eight fat tamales, three shiny rainbows, one coral snake and a partidge in a pear tree

Mariana making her mom a christmas card...we read If You Take a Mouse to the Movies.

Neil and Enner hard at work. Produce placement!!!

Makin´santa cards.

Posing with newborn ¨Hayley¨

Aida and her two kids...including little Geyli!

just in case you guys were wondering what it might look like if igor and kaiser drank at the same time.

25 December 2009
Merry Christmas, chochachos! It’s about nine o’clock pm on Christmas—my second one in Honduras. Perhaps you guys think it’s sad to be alone on Christmas, typing on an dilapidated laptop, sipping a solitary mug of tea and listening to that one Charlie Brown Christmas song on repeat (you know, the one that’s all slow and goes do-do-doooo, do-dooooo….do-do-dooooo, do-doooooo…if you’ve seen Arrested Development or any Peanuts cartoons then we’re on the same page). But you guys are hellsa wrong cause this ain’t sad at ALL. That’s because today isn’t actually Christmas. Not in Honduras, anyway. Hondurans celebrate Navidad on the 24th, and today, the 25th, seems to be reserved for loafing off your tamale hangover, and, if you’re a man, drinking a butt-load of booze and shooting your gun off all freaking afternoon. Since I’m not a man, I abstained from gettin’ my slant on/shooting the air and instead spent the morning pouring concrete with my landlord Rony (who also refrained from boozing it up), fixing a 6-meter section of fence that wasn’t connected to the ground and had thus become an excellent escape port for Igor and his devious brother Kaiser. Afterwards, I made fresh lemon smoothies for Rony and the two dudes he brought with him to help with the fence. Then I ate a leftover tamale and spent about three hours washing clothes…then I cleaned the house…as well as other assorted proofs that I am a domesticated lady now. Whenever I remembered it was Christmas day, I would feel a little funny and sort of sad I wasn’t with my family, eating breakfast casserole and opening presents in our jammies. But, like I said, it doesn’t count as a lame way to spend the holiday because a) YESTERDAY was Honduran Christmas, and b) what better way to celebrate Jesus’ birthday than scrubbing out your undies in the beating tropical sun? I broke my own personal record and managed to consume EIGHT, count them EIGHT, hulking Honduran tamales yesterday. I know. I am an impressive person. Please, feel free to bask in my amazingness. Throw money and panties at my feet, if you feel the urge. I spent the morning eating tamales and drinking coffee with Nely and the kids, then wandered around the neighborhood, delivering little plates of bastard Rice Crispy Treats…and I say bastard because I used wonky Honduran marshmallows and, in lieu of rice crispies, had to use Frosted Flakes. They turned out very greasy (a little heavy handed with the margarine, I is) and barf colored (the marshmallows were all different colors, which did not result in rainbow magic but instead blended to a gross, zomie-esque gray) but they tasted okay and the neighbors were quite delighted. They have no idea…an American child would have refused to eat them, I reckon. Unless it was a really deprived American child whose parents don’t believe in refined sugar—they’ll take anything they can get.

At each house, I was given a tamale on a plate with a cup of soda or coffee (except for Nelo, my 50-something bachelor neighbor who spends his days leaning in his doorway and frequently dying his hair black…he certainly cannot make tamales). By two o’clock, I was bursting, but onward I marched, stoically packing in the slippery bundles without faltering. Then I headed up the road and did a big lap around town, stopping at a couple special friends’ homes, where I ate MORE tamales, as well as torrejas, which is a hella tasty French-toast-esque dessert typical of Christmastime. I got home by early evening, at which point I had to shower and get dressed up for Christmas church, which I’d been invited to by Nely and Glenda. Four hours later, after countless rounds of singing and clapping, sermons, and little dramatizations of the nativity by the kids, we were released around 11:00pm (I’m not gonna lie, this was super boring and I spent most of the time playing with a little plastic pony Douglas had). Then Nely, the kids and I went to Mirian and Rony’s house (my landlords and Nely’s half-sister), where we sat down to a midnight feast of apples, grapes, oranges, and of course tamales and coffee all around. I finally got home at about 1:00am, though it was hard to sleep due to all the children setting off firecrackers outside (which they do the entire month of December, and without cessation on Christmas day). My body was also struggling to adjust to the extreme gluttony I’d participated in…but one of the nice things about living alone is you can fart as much as you want and no one complains.

