Good Friday...not so Good

Soooo much has happened in the past few days that it´s a shame I´m not gonna remember nor have the patience to write it all. First a disclaimer: I am really trying to learn spanish as fast as possible and doing so, it is easy to forget how to spell things in english or get confused since my brain is exhausted.

Anyway, I figured I´d start with Good Friday. I was ready to head home to my site after a particularly traumatizing evening. It involved two horses rather excited to see each other but I won´t go into details. I used to love animals, still do, but definitely have a new perspective on them being here. And appreciate the abilities of vetenarians much more. Anyway, as I was walking out of my counterparts house, she told me that I have to sleep there tonight. All the men, mostly the drunks, would be going around robbing the houses for Good Friday. It´s tradition. And I would be scared to be in my house alone. Strange. But apparently it´s all in good humor.

So that night I shared a bed with my counterpart and her granddaughter. At first, the bed sharing wasn´t my favorite. But as the nights get lonelier and lonelier... I kinda like it.

The other night I was visiting some neighbors and I was talking to one guy for a really long time. It was fun because he is a police who works at the ports and airports so he has experience talking to Americans. Campo spanish is verrrrrry difficult to understand due to the slang and lack of pronunciation. But this guy knew to speak slow for me. Anyway, after awhile of talking he would say things like ¨äy hombre!¨ to me and I felt cool. Like I fit in. Or when I eat limes people tell me I´m Salvadorena.

Yesterday was awesome too. We went to the rio torola. I saw a couple of guys jump off the bridge and I decided that I wanted to too. Peace Corps does tell us to participate in all community activities....

Anyway, I climbed to the top and was in the center of a big crowd of Salvadoran men. A dumb gringa full clothed, with shoes on, sitting on the edge of a bridge 60 feet in the air. My counterpart was at the bottom screaming and my salvadoran friends had my camera. There was no turning back. So I thought back to the moment I went skydiving and knew what to do. Throw myself off the side without thinking. Well it felt like my ass was what hit the water first so I´m sure I didn´t look pretty. But it was fun. And when I felt my hand throbbing and saw my palm was bruised (didn´t know was possible) and looked up, I realized how high the bridge was. Not sure if I would do it again....

As for this morning. I woke up at 5am trying to convince myself that I could hold me pee...but I couldn´t. I pulled my top sheet off, my first day of feeling cold in 2 months (it poured rain at the river, forgot that part) and waddled to the latrine outside. Well as soon as I walked out I hear my landlord screaming from across the field to come milk the cows. It´s my own fault because I had told him I wanted to learn, but all I really wanted to do was crawl back into bed. Instead, I threw some water on my face from the pila, walked tentatively around the grazing bulls (I´m still scared of getting tossed) and sat down on the rock in front of a swollen set of utters. The process is kinda interesting. You bring a baby out and let him get the milk flowing from the cow. The baby does this by head butting the cow in the utters. After he gets a little, we start milking. Its sticky and kinda awkward but it was cool. Later I´m going horseback riding...

I´m really happy here. For one thing, my site is beautiful. Besides for it being extremely extremely dusty, and I never feel clean, and everything is constantly covered in a layer of soot, its awesome. As I round my corner from my house, I have a beautiful view of the mountains. The hemp plants that grow blanket the mountainside nearby and its beautiful. I´m a 20min walk to the waterfalls which are also amazing. I´m happy to know that´s where my water source is as well. The people are so kind and so excited to have me here. It´s quiet, but people are always talking to me. There´s always stuff to do, but I´m always relaxed.

Once I remember the rest of what I have been doing I´ll post again. A few quick things I have learned:

1. To clean your house you do not sweep. You throw a bucket of water on the ground.

2. It is always necessary to eat more than 1 tortilla at every meal. Use excessive amounts of oil and salt. And eating with your hand makes it taste better.

3. Pick-up Trucks are much faster than buses to get to town. But you will have whip lash when you get there.

4. Straightening your hair is really sexy.

5. Toilet paper is a luxury.

6. Eating fish and egg soup all week during Semana Santa is torture but it must be done.

7. I miss spaghetti, tomato sauce and chocolate.