Don´t try to read all at once

This is a long one people!

Food:
Whoa, so I may have made mention to the fact that I do put a decent amount of sugar in my oatmeal in the morning, and I have since been proven wrong. I am still WAY short of using enough to be called “Honduran level.” This evening as I was preparing my dinner, our housekeeper (more to come later on this) made an oatmeal drink for my host mom. Well, while I put a little less than a tablespoon of sugar in my bowl of oatmeal, she put two heaping tablespoons in a glass. Seriously, it was almost a 2:1 ratio oatmeal to sugar, even my Mom commented on how much sugar there was. From now on I won’t feel bad about adding sugar to my oatmeal.

Also, when I was in Las Barrancas, I got a bag full of oranges one day (they grow on trees, and like mangoes and bananas are cheap here) from one of the people with me. He just had some kid he knew cut down a bunch. So, when I got home I put the bag on the counter and left to do something, and later that night, the bag was gone. A small search of the fridge did not yield my oranges. Then today I found the bag under other fruits and veggies. So, after asking Maria (housekeeper) how one makes orange juice from oranges, not joking I asked, I enjoyed a nice glass of fresh squeezed OJ. And, since I have the bag and can now make it myself, I will be enjoying great natural juices the next few days! Beat that.

Baseball:

In two weeks we will be having the baseball tryouts. Should be interesting, because the three of us all know the basics of baseball, but that’s about it. Also, we have no idea how many kids may show up, anywhere from 20 to 150. It’s just going to be crazy with all the kids going around. Every year there is a national tournament with all the kids from PC run teams, which is in March, so we have a few months to prepare for that. If anyone has any suggestions on how to entertain kids during baseball practice, feel free to pass this information along. We are planning on being a little strict on the kids (translates to very strict here in Honduras but very relaxed in the States) because part of this is to teach them responsibility. Strictness is usually not something you see here, so we’ll see how it goes.

Mosquitos:

The other day I was in the office and I squashed a mosquito on my arm. Luckily enough I killed it before it bit me, but it was so dirty that I had a perfect impression of the bug in dust on my arm. Weird. Just now I killed another on (rainy season = mosquitos) and was unlucky enough to see my blood coming out of it when it died. Oh well, but I still consider it a just act because it’s the principle.

Spanish:

Now, if you want to learn Spanish, don’t rely on this blog, but here are a few more cultural words you might find useful: (I just scanned through the old blogs and didn’t see where I typed some words before, so bare with me if I repeat some)
Monton (moun-TON): adj. a lot. Examples: You have a monton of dirty laundry.
Barbaribad (bar-bar-E-bad)- really only used in the phrase “Que (K) barbaribad!” Basically, how awful, that’s a shame, or what bad luck; something along those lines.
Bien (bee-N)- now, those of you who have studied Spanish are thinking “this is easy, it means good.” Well, you are only half right. It also means very (muy is not commonly heard around these parts). Example- that food is bien tasty.
Más o menos- more or less.
Jalon- (ha-lone) verb and noun, meaning hitch-hike/ride.
Buen provecho (ba-wayne pro-va-cho)- ok, it is the greeting you give someone when they are eating. It is also the trademark slogan for Wendy’s down here.
Bastante- enough. But also, hmm, how to explain. For instance, I will tell people that I speak Spanish, or bastante espanol. You can also tell people to knock it off by that’s bastante.
Ya- already. But it is used much more frequently than in English, for example: Ya voy- I am going or I am already going, Ya lo tengo- I have it (I already have it).

Observations:

Right now I am watching the Tampa Bay Devil Rays versus the Toronto Blue Jays (baseball) on TV to augment my Spanish baseball vocabulary. Well, I have seen a lot of highlights in a commercial (one commercial played many times) of a Twins player who jumped in front of his teammate to catch a ball. Now, it was very dramatic because they both had to jump again the back wall to get it, but doesn’t that show a complete lack of teamwork. Did he not trust his teammate, or was it he wanted the pride and glory for himself? I didn’t see the whole scene, but I see a lack of communication at the very least going on.