This past week was a good one. I met with my pregnant women’s club, and we talked about how to be a good parent, which was fun…it’s hard to delve too deep in 45 minutes, but we talked about behavior management and communication and self-esteem in the child, among other topics, and the ladies participated fairly well, which is always delightful (sometimes they just sit in silence and don’t say a damn word, which is uncomfortable). As I was leaving the health center and walking down the road, Aida, of the women who used to be in the club, approached me with her four-week-old baby girl. We chatted a bit and I ooh-ed and aah-ed her squirmy little squinchy-eyed bundle of joy, and asked her what the baby’s name was. Aida smiled and said, “I named her after you.” She spells it differently (“Geyli,” since the ‘g’ can make the ‘h’ sound in Spanish), but still…I feel so SPECIAL. Fortunately, I had my camera with me, so I took a couple pics of mom and baby (as well as little Geyli’s big brother), and then Aida took one of Big Hayley and Little Geyli together. They live out in one of the aldeas of Alubarén, but we made plans that I’ll go visit them in January so I can meet Aida’s spouse and the rest of her family.

Together with our mediocre librarian, I have opened the library and finally begun my summer reading project. My “Club de Lectores,” or Reader’s Club, is basically a glorified story-hour, but the kids seem to love it and it’s going really well. On Monday mornings, the little guys (four to eight) come from 10-11:30am, and on Wednesday the bigger kids (nine and up) come. For the first half hour, the kids are free to sit and look at the 12-15 books I’ve selected and placed on the tables (I don’t let them browse the book shelves themselves because they just yank out books, look at them for two seconds, and pull out another…plus, this way, I can pick the best books for their ages). It’s awesome, because thanks to Johana, the volunteer who started the library 10 years ago and has continued to send books, the selection for children is pretty good. After half an hour, the kids scootch their chairs in a semi-circle and I read them a story I’ve picked out for the day. Then, using the art supplies donated over the past year by folks back in the states, we do a related art project. The first day, the little kids and I read “Silvester and the Magic Pebble” (in Spanish, obviously). Then they each got a sheet of paper and drew a picture of what they would do if they had a magic pebble. Many of the kids were too young/behind to write their own names, so afterwards we practiced that. On Wednesday, I read the bigger kids “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day” and then the kids had to write a short story about someone having a terrible day and the things that go wrong, complete with illustrations. The next week the little guys read “Lily and Her Purple Plastic Purse,” and then glued cut-outs of Lily and her purse that I’d made previously out of construction paper. For the big kids, I read the first several chapters of “James and the Giant Peach,” and then they drew pictures of Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker. This week, for Christmas, I read each class “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and “If You Take a Mouse to the Movies,” and then they made little Santa cards for their moms. Seriously fun stuff. I’ve also been pilfering the young-adult section, taking home “Little House on the Prairie” and “Island of the Blue Dolphins,” which are the perfect level for my Spanish. I hope the Ingalls make it through the long Dakota winter!!! Shut up I ain’t nerdy, YOU’RE nerdy. Aren’t you late for your nerd meeting? Nerd.

Found another coral snake in my latrine—my neighbor Dario killed it with a machete. Poor little guy…I feel bad for hiring out his murder but I don’t want to get bitten and totally die. So, I win. In other garden news, my basil patch is growing tremendously well…I have about 20 plants, all over are over a foot tall now. I made my first batch of pesto the other day, to celebrate the best holiday ever, which is December 19th, a festival invented over four years ago by myself and one Matt McCorkle, in which one must eat pesto and watch the 1972 Jamaican classic “The Harder They Come”…I had my dad bring me my copy of the movie when they came to visit. David came over and we ate hella tasty pesto (thanks to the UC Davis olive oil my mom brought me and the parmesan cheese I found in Tegus) and watched the flick. It might seem boastful to say my holiday is the best in the world, but I’ve got the celestial proof if ya’ll don’t believe me. David and I had clamored up the hills behind my house to enjoy the late-afternoon sunshine and kick-off the holiday by watching the sunset. Remember, this is the middle of December—well into our dry season. No more rain, not since the first of November. More over, we had a nasty drought during the wet season. So anyway, David and I are sittin’ up on the hill, looking at the gray clouds in the distance, and commenting on how much we missed the rain. We glance up, and David spies…A RAINBOW. Just smearing its beautiful, wondrous self across that hot Honduran sky. About ten minutes later, upon further contemplation of the sky, I see that our rainbow has become a DOUBLE RAINBOW. Dudes, I AIN’T EVEN KIDDING. We freaked out and I practically peed myself. A double rainbow! During the dry season! Craziness. Then, suddenly, we looked up and noticed a THIRD rainbow stretching across the sky, wider and brighter than out first two. That’s right, people. THREE FREAKING RAINBOWS. Then, the most magical thing of all happened. It began to rain. And not just sprinkle-sprankles. It poured, it dumped, and David and I gleefully slipped and slid our way down the mountain back to my house. When we arrived, we were totally soaked, and it was absolutely amazing. People were talking about the miracle rainstorm for days afterwards, but it wasn’t a miracle…it was just Somebody upstairs sayin’ “Hayley, I dig what you’re doin’.” I feel like God sent me a December 19th holiday card or something.

