat.

i met up with the voices on the border staff and we walked through la canoa, the tiny community, and i did some filming. the lempa river is at the edge of la canoa, and as the photos show, it is very dry right now. but very warm! mm. we stayed overnight at a guest house in a nearby community. most of the communities in this area have an interesting story. the people used to live in morazan, which is 6 hours north (by bus). morazan is where most of the fighting in the civil war took place, so they were displaced from their homes and lived in refugee camps in honduras for almost ten years. as they neared ten years, the war was still going on, but they said eff this, lets go back to el salvador, except they settled in lempa, where the land was more fertile. many of these communities are only 20 years old, but they are very well organized and do a great job of working with foreign NGOs and governments to improve their quality of life. you can read more about them at the voices on the border website (above).

there was a "super fiesta" with "lasser disco" on saturday night on the basketball court to benefit two community members who have cancer. it was like a middle school dance, but with constant strobe light and someone selling cabbage. the proportion of dancers to watchers was the same as middle school (1:15). we danced with great fervor. even at night it was terribly hot, everyone was damp with sweat. the strobe light is tricky - while it is on, everything you do looks cool, but when it goes off, there's a big disappointment. i prefer no strobe light, because then you have to work hard all the time, and that's what fun is about. after about an hour of dancing, the entire town lost power. pitch black. kind of eerie to know that you are in a dense crowd of people but you can't see the hand in front of your face. a pregnant moment, i think you might say. unfortunately darkness means danger so the dance quickly dispersed.

the next day, the group i was with prepared to return to san salvador. two guys had come down in a car, so we would get a ride back. alberto had driven his beloved 1977 volkswagen beetle, which was bright red and was made in brazil and only had one working door. he chatted about how the brakes were not working last week and he stuck his hand in the engine a few times before 4 of us squeezed into the backseat. i'm sorry you have to read this, poppy - it is the nadir of vehicle safety. the window of the broken door was not openable. alberto and freddy sat up front, and spent much of the ride singing together in sometimes doubtful harmony. a wooden rosary hung from the rearview mirror. as we jalopied through wide green plains and passed the humps of volcanoes in the little-red-car-that-could, i felt like i was watching a trailer for a movie that i would dismiss as trite. we stopped to get gas and also got ice cream and at that moment it was the best ice cream in the world, although it was actually my least favorite ice cream chain here (too many weird ice crystals). but so good right then.

chain chain chain

i finally caved and joined a gym near my house. the $40 punch card allows 20 visits over the next month. i like this because each visit has a fixed value, as opposed to unlimited monthly membership where i would feel pressure to go every day to decrease the price of each visit. i also can factor in the intangible values of "having somewhere to go at night" and "meeting people." the staff guy who gave me a tour swore that this gym was different in that guys wouldn't bother me or hit on me. aha! i didn't believe him. it took 5 minutes for some creepy balding dude wearing all white to plop down next to me and tell me that if i was a teacher he would be like a schoolboy. if i were a teacher i would expel you.
i went to a dance class at the gym. it was half middle aged, overweight women in black leggings and half skeptical high school seniors in soccer shorts. i was in the middle. we were led by a svelte, gangly man in swishy pants who had tiny hips and gray highlights in his curly hair. he brought us on a veritable world tour of dance styles. in my opinion, the other women won the merengue, salsa, and cha cha numbers and i won hip hop and trance because they looked confused and i looked really with-it. i think the svelte gangly man won belly dancing. he always wins because he knows what's coming. also, you can't see his sneakers because they are hidden by his swishy pants. everyone knows that it's impossible to make dancing in sneakers look cool. as far as overall score, i think i lose, because i think i pulled something in my back. maybe fewer shakira moves next time.
the weather is changing - we are now in the breezes of october. it is lovely - strong refreshing winds with the same old bright sun. gorgeous. this is kite season, and people sell kites on street corners. i keep my eyes almost completely closed going through these kite gauntlets because i fear i will lose an eye. people here are wearing winter coats for this weather, although at night it certainly hasn't been colder than 65. brrr.
i ran into dary (from the thunderstorm) in the park on sunday and we chatted and he told me which dudes in the park were gang members. thanks, friend! like many salvadorans, it stresses him out that i don't go to church. however, he and others are greatly relieved to hear that i was baptized. at least i did something right as an infant.
in more gang news, there were internet rumors spreading last week that the gangs were going to launch an "offensive" today and randomly attack people. on these speculations, universities were closed, people stayed home from work, businesses were closed. as far as i can tell, no violence has occurred. it doesn't seem like the gangs would actually be behind this - if they wanted a random attack, they wouldn't schedule it and leak it to the internet. it was a strange day and hopefully it doesn't signal to the gangs how much fear they instill.

