hammockfull of happiness

the guy who lives next to the clinic, hernandez, had two puppies in september, brother and sister. i named the male dog dylan and meredith named the female dog pola. they were delightful and frisky and always sneaking into the clinic to play. after about a month someone stole dylan and he was gone and that was sad. pola became the clinic dog when hernandez left for long periods at a time. she grew bigger and stronger and don tito took care of her and fed her tortillas and gave her baths and he giggled up a storm because she was a funny dog.

this is a picture of pola hanging out with an eggplant bush.

now, i am not a dog lover. usually i greet dogs with a nonchalant hand wave from a small distance away and that's about it. but pola was a kickass dog so i played with her and hugged her and sometimes she came with me on house visits.

about three weeks ago pola was killed. according to the 5 year old who lives on the other side of the clinic, her dad caught pola stealing toilet paper from their bathroom and then put poison in her water. don tito still doesn't know who did it but i can't exactly rat out the 5 year old and plus don tito carries a pistol. by the time i got to the clinic the next morning don tito had already buried her. he was sad. i was sad. we were all sad. hernandez was sad that i was sad because he has a crush on me. remember the guayaba with the letters carved into it? hernandez. he said, we'll get a new dog.

but he upped the ante big time. he stole three baby rabbits from a nest on the mountain, stuck them in his backpack along with some grasses, and presented them to me. "take them, i'm not gonna take care of them anymore, they're for you." the first two days he presented them i said no. yesterday i said yes.

is this a terrible idea? obviously it is. i am leaving el salvador on march 28. oh by the way yeah i'm finishing my job and coming back to the states fyi. but i will raise them until then and find someone in las delicias who wants them when i leave. and maybe they will eat them but i don't want to know. i feed them warm milk from a tiny syringe into their little mouths and sometimes they blow tiny milk bubbles out of their tiny squinchy noses.

i am now taking suggestions for names - obviously trio names are best. but also trio names where it's ok if one of them dies, or two. they are probably about two weeks old. fair chance of survival but not stellar. i miss pola, but at least now i have a time-consuming, whimpering distraction.

just another saturday afternoon in a hammockfull of baby rabbits and mangoes

welcome to my life

just leave me at the top of the ferris wheel while you fix the bottom, it's not like they're connected

so now for the rest of the fiestas. let it be known that i ate pupusas for breakfast, and later for lunch, and also for dinner. the holiday food pyramid. the fiestas also include lots of french fries, fried plantains, fried yuca, if you have a food, they have fried it. and all of the typical sweets, which are mostly sugar cubes with different flavors. they make your teeth cry a little.

i went on the giant ferris wheel around sunset. they asked if i would mind just sitting at the top for a long time until someone else got on, and i said perfect. i took a lot of pictures at the top. there was an excellent view of the whole melting valley and the fiesta below and it was warmly breezy and fresh and i was alone and delighted. then, of course, someone else got on the ferris wheel and we started spinning in warp speed, and then we stopped and went warp speed backwards. that is how ferris wheels work here. they are screamer rides, not gentle victorian world's fair trolleys.

fried dough stars

big ferris wheel (chicago grande)
mini ferris wheel

from the top of the ferris wheel

the guy who climbed up the ferris wheel with a wrench and made some adjustments while i was at the top
thanks

view from the top

but after dark is when the fiesta really starts. everything is glowing and people are full of grease and sugar and kids are freaking out and there's trash everywhere and people drive up in their pickup trucks and lean against them. the family i stayed with lent me a festive red tanktop because my shirt was judged to be nonfestive. it was really fun to see people there, and a lot of women friends of mine introduced me to their boyfriends/husbands who are never home during the day. everyone was very amused that i came to the fiestas.

the big question was "are you going to enter the dance," which started at 9 in the community hall. the family i was staying with debated whether it was a sin to go to the dance, and then decided it wouldn't be a sin if they went to accompany me. the dance began and the music was really, really loud from about 100 feet away. painfully loud. also the dance was $3. and there were about 15 police officers patting people down as they entered. some of them were wearing full face masks. we were concerned because there were no gang members at the fiestas at all, whereas they have always come in the past. bad sign. someone also told us that "later tonight there would be 'meat,'" or some kind of fight. so we did not enter the dance, we left. the next day we heard that there was indeed a fight but no serious damage, probably because of the police swarm.

i bestow my sash upon you

this weekend were the fiestas patronales in las delicias - the once-a-year saint's day festival. bigger than christmas. bigger than easter. eclipses valentine's day, or at least collaborates with it. i must break this event into two blog posts because of the overwhelming amount of stimulating text and photos.