Because I am the luckiest lady in the world, I am leaving tomorrow for Nicaragua, to celebrate the New Year with my Peace Corps posse. Hell yes and hot damn I am ready for some volcanoes and lakes and swishy-swashy-warm pacific ocean….so you see, even though I am spending Christmas without my family and presents and stockings and pies, my life really isn’t all too rough down here.

Looooooooooove
Hayley

oh how sweet it is to be a first-born

Douglas is uncomfortable that Noel gets to hold his red car, awesome gifts from mom's friends Leetha and Tai.

Alison with her little blue car....Douglas insisted on having two (one for each hand).

DELIGHTED.

Yesica, Noel, Alison, and Douglas with their new loot.

right before he gauged the other one's eye out! or, at least tried to.

this is exactly what i look like when i dance. Dancing Jaguar is my guru.

View of part of the Copan Ruins.

me and the folksies in front of a sepultura.

wendy kercher! also, andy kercher, questioning our crazy guide fidel.

god we're beautiful.

this picture looks hella dark...but it's us on a pier in roatan. maybe it will be brighter on your monitor, viewer.

the loins/womb of which i am the fruit, in the jungle of pico bonito.

dad and i hiked down to the base of this waterfall. this was after i broke my glasses but you CANT EVEN TELL.

mom and i chillin on a buttress root.

so jaunty!!

green jungle snake...on the side of the road.

5 December 2009
Hey, chochachos!
Whoops, guess a month has dang near slipped by since my last post...I’ve been busy basking in parental affection and the like, so I suppose that’s a good excuse as any. I said goodbye to my folks exactly a week ago, who arrived on November 19th. As the date to fetch them at the airport approached, my landlords became increasingly anxious regarding the state of my home, lest the gringo parents judge them negatively for the healthy abundance of cobwebs in all corners of my dwelling, swaying heavily in the breeze, pregnant with dead bugs. “Clean those up!” says my landlady. “But they catch mosquitos!” says I. “Let’s cut your lawn!” says my landlord. “No, I like the green grass!” says I. “Clean up those old plastic soda bottles you leave strewn about like a hillbilly!” says my landlords in unison. “How do you guys know what hillbillies are?” says I. Etc. In the end I did a fair amount of sweeping the dirt outside, and mopped thoroughly inside, and cleaned up the spare car parts I’d let Cletus scatter about our front yard, and called it good. Nely announced she would like nothing more than to accompany me to the airport, as it was probably the only opportunity she would ever have to go there and was dying to see a plane land. So we set off early Thursday morning, first hitting up the market to buy a ton of ingredients for tamales, our planned parental menu. Then we headed to the airport, where we enjoyed ridiculously garnished coffee beverages (sweet heaven do I love me some whipped cream) and waited for the Kercher Parents to make their much awaited arrival. I was waiting for them at the gate with a handmade, meticulously painted sign bearing the name KERCHER, lest they be confused about which sweaty, red-faced wanna-be albino was theirs to claim. Many hugs and smooches were exchanged, and we hopped (after some ado) into our little rental car to head down south to Alubarén. After a 30-second panic that I had somehow guided us onto the wrong freeway (I hadn’t) and a rather unfortunate event at the gas station in which I allowed us to be swindled into filling the crappy Toyota with premium gas and be called names by a mean old lady (she called me a “stuck-up bitch” because I wouldn’t give her any money), we were finally on the open road, the sun low in the sky and the road-side horses plentiful (much to Wendy and Andy’s amazement). After about an hour and a half, we turned off the freeway (escorted by Andy’s diligent turn-signal application) and began a two-hour roller-coaster that I will never again attempt in a tiny sedan. Woefully optimistic about such a car’s abilities to navigate the rocky, steep dirt roads that lead to Alubarén, I foolishly did NOT encourage the parental units to rent a 4x4 or some other vehicle created for such conditions. As such, we spent the rest of the afternoon sloooowly picking our way up and down the hills, as the Little Carola That Could strained and clunked its way toward my pueblo. We did, however, make it one piece, save for a front bumper which detached itself in the journey—which my dad and an eight-year-old skillfully reattached with rusty wire, leaving it literally better than ever (the hubcabs, which were attached with zip-ties, held fast—which was good because I didn’t have any extra zip-ties).