happy saturday

Today when I woke up I realized I had nothing to do all day, and that wasn't a good feeling. Some hazy plans to go to someone's beach house had fallen through. It was too early to call anyone. I made lemon tea with a big scoop of honey to soothe my sore throat and started a book to wait out the morning hours. I perused my battalion of “what's happening in San Salvador” websites and found some kind of philosophy discussion group which was going to meet at 6:30 pm in my neighborhood. Some organization called “New Acropolis” was organizing it. It offered “100% practical philosophy” and “meeting new friends” and “answers to your deepest worries about humanity, life and the universe.” Excellent. I will be there. I've been here for two months. I need friends.

For the next few hours I contemplated going to a cafe to read my book for the sake of getting out of the house, but I could not get over the roadblock of not wanting to purchase anything at the cafe. I learned how to play “Wonderful Tonight” on the guitar. I sent a text message to a Belgian girl living in a nearby town who I got in touch with through Couch Surfing. No response. I made pupusas and doused them in paprika and splurged by cooking them in butter. Ooh crispy good. Finally the afternoon came and I called this guy Julio who makes jewelry and loves God who I had befriended on a previous cafe venture (I only walked in that time, did not buy anything). A woman answered when I called and said there was no Julio there. Oh. Ten minutes later my phone rang, the caller ID said Julio again. Aha! But no, this was some guy named Marco reiterating that there was no Julio. Thanks Marco, I appreciate your clarification.

I put on jeans and a festive, lightweight long sleeve shirt and left the house at 6:05, allotting possible time to get lost. It was almost completely dark, but there was lightning in the distance. It would rain soon, but the meeting lasted two hours so it'd be finished before I had to walk home. The streets were mostly empty already. A young woman with strangely gray hair sat outside a strip club on a metal chair with a box in her lap. As I passed, she smiled and said “adios, chica,” which felt warm and familiar, until I realized that she'd actually said “hay chicle,” or “gum for sale.” Oh. I'm not depressed. I'm a joyful person. I am just more alone than I want to be.

I waited to cross the road, which is two lanes in both directions. Kept waiting. Realizing, as usual, that I wasn't going to get a stretch of no cars in both directions. Taking advantage of a car stopping to take a left turn, I ran to the double yellow line, waited there while cars flew by on both sides, and finally found a second gap and ran across. Remember how my neighborhood in DC had a “walkscore” of 88 out of 100 – “very walkable?” I do. I give my neighborhood here a 12 out of 100 - “some pedestrians will perish.”

I found the address, delighted that there were many signs outside signifying that this was a real organization. Plenty of cars out front. I ring the bell. A tiny window opens in the door and a man's face appears, Wizard of Oz style. He looks surprised. Uh oh. I'm here for the philosophy discussion group, I tell him, already feeling apologetic. That was this morning at 10, he says neutrally. Oh, I say, the website said 6:30, I guess it was wrong. He replies, sometimes we have belly dancing classes. Come back on Monday. A woman comes up behind him, she is smiling, and gives me a little flyer which shows the schedule. They close the tiny window. Meh, so much for my single activity for the day. I'll stop at the supermarket, poke around a little while.

I spend too much time looking at the spices, memorizing their Spanish names, concentrating. I meander through the produce section which is mostly empty – it's dinner time on a Saturday. An older woman in a blue cardigan sweater set and large pearl earrings smiles at me warmly. Maybe she is filling time too. A group of four young guys are debating which case of beer to buy. I consider approaching them. “Oh hey, where's the party, dudes?” I do not. I stand in a checkout line behind the woman in the blue cardigan. I change my basket from hand to hand and she says oh, here you go, and moves up her groceries on the conveyor belt so there is space for mine.