the med students who are here this month were all invited to be madrinas de cinta, or godmothers, for the festival's horse games. i too was a madrina. most of the madrinas are little girls dressed up in poufy glittery lacy gowns. all madrinas wear sashes with their names on them. the madrinas also bring little gifts for the winners of the horse games.

the horse riders hold a small pin and gallop towards a high wire where they try to thread the pin through a tiny ring. whoever threads the needle is a winner and receives a sash and a gift from a madrina. this one guy won excessively and had a great many sashes from little girls, and i don't want to read too much into that symbolism. the madrinas sometimes sit on the horse and have their picture taken with the winner (and the delighted horse). i obviously did this.

the games started about an hour and a half late because the guy who was supposed to announce didn't show up for a while. they lasted about two or three hours because there were a ton of madrinas. at the end they were doing two madrinas per winner. the women running the event were all wearing fishnet stockings, which apparently was the only element they all agreed on as far as a uniform. i was thinking that those must be hard to put on because they are basically made of holes.

kenia was also a madrina. i stayed at her house the night before and in the morning her aunt straightened her hair and then decided that she must do mine as well to be a proper madrina. she made a zigzag part in it. during this process, they asked me again about whether i went to church. i said no. but they said, of course you believe in god, right? and i said no. they reacted as though i had just confessed to murdering a child. i could lie and say yes but then that would not be true. well, how do you think the world started, they asked. do you believe that science stuff? yes, i said. shocked silence. conversation over. anyway, i wore my hair down for nearly an hour, but then i had to eat some pupusas and that was the end of that.

ok, pictures time.

here you can see the pin in his hand

reaching for the wire

you can see the tiny rings in this picture

a winner receiving a sash

a little madrina

a bigger madrina

oh i am totally gonna sit on that horse try and stop me from sitting on that horse you won't be able to

the winningest madrina

please note that my name is written on my sash in glitter glue

hot rocks

to be quite honest, i have been lazy on the blogfront. i don't have internet in my house anymore, but i'll admit that i have been visiting the internet. obviously i have been visiting the internet. it's like that song, ain't no mountain high enough. just because there are about 6 cafes with internet within a 5 minute walk of my house, doesn't mean i'm going to spend $1.50 on some coffee product when i can sit on the ground in some creepy industrial breezeway and steal an unsecured wireless signal. the point is, i'm sorry i've been lazy. i promise renewed blog enthusiasm. and more pictures from my lovely new camera!

we have two possible dengue fever cases in las delicias. a 10 year old boy and an 8 year old girl who live a few houses away from each other have each presented very high fever, headache behind the eyes, joint pain, and general looking like death. this is very bad news. there is no treatment for dengue - just supportive care, cold compresses, acetaminophen to reduce the fever. this type of dengue is called classic dengue and generally doesn't kill people. if you get dengue a second time, it can be hemorraghic dengue, and that is when people die. malaria mosquitos bite at nighttime, but dengue mosquitos bite during the day. maybe i will start wearing mosquito repellent. probably not though.

in my house, i have had great difficulty with mosquitos at night. my room is the only room that doesn't have a window screen, but i am trying to remedy that. usually i get ready for bed, get all calm and tranquil, turn off the light, lie down, and then i hear the buzzing. mf. first far away. then all up in my ear. i turn on the light and crouch on my bed in leaping position with great bloodlust. these mosquitos are not like american mosquitos. they are very fast and very good at hiding. it usually takes about 10 minutes to catch one. i turn in frantic circles and clap my hands together but they are so damn fast. if i close the window and the door, i suffocate from heat. i think they can bite through sheets and clothes. last night i tried to go out and sleep on the hammock wrapped in a blanket cocoon, but there were mosquitos there too. finally i remembered/imagined some tip that you can rub dryer sheets on your skin to repel mosquitos. i did this and put the dryer sheet next to my pillow and fell asleep. i have about 30 bites from the last week, but i'm not sure if they are mosquito bites or flea bites from the dogs at the clinic. today i smell like dryer.

yesterday i went to a town called suchitoto. outside of town there is a waterfall called los tercios, which is made of hexagonal rocks. no one knows why. probably some volcanic action. there was no water because it's dry season, but the rocks were really cool. look at them.

these are the rocks that didn't make it into the waterfall

italo is on top of the "water"fall

ferris wheel seats

"in this house we want a life free of violence towards women"
this stencil was on almost every house in suchitoto

the lake is in the background

plaza