We were met with a small hoard of excited neighbors, the kids throwing themselves around Andy and Wendy’s waists and the adults happily shaking hands and awkwardly trying to kiss the American’s cheeks, which is always hilarious. Nely and her mom had been planning to make us tamales the next day, but due to a family problem which required one of them to speed across the country to sit on an aunt’s sickbed, they decided to make the tamales right then and there. Tamales are an all-day affair, with a multiple-layered process and much prep work. Starting them at 6:30pm is just seven kinds of crazy, yet that is exactly what my selfless neighbors set themselves to do. We trooped into my house and Igor set about Phase One of his masterpiece plan “Worm My Way Into The Old Folks Hearts So They Let Me Live With Them For A Bit”, by dancing and licking and rubbing and gazing lovingly into their faces with his fixing golden eyes. After an evening of chopping potatoes, child-wooing, and skillfully-translated conversations, we trooped up to my house and collapsed in bed. The next day was spent relaxin’ in the ‘ol Tarantula Oven, playin’ baseball with Las Panteras, strolling around the town, and meeting my friends (usually followed by an invitation to sit down and drink some soda). I was in hog heaven combining my two worlds, and I know my folks loved getting to see and experience it all. Plus, it was a huge ego-booster for ‘em…the first thing out of everyone’s mouth after “nice to meet you,” was “Heeli, your parents! They are so young! Your father, so handsome! Your mother, so beautiful!” Seriously. I was starting to get an inferiority complex, they were getting hit on so much…then I realized I am the fruit of the coupling of such attractive people and I felt better about myself. I also learned a new, super-creepy Honduran euphemism for spending time with parents…as I introduced my folks to a neighbor, she winked and said, “Ohhh, Hayley, you’re gonna suck some titty tonight, aren’t you?” Uh…lemme ask my mom, but I wasn’t planning on it, no. I thought maybe just that particular woman was being lewd, but it happened several more times.
“Doña Maria, this is my mom Wendy and my dad Andy.”
“Oh, pleased to meet you both! Hayley, you’re gonna suck some titty tonight, I bet!”
PLEASE, HONDURAS. I myself am a healthy subscriber to coarse and vulgar humor, but I don’t like hearing that phrase coming from old Honduran women’s mouths. I suppose it’s a reference to being united with one’s parents once again, becoming a nursing babe once again…but as they say, once you can buckle your own overalls, you ain’t a suckling infant no more. Anyway. Gross.

That night we celebrated Andy and Wendy’s last night in the ‘lubes by gorging ourselves on tamales and soda and imported left-over Halloween candy. My neighbor Glenda presented mom and dad with a handmade embroidered pillowcase that said something about sweet dreams, and Tina presented them with an embroidered tortilla cloth that Nely had made for them with a basket of fruit and the words “Senor Bendice Esta Casa,” which means “God Bless This House.” We left for vacation the next morning after a group shot with all my neighbors, the kids running (well, walking due to the necessitated low speed) alongside the car and Tina crying. These folks are my family down here, and it was very special for me to be able to blend my two worlds in this way.

We then left reality and traveled into luxery-vacation-land, in which we jet-setted around Honduras, delighting (some of us more than others) in hot-water showers, fancy multi-course meals and comfortable beds with real, non-foam mattresses. Sweet jesus in a juice box, it was awesome. First we went to La Ceiba and spent two days in Pico Bonito National Park. Our beautiful B&B (Casa Cangrejal) was right in the buffer-zone of the protected area, so we ate our breakfast with the birds and the butterflies in the morning before hiking 10 minutes down the road into the jungle. We went on an amazing 5-hour roundtrip hike (with no sandwiches!) up the mountain, carefully avoiding the giant ant freeways and the amazing Blue Morpho butterflies, which are bigger than my face. My parents had never hiked in rain forest before, so it was a thrilling experience for them (and me as well, obviously). The trail was very well maintained and we saw almost no other hikers, which was nice. The middle point of the loop was an 80-meter waterfall, which pours down a rocky wall, covered with moss and leafy plants. Dad and I actually hiked down to the base of the fall, where I promptly sat down under the turbo-shower and only slightly broke my glasses (again). The next day, our jungle-appetites sated, we took the mildly-turbulent ferry across the Caribbean to Roatan, one of the Bay Islands. We stayed in a remarkably un-occupied resort called Fosters, which was located on the prettiest beach on the island. (I say remarkably because everyone knows the average traveler prefers their home-away-from-home to be stocked with mouse poop, grimy bathrooms and shoddy carpentry, and that is PRECISELY what this idyllic little bungalow offered). But, as my grandma says, it’s just a bed—no one goes to vacation on the beach to stay inside all day, reading Middlesex (ahem, Wendy Kercher). Just kidding, the literary habits were kept to a minimum and Wendy spent most of her standing—damn, can that girl stand!—in the turquoise, tranquil waters of the Caribbean, while Andy and I snorkeled till our mouths pickled themselves, gliding over the beautiful coral reefs and occasionally diving down into the deep blue trenches to slap eels and taunt small sharks. Twice, a Carnival cruise ship arrival and dumped like 2,000 people in the island, which is no doubt devastating to the natural environment; through excellent for the business owners. It made for pretty good people-watching, as Wendy and I strolled through the throngs of fat, greased-up Americans with a beer in one hand and a corn-dog in the other, bobbing waist-deep in the sea. They all had to return to the boat by 4pm, though, which left the late-afternoon delightfully solitary. Ugh. The food was also amazing, and I happily devoured my weight in many varieties of shrimp during our stay there (coconut thai shrimp, blue-cheese-and-sun-dried-tomato shrimp, etc). We found one restaurant, Bite on the Beach, so tasty we ate there TWICE, while I alternated between slurping down delicious minty cocktails whose name escapes me and rubbing their freaking INCREDIBLE home-grown lettuce on my cheek, declaring my love before slowly dipping it in olive oil and grinding it to heaven in my mouth.