When I step outside with my two plastic bags full of groceries, it is pouring rain horizontally. “Taxi!” a man calls out. I have never paid for a taxi in my life and will not start now. I will get wet. Almost immediately, I am completely wet. My festive long sleeve shirt is plastered to me. I wait to cross the street again. The cars do not care that it is pouring, I have to wait. I pass a big group of people huddled together under a bus shelter. Water is pouring off the tin roofs at weird angles above the skinny sidewalk. A young couple runs towards me, holding hands. I step off the sidewalk into the gutter stream to make room for them, the water in the gutter is up to my ankles. My grocery bags feel heavy, they are collecting water. At least this should rinse the spinach pretty well. Two guys watch me go by from inside a little store. “Niña!” one calls out. No, won't go in there. I want to go home, I'm shivering and disappointed.

There is an elevated crosswalk across the next four lane street. I walk up the metal steps slowly, they are very slick and the wind is strong and the rain is in my eyes. A billboard for Citibank sits on top of the crosswalk. Citibank will bridge the gap between your dreams and really achieving your dreams. As I walk, suspended above the traffic, the billboard lights go out. Then the streetlights go dark, then the building lights. The headlights still pass below. I pause, looking up at the lightning, more striking now in the complete dark. Then I keep going, down the stairs carefully, downhill. My eyes burn a little bit, my eyelids are working like windshield wipers in turbo mode. There's a big overhang at the mouth of my street, I stop underneath it to take a break. Cars have pulled over, put on their hazard lights on the main street. The rain still reaches me, but not as hard. My jeans are heavy with water, sitting uncomfortably low on my hips. How long will I wait here, it's not going to let up soon. Another moment of inertia. Water rushes downhill in thick chunks. God damn I thought rainy season was over. I start sneezing.

The streetlights flicker and come back on. Three young guys are coming down the hill from far off, one of them has a soccer ball. They're laughing, splashing in puddles, teenagers maybe. I watch them come down the hill, they come closer, they smile at me. One reaches out a hand, but I stay where I am and they leave. Then I follow after them. The one who had reached out his hand soon sees that I'm following. He waits for me, and reaches out his hand again, asking if he can carry my grocery bags. Yes. Thank you. The four of us walk in the street, the sidewalk is underwater. Their soccer game was rained out, obviously. They live in the poor community adjacent to my house, it's considered “dangerous” and “unsightly,” it's why my rent is cheap. I'm friendly with some of the store owners there, they are funny and unhurried and amused by my weird requests and my ability to carry a propane container by myself. The guy carrying my groceries is named Dari, he is 22 like I am. He dropped out of school, now he has a job at a church. It's hard to hear because of the wind and the rain pelting the tin roofs. Some people think Salvadoreans are abusivos, or disrespectful, he says. No, I tell him, I've met very kind people here. The rain feels like someone wearing gloves full of needles slapping me in the face. Then Dari says he likes my eyes. Oh well, I'll let him say that. The lightning is closer, the thunder shakes the ground. They deliver me to my house, he hands me my groceries. Come find us to hang out, just ask at the store, they tell me. I tell them to let me know if there are any activities, er, whatever is going on. I thank them profusely and they go back into the rain, still smiling.

I peel off my wet clothes and wring them out and get into the shower, which feels so warm. For most of the shower I am sneezing. Dry dry leggings hoodie zipped up even socks, tropical blasphemy! Maybe tomorrow I will show up early and beast them at soccer.

fireworks

so last weekend el salvador's world cup team lost to mexico. we went to someone's house to watch the highly anticipated game. everyone was wearing their blue & white. i don't have anything blue or white. arbitrarily, i wore green, which i neglected to remember was the color of mexico's jerseys. oops. this photo depicts evil mexico confronting noble el salvador. evil mexico is wielding a pretzel and a pisco sour, just like real life.


after el salvador lost, we celebrated anyway, because it's more fun than whining.

my bruises from sunday's surfing adventure are starting to show up. they are bright purple like uncooked eggplant but also gray and kinda mushy looking like cooked eggplant. watching bruises over time is like watching the slowest, smallest, ugliest fireworks.
aaand time to go to sleep

the battle rages on

carolina lives next to the clinic. she is 4 and is starting school in january. she is super smart and loves coloring, she really loves coloring. this afternoon she took photos of me and i took photos of her.