Second, so the game is in Spanish, but the technical terms are más o menos in English. This does not help my goal too much. I have noticed this with tennis as well. I know there are more terms in Spanish, because a brief mention of the match on another news channel used Spanish terms. So, I hope I don’t embarrass myself too much in front of the kids.

When every group leaves, they fill out what is called an end of service survey. Mostly this is for fun, and has categories like: best bus ride, worst bus ride, best Honduran fashion (my vote goes to women with low waist pants and high waist undies), etc. It also has biggest irony. Now, irony is one of the most commonly misused words, and I believe my example is a misuse too, but I don’t care. So far my biggest irony is that I text message more now that I am in Peace Corps than I ever did in the states. Actually, cell phones are just as common here as in the states, and I have a better price for text messages, including that after I send 10 in one day, I don’t pay for anymore that day. Think about that. So, after I hit 10 on any one day (doesn’t happen all that often, but occasionally I make the mark), I just start texting everyone I know because it doesn’t cost me a thing. One of my friends the other day hit his 10 at 8am, and had all day long of free texts. Your first few are fairly cheap too, not like the crap I was getting charged in the states.

Morning:

Now, I remember when I was a morning person, and it was a good thing. This has since changed. This morning I wanted to get up early to watch some Wimbledon action (ESPN has decided that they shouldn’t replay it at night which was a bad decision if you ask me), and it was so hard to get up. I hit the snooze three times, and considering that my alarm clock is across the room, I had to get up out of bed, hit the snooze button and then go back to sleep. Then I am in the shower and the water goes off. Here is how my water situation works: we normally have water until 7:30am, but we have a cistern, which holds water so we can use it and have running water when we are not receiving water, you just have to turn on the generator type thing to pump the water from the tank to the showerhead. Well, I had noticed the sound of the generator when I got in the shower, but whoever was using it didn’t notice the sound of my shower when they turned it off, so I got to rinse the conditioner and soap off with cold bucket water. It was a great beginning to the day.

This is all after my really weird dream. I went to Teguc with a friend (keep in mind that I am not currently allowed into Teguc) to do some shopping. She is going around and buying a lot of dresses and blouses (which is totally unlike her). After a few hours some friends join us in the mall, which is about the time that I remember we were explicitly told the mall was off-limits in an email (this is real). Wouldn’t you know a minute later the country director shows up, but she doesn’t see me or the first friend so we go running out, and decide to take a taxi to the bus stop and get back to our sites ASAP. Well, I decide I want ice cream, so the taxista (taxi driver) takes us to this ice cream shop. First, the prices listed have dollar signs and L for Lempiras, so I was like, how do you sell ice cream that expensive ($20). Turns out, it is in Lempiras, and I decide to get some ice cream, but it turns out to be the worst ice cream on the planet, actually I didn’t even try it in my dream because the making of the ice cream was such a weird process. It’s here that the alarm clock when of for the first time. So, as you can tell, I have just had an odd morning, which included making a giant bowl of oatmeal because I somehow misjudged how much I was adding, although I have noticed that oatmeal is not that filling, I might need another one.

What else have you done before 8am you are wondering? Well, I have also had to recheck a bunch of calculations I did last night. One of my first thoughts when I actually decided to get up this morning was that I did not properly think through the calcs I did last night, and therefore, they were wrong. This was quite the concept at so early an hour, and it took me a while before I realized how I could fix this, but I was impressed that thought came to me so early in the morning.

I did some work!!!!!!!! I know, the rest of you out there are begging for some time off and I am happy I did an hour’s worth of work. This is what happened. I went into the office this morning, secretly hoping that we would be taking off for the aldeas, and eventually found out that my coworker wanted me to redo the drawings I have of the Las Barrancas system into quadruled notebook paper. So, I went home and did this. It was something so simple, yet I was working. How nice. I also got presents (not really) from work. A regular notebook to take points in the topo studies, a quadruled notebook to do more accurate drawings, and a day planner. Now, day planners here are not the cheap plastic things I used to buy for myself in the college days, I have only seen really nice ones here, and that is what I got. Why? I have no idea. I don’t have that much on my plate that I need to organize at all really. But, I am in the mood to write today (as if you haven’t already noticed that), and so I was happy because I could put all kinds of random junk in there. I have already filled two pages of journal today as well. Maybe someone will be lucky enough to get a letter written to them. And to anyone who would like to receive a letter from your favorite Peace Corps volunteer, I’ll give you a little pearl of wisdom that I was once told: “You have to write a letter to get a letter.” It’s beautiful in its simplicity. Seriously though, it makes my day when I get a letter.