To finish our family outing, we headed to Copan for two days, to check out the famous Mayan ruins. Andy, forever the recreational learner, had done some reading on the glyphs before our trip, and was able to supplement our guide Fidel, who made up for a shoddy command of English with rambling nonsequitors and a robust quantity-over-quality attitude. Still, it was amazing…the ruins were so much bigger than I imagined and Honduras has done a fair job preserving them. My favorite parts were the giant stadiums with impressive staircases, down which sacrificed heads would tumble during ceremonies; and the ball court. I also really dug on the sculptures, most especially the dancing jaguar, who, if my glyph reading is accurate, and I believe it is, seems to model his style much after mine…it’s amazing what the Mayan culture produced long before the rest of the world had so much as an inkling. We also spent some time poking around in souvenir shops, eating tasty food, drinking tasty wine, and enjoying each other’s company. The next day, we took an early bus to San Pedro Sula, smooched goodbye, and went our separate ways. I moped my way to a fellow volunteer’s house nearby, where I passed the elections (Pepe Lobo, the conservative candidate, won!). Now back in Alubarén, I am passing my time nibbling on the delicacies my loving parents brought for me (hella Swedish fish and chocolates, hells yes) and gearing up for an attempt to instill a love of literature in the Honduran youths.

Mom and Dad, thanks for comin’ to see ‘ol Hayley…it was the highlight of the year. And it’s not just ‘cause you brought my candy, neither. I love you guys.

Adiooooos
Hayley

dang i drank so much coke this week

Alison the graduate under her awesome balloon arc, with her new dress and dolly. Also pictured is bro Noel, who was sad because he received no presents.

Ah, the obligatory diploma picture.

Igor's brother Navigante at the dogs' first birthday party.

GIMME THE TREAT I CANNOT WAIT ANY LONGERRRRR

This was the fastest picture I've ever taken.

birthday boy

the peace corpse, a ninja turtle, and a recycling plant

PEACE CORPSE AHHHHHHHhhhhhh gosh im clever.

saturday at the swimmin' hole

igor loves this place...you can tell.

my novio douglas and i.

noel and grandma tina in the agua

douglas loves to swim...aw.

10 November 2009
Hey, chochachos!
Dudes guess what? Nicaragua totally saved our back, a little bit. Nicaragua was all like “hells YEAH we got rain, you waaaaant some?” and Honduras was like “I…yes. Please, don’t make me beg.” And Nicaragua was like, “If you want the rain, you’ll have to dance for it.” And Honduras danced (while crying quietly) and rain it did. It was just for the weekend, but it was awesome. I woke up last Saturday morning and was hit with nostalgia like a sock full of marbles…it was COLD. I mean it was probably in the 60s, but to me it felt freezing. It was gray and drizzly outside, which it NEVER is in the morning. I immediately put on socks, and flannel pants, and a hooded sweatshirt, and proceeded to spend the next four hours swaying in my hammock, watching the rain and drinking cup after cup of delicious coffee from Copan. I considered buying a blanket, really I did. It was awesome; it felt like just fall…I pretended I was back in Chicago, gettin’ my autumn on. Then I pretended I was in California, and had even MORE fun. The roads became so muddy the buses got stuck; my grass became squishy, and the river swelled a bit. It was over by Monday morning, but the weekend was just delightful. Thanks, Nicaragua! You guys always know just what I like.