there are a lot of battles to fight. sometimes i have to collect fuzzy black caterpillars and burn them before their evil oils burn me. sometimes we trap mice in the clinic because they eat the powdered milk we keep for malnourished children. then we have to drown the mice in the little cage in devastatingly clear water. and of course, cockroaches, with their sneaking and scurrying and you have to stamp on them hard because their shells are tough and when you do it well their guts come squeezing out and you have to clean that up too, cause come on, gross.

the bigger battle i've been fighting is against my personal proclivity to let things happen instead of making things happen. the music video group at the school is only going to come to fruition if i pester the students to come to the meetings, make the meetings fun and productive, figure out how to involve them, etc. i made up this project, now it is my puzzle to actually execute it. same with the young mothers group - i'm excited by their enthusiasm and even a little surprised by it. i'm really grateful to be paid to have the flexibility to take my ideas and make them live. the open-endedness of it is both daunting and enthralling. the battle also enters my life outside work - my default schedule is to get home from work at 4ish, maybe go to the store, make food, read, poke around on the computer. my challenge is to find things to do in the evenings, actually call people to hang out with. actually practice the guitar. it's so, so easy to get sucked into the internet. oh maybe ill look at the nytimes most emailed list. huh, that article looks neutrally interesting. yes, it is. huh maybe another article. maybe i will read stevie wonder's wikipedia page. then BAM 4 hours have passed. i suppose that i am spending more time alone here than i ever have, and i'm not accustomed to productively filling and dividing large blocks of time. anyway, all kinds of learning going on here, folks.

my dad used to ask my brothers and me two questions at bedtime every day. what did you learn today? what did you like today? he wrote down our answers in a notebook. "i didnt learn anything" did not work, and of course, is never true. my dad did this every day for years, and we have many notebooks full of learned & likeds. he stopped doing it eventually, probably because garrett was so whiny (sorry garrett, but you know it's probably true). two years ago, i started doing it on my own every night. it's kind of a mini journal that is easy to commit to and forces you to briefly consider what you did in the long hours since waking up. i really like looking back through it, "this day in caitlin history" style. here is what i will write tonight:

October 14, 2009
Learned - how to lay tile floor (jose taught me)(they are building a library next to the clinic)
Liked - taking pictures with carolina; eating the magnificently cheesy pupusas i made for dinner

now, to be fair, i never use semicolons, but i thought it would help you understand.

chronicle of delights

here, i'll tell you why today was wonderful.

• upon waking i enjoyed toast with pear butter and lemon tea with honey
• in the fat of the morning i learned how to surf at a snug little bay
• at elevenses i took a break and drank/ate a frozen coconut
• more surfing, many waves caught, great success
• i lunched upon a fresh buttery fish stuffed with caramelized onions and some yellow sauce
  
• nap in hammock
  
• afternoon, more surfing, bigger waves caught, greater success
• at dusk, i relished a cool, creamy key lime pie popsicle
• nap on the way home
• epic shower (during which i discovered many bruises)
  
• now i shall make myself something hot with a lot of cheese in it
  
• mmm lotion
  

blow that conch shell

yesterday i held the first meeting of my young (mostly teenage) mothers group. out of 18 invitations sent, 4 women came, but that is ok. 18 would be too many. we talked about what they wanted to do in their lives apart from raising their kids. brenda (17) was in cosmetology school when she got pregnant , and once her baby is 1 year old, her family is going to support her to return and complete the two-year degree. alba (19) had a hard time coming up with something. is there anything you want to learn, anywhere you want to go, i asked her? i mentioned cooking and she said she would like to learn how to make different food from different cultures, not just typical salvadoran foods. she also wants to play sports. softball is the women's sport here. the father of alba's baby left her but still sends her money. alba added that she wanted to work in a factory to make money for her baby. sandra (22) is the outlier in this small group. her pregnancy was planned. she wants to learn how to make bread by hand. i told her about my efforts to do that last year, how sometimes my breads were "super feos." tatiana (18 i think) is also interested in playing sports. when i think about the options open to them versus the options that i have already enjoyed and will continue to enjoy, it is kind of embarrassing. they asked me what i wanted to do. i told them i wanted to travel, and even that is something they can't really do. apart from this sad/grateful feeling, the meeting was good, they were talkative, perhaps they will bring friends next week. the point of the group is to expand upon the basic sex ed they have received and talk about family planning and women's health.

