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.