What else can I write about today, well how about the fact that Wimbledon is still on? Because it is! Leighton Hewitt and Andy Roddick are battling for a space in the semifinals of the most prestigious grand slam. They are extremely equal in the way they are playing today. Now, something you may or may not know about tennis, the guys play best of five sets, so whoever wins three sets first, wins the match. Now, each set has to be won by winning six games and winning by at least two games. Well, you are asking, what happens if they both have six games? Very smart question. Then they go into a tiebreak. In the tiebreaker for the second set, they went beyond the normal point range because they are that equal today. This is good news for me because it pretty much means this is going to be a LONG game, and I can watch tennis for a long time. Now that the little bit of work for today is done, I get to have free time, although I have already scheduled myself for some serious Spanish studying later in my handy dandy very slick looking day planner.

More on the spiffy day planner of mine. In the beginning it has all the government holidays of the countries in Latin America, and a listing of select hotels in the countries as well. Now, all the writing in the planner (called an agenda here, but imitate a cat’s hiss when you pronounce the g) is in Spanish, except for the map of the world in the back which is in English. Guess I won’t be learning my country names in Spanish that way.

So, the tennis match has gone to five sets. Now, as good as tennis is to watch, it is also good to fall asleep to. So, every once in a while, I open my eyes and get very confused as to whom I am cheering for because the players have switched sides. Now, in Wimbledon, it is customary to wear white. Both players have white shoes, white shorts, white shirts and white hats. Now, the biggest difference is the shirt, but even then the difference is how wide the black strip at the shoulder is. When they go to the whole court shot, in my tired state, I have no idea whom is whom. I have the same problem when I look up from the computer, the agenda which I love to stare at, or just come back from the bathroom (warning: there will probably be more about this later). Small break in writing while I go look for lunch.

Food:

Ahh, pb & j, it just makes the world better. That’s right; I shelled out the money for peanut butter and jelly. Delicious!

I was thinking about this when I was trying to think of what I was going to eat for lunch today. I don’t know why I haven’t really jumped on the tortilla band wagon. Really, it’s the historical Honduran equivalent to bread, and I ate a lot of bread in the states. Maybe it’s the fact that they eat them with cheese and montaquilla (picture mayo and sour cream mix- oh Erin, that just screamed out your name when I wrote that), and I have never been a big cheese or mayo fan. I do like them when I make mini fajitas with them, so maybe I just need to mix up the stuffing a little. I’ll try that. I’m glad we had a chance to chat about that.

My phone has been pretty weird today. This morning it gave me a message that it couldn’t accept text messages, and as I have gone into before, text messages are a big part of communication in my life right now. For instance, I didn’t get a message that the national curfew has been extended through Friday, and therefore got a kind of annoyed call wondering why I didn’t respond saying I got the message. Since we all the cell phones, this is the fastest way for messages to get from PC decision makers to us. I have only dropped the phone two or three times, so it shouldn’t be broken yet. And I didn’t drop it this morning which is the crazy thing, it just beeped to let me know that incoming messages couldn’t get through. Weird.

Speaking of text messages, I texted my host brother from my first house last night. After a few texts, he commented on how well my Spanish is because I can write a lot better. I had already laid down the ground rules with him that he can’t use abbreviations or code on his text messages like he does to his friends. Eventually I’ll ask for a list of common abbrevs to be really in to the Spanish texting world.

Andy Roddick just won 6-3, 6-7, 7-6, 4-6, and 6-4. So, they just showed a shot of Leighton’s girlfriend (my assumption) and she did the kind of reaction like you would give a five year old, it’s ok, you tried your best in kind of an airhead way. Again, this is all my own thought process, maybe I am getting a little annoyed with my phone and taking it out on hapless people on the tv screen.