Rain aside, this weekend was also a blasty-blast because it was the graduation for both kindergarten and sixth grade. I’m a pretty popular lady among folks of that age group, so I walked the red carpet at both events. They have a thing here where a family with a graduating child asks a family friend or relative to be the “madrina” or “padrino” of the kid (godmother or godfather) for the ceremony. Basically this entails attending the graduation and sitting at the little plastic table each family has, drinking a cup of coke and taking many pictures. When the kid’s name is called, you go up and take a picture with them, one hand on their diploma, the other on a gift you bought for them (but the kid can’t have it yet!). Then you go sit back down, wait for the ceremony to end, and then go back to the family’s house and have dinner (rice, meat, veggies, lots of soda) and the kid finally gets to open his or her present. Saturday night I attended the 6th grade graduation as my neighbor Enner’s madrina. His mom, Glenda, is a good friend of mine, and his little sister Jessica and I are also bosom buddies (is that creepy? I don’t mean it to be. She’s six). Enner is kind of a punk, but I do love him and he’s a pretty decent pitcher on my baseball team (for his present, I bought him a baseball cap). Sunday, I attended the kindergarten graduation as Alison’s madrina. Alison is my best buddy Nelly’s 5-year-old daughter and my across-the-street neighbor…she’s also one of my favorites. It was adorable, they paid a neighbor (the currency is one 3-liter bottle of Coke) to do her hair all fancy-pancy, and painted her nails, and put on make-up, and her fancy blue church dress. Nelly even spent the better half of the morning making this amazing balloon arc, by tying a million balloons to a plastic tube stuck in two sand-filled coffee cans. Very creative. The parties were a lot of fun…god, I love soda.

And we had ANOTHER party the Thursday before, on November 5th, celebrating Igor’s first birthday! At about 4:00pm I decided we should have a fiesta, so I sent some neighbor kids with bikes to go invite Igor’s three litter mates in the area and their respective kid owners. I got busy making little ground-beef birthday cakes for each dog, while my little buddy Nuria deftly created a million crepe paper streamers. Her mom (and my landlord) Mirian raked the sand and leaves in my yard, and Douglas helpfully peed on my floor. Nelly and her mom Tina (proud owners of Kaiser, Igor’s brother) brought over a bunch of plastic chairs. By 5:00pm the kids and dogs had arrived, and Nuria placed a crepe paper garland on each dog (one of them, Princesa, is her’s). Kaiser is, of course, Nelly’s dog, and another kid on my baseball team Samer owns the fourth, a white one named Navigante. I gave each kid a hamburger patty with a candle stuck in it and we sang Happy Birthday. Then I told each kid to make a wish out loud on the dog’s behalf (I went first, and said in a dog voice, “I wish I could eat my birthday treat now!” and all the kids copied me…unimaginative bastards). Then we blew out the candles, removed them, and placed the plates on the ground. In about two seconds all the meat was gone and the dogs were left to rip the crepe paper off one another while we humans had several cups of Coke and cookies. It was perhaps the best dog birthday…ever?!?

Yesterday was my first baseball practice of the season…we picked up right where we left off. We have a handful of newcomers but the team is pretty much the same. We met at the field right at 2:00pm, ran our lap, did our stretches, and did throwing and catching exercises until 4:00pm. Today was more of the same but we did batting and fielding instead. I spent a fair amount of time yelling at the kids—they’re such PUNKS, always throwing rocks and cussing—but after I sent one cocky 13-year-old home they calmed down. I think this year will go a lot smoother, but it’s a bummer because there is no national championship as a goal. The Peace Corps has sort of sold out to the Dodgers, which is great because they’re funding this awesome week-long clinic for our Honduran coaches. Awesome, but not for me, because I don’t HAVE a damn Honduran coach. One of my kid’s dads is interested (also my landlord), but by interested I mean he likes to come and watch, when he feels like it, and doesn’t want to adhere to the rigid time commitment. He’s out of work at the moment due to an injury, actually, and I think he might just be bored. But he’s a good guy, and not a creep with young girls, so I’ll see if I can entice him to commit to being our coach for REALS.
Oh, yeah, Halloween! Dudes. Halloween was AWESOME. We stayed in this rad hostel called La Iguana Azul and just had wonderful dang time runnin’ around the cool town of Copan. The first night there was this great party at a local bar Via Via (which I showed up at in my dog food costume, only to find NO ONE else was in costume except for three dudes dressed as Drugs, Sex, and Rock ‘n Roll, respectively). But it didn’t matter, because it is hellsa fun to run around dressed up like dog food. Saturday, Halloween proper, was even more fun…I looked pretty good as the Peace Corpse, and we went to parties at several different bars before ending up at this one with an awesome live band. Oh, to dance like a dorky white girl with face paint….such a treat. It was fun because the whole town seemed to welcome this onslaught of gringos (or at least, those who could profit from our presence seemed to welcome us) and it was wonderful to catch up with all my old buddies I haven’t seen in a year. I also met a bunch of volunteers for the first time, some of whom were Excellent. So hooray and hot damn. Saturday afternoon, before the party began, a bunch of us went to this place called Macaw Mountain, which is basically a glorified nature park with a wide collection of exotic birds in large outdoor enclosures, as well as a bitchin’ swimming hole. There was even a section where the birds were loose on perches, and you could have them climb on your head and nibble your earlobe…which I enjoyed….perhaps too much. (Though at one point I had enticed this green macaw onto my arm, and was enjoying his heft, when a park employee came running up and was like “dude that’s the bird that claws people’s eyes out when they least expect it!”, which kind of killed the moment). I opted not to check out the ruins, since I’ll be headed there in about two weeks with Wendy and Andy Kercher (who arrive in Honduras in exactly eight days!!!!). Man. I had fun.
So yeah, T-minus ALMOST NO TIME AT ALL until my folks get here. I’m so excited, I could just barf. All ova this keyboard!!! But I won’t, cause this is the only one I got. I feel like the luckiest dame in the world…I can’t wait to hug my mom and dad. I haven’t seen them in like 17 months, and it feels more like 18. Which is nearly 20! It feels like it’s been nearly 20 months…which is nearly 24, which is two years. So you understand my excitement.

Time for bed, dudes…I am so exhausted from yelling at children about Sports.
Love,
Hayley

summer is upon me, like the sweatiest wool blanket in the world

Lisbeth, reading one of the new books my grandma sent me. i wish i could turn this photo normally!

the gang, reading the awesome childrens books that my awesome mimi sent

tina and her hubby Ruben on his 74th birthday

ruben, attacking the rabbit-coyote with youthful vigor

nelly and douglas on his second birthday

douglas attacking the rabbit-coyote with even more youthful vigor (thats right, we reuse pinatas in alubaren)

looking down into the valley of one of the aldeas where I work

spank that pinata, ruben!

23 October 2009
Hey, chochachos!
Crap, crap, crapity crap. “Oh no Hayley whatever seems to be the matter” you say? WELL, IT AIN’T A GIANT MUDDY DEATH TRAP AROUND HERE AND THAT IS VERY WORRYING. In case you guys are too busy eating delicious toasty sandwiches and then driving to buy MORE sandwich fixins’ when they run out, or whatever it is you do in America, as I have now forgotten, it is OCTOBER, people. Moreover, it is nearly November. In Honduras, as with pretty much all tropical places (I assume), October is, as the kids say, “negative moist.” It is supposed to just rain and rain, with torrential monsoons of fat warm wet drops bombarding the Dickens outta everything. The rivers swell, the roads wash out, little pink wormies drown, and the cuffs of people’s pants take on a permanent brown tone. BUT that’s how it HAS to be, because from November to May, not a single drop falls (at least in the south of Honduras) and we depend on the chunkity-ass rivers to supply us with drinking, bathing, and irrigating water. But WHAT THE HELL, PEOPLE. It isn’t raining!! And it hasn’t rained since the second week of October! And when it WAS raining, it wasn’t all that much! Last year at this time, I was leaping into a swirling, churning river and squealing gleefully as the rapids shot me down stream. This year, I can walk across the same river and not even get my butt wet. The water flows lazily along, with bits of garbage floating along peacefully. Bob Ross would love to come here and get his paint on, I’m sure, but for Alubarén’s purposes, this is bad news. The corn crops are already stunted, and with no rain, the harvest is gonna be hells of meager. Same with the beans. And the squash. Everything is already drying out, beginning to take on the toasty, dusty film of summer. I was burning some used toilet paper in my yard the other day (just one of my many new hobbies) and the fire leapt to the grass and started spreading! And just a couple weeks ago, that same lawn was a thick squishy green delight of life. I never realized how much I love the rainy season until I noted its abrupt departure and the rapid encroachment of summer, shoving its dry, crackly body in front of the withering green of winter like a particularly arid bully in the school lunch line. Oh, but how summer loves those baked Tator Tots! This is gonna be a long-ass summer.

Summer seems to be moving onto the seen in other areas, too. Usually, the kids are in school until mid-November, at which point they are turned out to graze the crusty grass of Endless Summer, until it ends in February and the kids don their uniforms and head back for some learnin’. This year, however, the Ministry of Education decided that what with the political unrest, it would be prudent to release the kids a month early, in mid-October. The elections are scheduled for the very end of November, and the schools are used as community polling places. So obviously, we must have the schools barren for a good six weeks prior. You know, just in case. So the teachers were given orders to pass ALL their students, whether they should be passed or not, hastily administered some last-minute tests (though I can’t imagine why, if they were going to pass the entire class anyway) and swept the youngsters out the doors for a nice hearty summer break of nearly four months. One of my projects is called TEAM, and involves four hours of English class and creative teaching methodology for about 23 local teachers, who then replicate the classes in their own schools, thus giving the kids a good dose of basic English as well as dynamic, interactive learning that gets them off their feet and eschews rote-memorization for 50 pleasant minutes. Anyway, I had TEAM scheduled to go into November, including two observations per teacher out at village schools where they teach. When the Ministry announced they were chopping the school year down at the knee caps, I had to hurry the hell up and finish all my classes before the teachers took off for Tegucigalpa, where many of them reside when they’re not teaching in the country schools. As such, I was only able to observe each teacher once instead of twice, which was a shame because I always enjoy going out into the aldeas (villages). The people are always so friendly and happy to see one another, greeting their neighbors on the path like cherished family members. You feel like Alubarén has great poverty, but then you walk two hours out to some remote aldea, which is really just a cluster of houses, and suddenly Alubarén seems like a wealthy metropolis. The folks out in the aldeas are so poor, they don’t even have doors on their mud houses. Latrines are uncommon; most families just go out in the open air. The kids show up at school barefoot, the required white-and-blue uniforms are nonexistent. To get to many of the aldeas, the teachers in Alubarén walk 15 minutes to a bus pick-up spot, take the 6:15am bus that passes on its way to Tegus, ride it for 20 minutes, then get off and head their separate ways. One teacher I went with hikes for over an hour down a steep ravine into a valley so isolated I was shocked to find the number of houses that claim that little area as Los Amates, their home. Hiking back UP to the road after class was rather hellish, it was so steep and so hot. She told me she often goes on mule but that week the poor guy was occupied hauling sand for a construction project.

So needless to say, I’ve been hells of busy trying to suddenly wrap up all of my school-related projects before the kids scatter and the teachers leave. I’m also about to begin baseball again, which I’m looking forward too, though I have enjoyed my several months of free afternoons. I’ve also been happily celebrating many birthdays, including little Douglas turning two and his grandpa Ruben turning 74. Both birthdays were celebrated across the street at their house, with cake, a piñata, and tasty food. Douglas was very serious about beating (well, gently tapping) his piñata, but managed to do such a delicate job in removing the candy that the rabbit/coyote/whatever thing was salvaged for Don Ruben’s birthday two weeks later. Douglas’ birthday was lots of fun, but Ruben’s was very special. As I’ve mentioned, he has pretty bad Parkinson’s, and so for this birthday family and friends turned up from all over the place to celebrate another year. They clapped and strummed guitars and sang church songs, prayed, and gave little speeches (I actually gave one too, and nearly began to cry, which was awkward). Then they passed out the ubiquitous plastic plates of rice-and-chicken-with-three-tortillas and little cups of coke. Then frosting was smeared on the old man’s face, as tradition mandates, we sang three different Happy Birthday songs (one of which I directed in English), ate cake, had more soda, and the party dissipated. Same format as every party in this one-trick-pony-town, which I enjoy. Ruben, in his quiet, wavery voice, gave a little speech from his plastic lawn about the incredible love he has in his heart for the people in his life, and for life itself. A retired pastor in the Evangelical church, his outlook on life is so upbeat and optimistic you feel like a better person just listening to him. He is perhaps of the most adored members of the community.

I’m gettin’ seven kinds of psyched because in exactly one week, I leave for the Mayan Ruins of Copan to celebrate the best holiday ever, aka HALLOWEEN. Every year there is a giant Halloween party in the little town of Copan Ruinas, which boasts the actual ruins outside of town. All the volunteers in Honduras that can go, do, as well as any other ex-pats or folks who celebrate the holiday (Halloween is generally not celebrated in Latin America). I freakin’ LOVE costume parties, and the fact that this one is a huge crazy fun-fest in an awesome location with like 500 people makes me want to sweat candy corn outta my eyes. I actually have two costumes picked out, one for Friday night, and one for the actual Halloween party on Saturday. Friday night, I shall stand around havin’ a great ol time as a bag of dog food. Igor blows through 50 pound sack of “Dogui” kibble in no time, so I have a quite a stack of empty bags. I’m just gonna cut leg and arm holes and stuff it with newspaper. For Saturday night, I’m following my heart as a lover of “pun” costumes and shall make my debut as “the Peace Corpse.” GET IT?! