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!

a shocking expose

for years, i regarded yellow rice as "that fun rice with a positive attitude." but i just bought yellow rice. i put it in a pot and the water turned yellow. i'm sorry, what? yellow rice is just white rice with yellow dye? i rinsed it to try to get rid of some of the yellow, and although much yellow water flowed out, the rice did not become less yellow. i added this fraudulent rice to some wonderful coconut curry and that helped soothe my bitter disappointment. augh i still have half a pound left.

last night we went fancy salsa dancing at the fancy mall. i wore my best clothes, even changing out of a sports bra. i did not shower beforehand because obviously i would get dirty there, so i went dirty. big deal it's dark in there. first i danced with a freaky old dude who wore a white cap and smelled like 1940. then i danced with some salsa instructor and he was great and taught me things and smelled like the optimism of youth. later i danced with many others, including balding joe from rochester, new york, and elfen armando with his pointy lil ears. one guy spun me around so much that i reached a point where i could not withhold my hysterical laughter because what are you doing dude i'm going to throw up for sure. i also enjoyed that dude from the bronx via puerto rico who now works at the us embassy who wrote his number on a napkin for my benefit and insisted that he could teach me to salsa dance for free. wow really mister? i'd almost endure your sketchiness if you weren't hands down the worst dancer of all.

today i ate sugar cane for the first time. morena and i stopped by this old guy's house. he was lying in a hammock when we arrived, but at morena's insistence he went to cut us a stalk of sugar cane. he cut off the peel and gave me a 2 foot chunk and gave morena the rest, about 4 feet. you take a bite and chew the fibers and suck out the delicious sugar juices. then you spit out the fibers. check out all of these happy people eating sugar cane. an even older guy with no teeth and no shirt passed by carrying a cane and a machete. "sucking on sugar cane?" he asked us. "i can't suck on anything anymore," he said, then continued on. i ate about a foot of mine and had sugar crystals all over my hands and felt a little nauseous but mmm i'm glad there's a way to eat sugar as a "food." also, he was wearing a t-shirt from a hardware store in port washington, ny, hometown of the most enthusiastic section of my fan base. he said he had lived there and in maryland for some time. it's always interesting to hear about people's connections to the US, about their mother in brooklyn or their sister in suburban maryland. they have family where i have family.

yesterday was día del niño (children's day) in el salvador. this mostly meant that kids could eat free at a variety of chain restaurants. we had a little party for the micro health insurance program kids and their mothers. we even pulled out the radishes that we planted about a month ago, remember, faithful audience? some were quite robust and others a little spleeny. each one we pulled out was an oooh of approval or a laugh of derision. we split up the radishes among the women, so they can go home and make whatever it is you make with radishes.

ah crap there's a cockroach at the very top of the wall right now. too high! cannot reach on a chair! no rocks to throw! throwing shoes would dirty the wall! the waiting game begins, my crunchy foe.