In case some of you are wondering why on earth this entry is so long (and although I don’t know the final length, the fact that I am at 5 pages and still have several days before I will post it) I have decided to give you all something to do every day, just read a piece every day and you will have enough to get through your dull and boring weeks. For those of you who log in every few weeks, sorry, but if you want to read all of my exciting adventures (and random weirdness) you have lot to read at one time.

Ahh, our housekeeper is so nice. First off, she is always telling me just to tell her what I want and she will make it, and she washes my dishes if she is in the kitchen (I wash them if she is not there, she just wont let me wash them when she is there), and generally has been the one in charge of telling me how to do a bunch of things around the house, but today she surpassed herself. The other day I washed some clothes, but there wasn’t enough time for them to dry before the rains (down-pour) came, so she put them in my room before they got soaked because I was out of the house. Today though, she went in my room while I was at the office and put them back outside to dry while the sun was out. In case you are wondering, I don’t lock my bedroom door normally. At this point everyone who would try to rob me has already had the opportunity, and the fact that the bedsheets are stored in my room, so if she wants to change the ropa de cama (literally bed clothes, but means the sheets), she needs access. Ahh, dried clothes, what a wonderful life.

One last thing before I turn the computer off for a while, my handy dandy wonderful and spiffy agenda says that by time you read this, we will have passed the half way point of the year. When you think about it, it makes sense, but I didn’t think about before seeing it.

I lied, while I was writing that I saw a funny commercial if you can call it that. The characters of family guy are in costume for star wars and the old man is singing the theme song of dirty dancing. Too funny (que comico).

Book review:

I don’t have time (and you probably don’t have patience) for a book review of all the books I have read recently, but I thought I would give you a small glimpse at the book I am currently reading. Aquarius Mission by Martin Caidin is actually a very old book, copyright in 1978, but it is still good. The basic plot line goes like this: while in a mission to explore the depths of the ocean, two submarines are attacked by sea creatures (real ones), so they send out a new state of the art sub (think SeaQuest people) to explore. There they find an entire race of people who are humans, but humans who returned to the sea hundreds of thousands of years ago. It is sci-fi in a good way; I don’t like the books that you can’t pronounce anything or have things that are just too crazy. So while browsing through your local used book store (one of my favorite activities) if you see anything by this author, feel free to send it on down. (It’s now later and I finished it, good book, and the back has ads for buy our books with the most expensive book sold for $2.75)

Oh, I have a real treat for you, a tongue twister in Spanish. Let me know if you like it, I have a lot of them.

A cuesta le cuesta, subir la cuesta. En medio de la cuesta, cuesta se acuesta.

Principar principiando desde el principio quiero, para ver si principiando desde el principiando principar puedo.

And a little bit easier:
Pepe pecas. Pica Papas. Con un pico.
Con un pico. Pica papas. Pepe pacas.

During training we were given a bunch of tongue twisters to help us with pronunciation and with trying to speak faster in Spanish. Trust me, these are the easier ones. If someone reminds me, later I can put some of the harder ones up. My host sister in Pespire was amazing at them. Maybe I can get my family here sucked into doing them too, they are a little older, but seem to have a good sense of humor.

I just learned something about my computer though. It can magically switch to Spanish. I was wondering why the words of the tongue twisters (trabalenguas) were not underlined in read, but then I started writing in English again and all the English words were underlined. I didn’t know I had the option of switching to Spanish, but the knowledge definitely helps me out, now in the future when I want to write in Spanish, I can have the autocorrect helping me out.

I’m mad:

So, last night, I tried to go to bed early (10am) so that I could get up early and watch tennis on TV in the morning. Well, I was tossing and turning, and tossing and turning, and eventually decide that I am not sleeping so I might as well get up, this is at 1am. At this point I do some push ups, and other exercises to try to tire out my body, and flip on the TV for a little bit. This works, and I am sleeping by 2am. Alarm goes off at 6:30am. I get up, and tennis is not on, which it said it would be on (or I am just too confused in the fact that I have no idea who else is on the same time as we are). So, watching sportscenter waiting for the match to start, I do more exercises. Now, all the effort of getting up is wasted I could have slept for more time, now it better be replayed tonight as they are advertising or I am really going to be mad. To make it worse, the mosquitoes are crazy today. Not a good way to start your day.

Update: I go to work, and my counterpart, who also serves as chauffeur since I can’t drive in Honduras (PC rule) is not in. I am told he will swing by my house when he is ready. So, oh well, return home to the same episode of Sportscenter played again. Not joking, the same episode. At this point I know tennis is supposed to be on, someone made a mistake by playing the same episode twice, they obviously didn’t know how much I wanted to watch tennis today. I have all this free time this morning, and no tennis to watch. What a shame. I don’t want to start anything because I don’t know what time Walter is going to come, but what else am I supposed to do, I don’t want to watch sportscenter again. My luck, they will play it a third time and completely forget about tennis. In case you are wondering- they did play it a third time. My counterpart called me at 3:30pm to tell me we weren’t going into the aldeas today (no kidding?). All day I was sitting around waiting for a call, and finally got it late in the afternoon. I guess he didn’t call the community contact ahead of time and the guy was sick, but supposedly we are going tomorrow, but at this point I will believe it when I see it. He wants me to be there before 8am, so he had better be there on time.

So, you are all in luck, I will not be talking about my bowel movements as was hinted at above. This is an extremely common theme at PC get-togethers as someone is always having problems in that direction, it’s really almost inescapable. There are any number of bacteria and parasites that run amok here, and PC volunteers are very easy prey for them. I thought for a little while that I was going to have my own problems, but it seems I have escaped that fate for now.

Later I went running with T and S. The thing about running is that we get a LOT of piropos. It was actually funny to start with is that we had to change our normal route a little bit becauses S needed to avoid someone’s shop because she didn’t visit like she said she would and T wanted to avoid someone else’s shop. It was quite funny because they were both last minute announcements to change route and they were abrupt turns. The run went well, I ran a lot further than last time although I am definitely the least able to run. We had all been spending a lot of time a home lately and all needed a bit of exercise to clear the air and get rid of some energy. With all these push-ups, sit-ups and now running, I’ll be in great shape (until I give up in three days).

Bad day:

It started off so well. I finally got up early and didn’t fight it (although tennis wasn’t on again, no semi-finals for me). Walter arrived on time (más o menos). We also had four high school kids with us who had to observe a business. Little did they know what they were getting into. Then it got more interesting, the contact for the community wasn’t there, so we had to go find him. Then we had to find more help, normally I like 8 guys, it’s a good number, especially when you are going through coffee because you can’t cut it, you just push it out of the way. This requires a bunch of people. Only one other guy was found. I did find out that a women who lives near the road has 15 kids, the youngest is three days old. At this point it is sprinkling and we learn that these high school girls didn’t bring anything for the rain and are not wearing boots, but dress shoes. On our way down to the dam, three of them fall (no one got hurt). We get there, and no one has told my helpers about the estacas, they are wooden stakes to put in the ground and mark the points. So, while I was explaining to the girls what they would be doing, they started making them. Things are going relatively well on the explaining issue, and we start the first point.

Now, I am using an abney level. This is more advanced than the ones that we used in training as it had magnification. The problem here is that it doesn’t work so well when there is a lot of light, for instance when there is a large cloud cover and the point is beneath a wealth of branches and leaves that doesn’t allow much light in. So, with a white background of a notebook, I could see the point. Then, I come to find out that the level itself is not level, and I am getting bad results. Once I realize what is going on, after redoing the same things three times (and that means bashing my head against a log twice) I realize what is going on and make a plan to deal with this. Go to next point, take a massive fall on slippery rocks. No real damage done, but I will have a huge bruise tomorrow. Then, we go to do the back shot and I can’t see the point, it is too dark. Nothing makes it better. I then realize from that point on we were going to be in the coffee area, and we really needed more people, so I decided to call it done for the day.

No, it doesn’t stop here. We walk back up to the road. I try to call my coworker several times to get a ride but he doesn’t answer. So, after a while, I call my host mom who is working at her pharmacy, and have her call our housekeep who could walk to the office and tell them to call me. Walter then calls me (he has 2 cell phones and I only have the number of 1 followed to me) and I thought we were getting a ride. Half hour later he calls and says he on his way. At this point, it had already been two hours, and we were hoping that every car that passed would be him.

I get home, and go to the store to buy chocolate because I deserved it. When I get home my sitemate calls and says I have mail, so out I go again. This turns out to be a seven page letter from Erin, so this was definitely a good thing. At that point, I deserved something nice. And yes, I am very sore from the exercising. In fact, I managed to fall on the muscle that was sore from the lunges, which was quite talented of me, it required a very complicated angle of fall.

Update:

I have two large eggs on my forehead from the log. Hopefully they will be gone by tomorrow, and no one will have seen them except for me. I can’t believe I did that twice. Lesson: Don’t wear your baseball cap in the woods, you can’t see what’s directly in front of you over your head, so when jumping up a foot and a half, you really just put that much extra force into slamming your head against a log. Now, the problem is I like wearing the baseball cap, it shades you when you get sunny, and it absorbs some of the sweat rolling off my forehead. A normal person would say to just be more observant, but I understand me better than that, and know that it won’t happen; hopefully I will just have more luck and not have a log in the exact wrong place next time.

The bruise on my leg isn’t that big, it has a three inch diameter, although I can feel that it is very deep. It is all kinds of colorful, and will turn nice shades of green and yellow before it finally disappears. At least the eggs on my forehead are gone.

Tennis:

I feel sorry for you non-tennis fans out there, but I can see tennis three times a year here, during each grand slam, so right now it takes a priority in my life, and hence my blog which is a reflection of my life. It is finally on which is something! I am watching Andy vs Andy and am cheering for Andy (Roddick) because I just don’t like Murray. He is way too hmm, how can I say this delicately, just doesn’t have a control over himself and is demonstrative. I like Roger Federer because he is a class act, and Murray to me is the John MacEnroe of his generation (Hewitt has chilled out a bit and handed this title to Murray in my opinion). This opinion probably wouldn’t fly with real tennis analysts, but too bad, I don’t listen to anyone else anyway. So far, the match seems very even.

Observation:

In case you are wondering, yes, I am trying to make this as long as possible. I want to surpass my last longest entry and believe I will do this before the blog gets posted.

I am feeling quite proud of myself right now, I just fixed some pants. My very loving Mother sent me some linen pants after I complained about only having jeans and the hot as all get out Pespire, but unbeknownst to her, one of the pants was labeled with the wrong size. So, earlier I was literally folding the top over to get them to stay put. But I don’t have to do that anymore, I just sewed them, taking in both sides so that now they fit just fine. This did give me pause though, because I was thinking about sewing my own Halloween costume (there is a Peace Corps volunteer party every year, Halloween is not celebrated here), but I will not be doing this by hand. S’s host Mom has a sewing machine, so if I do think of an awesome enough idea, I can ask her to use the machine, as doing it by hand really isn’t an option.

Back to tennis:

So, one thing you may or may not know about me is that I am a very superstitious person, especially when it comes to sports. In college when I played tennis, if I lost a match wearing a hat, I wouldn’t wear it the next game, etc. Well, I even do this with sports on TV. Case in point, back to the Andy vs Andy game. Roddick had won the first set while I wasn’t watching (ESPN does not put real start times on their commercials, it would be too simple), and when I started watching, he lost the second set. So, I have been busy (hence the pants) only paying minimum attention to the match because he was doing better without me watching. And he won the third set. Yes, I know that my obvious support for him vs subtle does not make a difference, especially at several thousand miles distance, but I do it anyway. To be honest, I do this on non-live games too because it is too ingrained to stop.

Music:

Music is a big part of most cultures, and I finally realized how comforting music can be. During training I didn’t listen to the music on my computer until like the second to last week, and I didn’t realize how much I missed music I know. I like the music here, I actually really like reggaeton which is not something that most people would guess about me, but to hear something that you have known for years, there is just something so comforting about it. Maybe it’s the fact that I understand every word, but I hear way too much rap music which I understand, so I don’t know it that is it. Its not that I don’t hear American music here, 70s and 80s music is very common here. Today, I was walking along the street and heard songs from Grease. Sometimes the weirdest things happen here, you have to take advantage of them and save the little memories as you go.

Tennis:

He did it! Roddick is going to the finals! I like to think that I helped with my superstitions. He He! Superstitions or no, I will be watching the entire match Sunday when he plays Federer. Hey, ESPN just mentioned the doubles finals, do you think that means they will actually play some doubles, because that would be great.

Miscellaneous:

For quite a while now, uh, since I moved to my town, I have not been able to open the program that downloads the GPS points from the GPS. See, I knew it could be opened because I had let a friend use my computer when she taught GIS/GPS to the ADEPES people, but had no idea why it wasn’t working. I have tried uninstalling and then installing it three times, and every time it would say the program was open, but I couldn’t see anything. Well, a minute ago I was bored, and was playing around with setting my desktop to two screens, and the program magically opens like that. To be truthful, I was shocked that it actually opened, I didn’t realize what was on my screen for a minute. I have no idea why, but it doesn’t matter, I can finally use the GPS data, well, if I have a project that I need to use it, I can.

Bad day continues:

I thought the badness of the day was over, after getting the letter, talking to her on the phone, and eating lots of chocolate. Well, apparently it wasn’t over. I again tried to go to bed around 10pm because the women’s final was scheduled to be on early in the morning. This didn’t work out so well. I got up, did three sets of lunges, arm exercises and sit-ups. Still didn’t work. I got out a Spanish textbook and worked on that for an hour; was kind of tired afterwards. Finally I fell asleep after lying in bed for a while.

Morning:

Too many short nights in a row = Jill does not want to wake up early. I really thought I was going to fall asleep during the match. Williams vs Williams, Serena won, although I thought it was a lack-luster match. Afterwards I tried to get T to go running, but didn’t get a response (cell phone is still not working right so maybe that was the problem). I then decided to wash my clothes, including the mud-coated pants from the bad day. I think those took 20 minutes themselves, there was so much mud everywhere, and I wont know until they dry if they are really clean because its harder to see the dirt when they are wet. I showered afterwards, and here I am writing. Big plans for today though!

Awkwardness:

Just to give you a feel for what life can be like here, this is how my morning went after the above paragraph. My host brother (he’s like 50 with kids my age) came over and invited me for a short trip to his coffee finca (farm). This sounded nice, I like the mountains and have been trying to be more social, so I agreed. With a catch, I told him I had to be back by 1pm because I was going to XXXXX with my friends for the afternoon. He said that was easy enough, and would call when he was on his way to pick me up. Well, 11am comes and goes, and then at 11:30am I get a call. He says, “Ya paso.” Well, this could mean I am on my way, I already left, have you left, or a few more things. I was confused. At noon he comes over and asks if I am ready, but there is no way I could go and be back in time to leave, so I explained the situation again. He kind of seemed, well, not upset but not happy. Then I mentioned I would be returning to town today, and so now tomorrow we will be going. Actually this might be a problem, he said early, and men’s championship match is on tomorrow morning, so hopefully he pulls a Honduran thing and shows up late.

Now, while this is going on, I am trying to figure out what I will be doing for lunch. Maria is making food, but sometimes I am told to come eat and sometimes no, so I have no idea. Then at some point I go into the kitchen to make myself 2 pb & j’s, and she comes in and asks why I am not eating with the family. Little weird here, so I explained I didn’t know if there was enough for me. I then put my stuff away and wait for lunch. This is just how life goes here. There is a constant, what is going on, what am I supposed to be doing now question in my head.

Tennis (for the last time)

The men’s championship match is amazing. I woke up late and didn’t see the beginning, but I have seen enough to be impressed. Its got to be hard for Roddick to have lost after a battle like that.

Other:

I didn’t actually end up doing much over Saturday. So much for my 4th of July plans. Our Independence Day here is in September, so keep tuned for that information. So far nothing more has happened with the political situation although we are always wondering what is next. As always, the Peace Corps is keeping an eye on everything and we all remain safe.