similarly, two seventh grade girls came to the first meeting of the music video group. to be fair, the entire 8th grade had been let out early so they were gone. i'm not sure if i have explained this project to yall yet. basically, we are going to write parodies of popular songs so that they convey health information about, for example, dental hygiene or malnutrition. then we are going to plan out a music video, record the track, shoot the video, and BAM youtube sensation. the two girls who came seem psyched about it and hopefully, again, more people will show up next time. i taught them a little bit about my beloved rule of thirds for composing shots.

last night i finally made it to the fabled "bohemian district" of san salvador with some friends. the scene was quite familiar to me compared to my swanky fancy neighborhood. people with dreads! piercings! a sweaty dance party! why, this feels like a house party at wesleyan. at one point the music stopped and some guys started playing drums and a conch shell and a tortoise shell and maracas. why, this feels like drum circle in dc. it's nice to know that this scene exists in san salvador, but kind of sad that it is so far from where i live.

in other news, i can play the chords to midnight special on the guitar now!

snip snip

while showering today i found lots of red spots around my hip-al region. they look like some kind of bites. i shall ignore them. maybe i should stop computing on the floor.

we visited a woman today who is 38 weeks pregnant. she is 19 and has a 5 year old daughter. she was asking about sterilization. morena, the health promoter, was advising her to wait two years, that she might be lonely when her kids start school, that she might remarry and her new husband might want children. i understand that tubal litigation is a serious surgical procedure and that 19 is pretty young to undergo it. i said, why don't you just have your husband get a vasectomy? i cited the fact that at the pro familia clinic, tubal litigation is $38 while a vasectomy is $6, and that vasectomies are much less invasive. morena said the men here aren't ready for it, that they think it will make them less of a man. have you ever tried to convince them otherwise, i asked? no, i don't think they'd go for it, she said. and thus i have found a new challenge. i've actually been thinking about this for a long time, that vasectomy is the birth control option that makes the most sense for a committed couple who is done having children. check out these facts/reasons on tubal litigation vs vasectomy. if women spend years injecting hormones into their bodies to prevent pregnancy, it's the least their partner can do in return, right? if i convince one man to get a vasectomy i will be overjoyed. it's a tough sell in a machista culture. but isn't the prime audience for your manliness your wife? and won't your wife be elated to be able to stop taking pills or getting injections?

while we were leaving this house, a neighbor guy who had been watching the consult and listening intently to the vasectomy conversation yelled out to morena "i want to add that flower to my garden" (me). thanks, i'd love to join your harem, really, it sounds neat. let's get together sometime, just me and you and your wife, and talk about cutting your vas deferens. i'll bring diagrams.

goose watch 2k9

i could eat this picture
the water in the background is bubbling up from a tiny tiny underground spring
or i guess maybe a ruptured pipe

this weekend i went with some friends out to little mountain towns and to a friend's family finca, which used to be a coffee plantation. the big old house is still there. i spent a lot of time in the hammock on the patio staring off at the volcano peaks. the fresh air is so delicious compared to the diesel fumes in the city that often irritate my eyes and throat. here are some pictures from the grounds of the finca...

the old cockfighting ring
now there are beans growing in it

there's something i like about this picture

i've got all my geese in a row

work it

apart from hanging out at the finca, we went to ataco, where they were celebrating st francis of assisi's saint day. fireworks! youth symphony orchestra! polish sausages! i even consumed a beer to join in the revelry. it was a golden, a salvadoran beer, and it tasted like beer. surprise surprise. the group of people i was with was very interested in teaching me slang and hearing my wacky accent from spain, and i was very interested in learning. this was probably the first time i went out with a bunch of salvadorans. look, i'm making friends. and they aren't trying to introduce me to christ or kiss them on the mouth! they want me to sing karaoke to 80s songs from spain - one of my particular talents. friendship slam dunk. next weekend.

here's a fun fact: when someone has a whole bunch of kids, the kids are called a marimba because when they all line up they look like a marimba. i'd say the quiglets qualify as a marimba, or rather, qualified. everyone else kept growing when i stopped. curses!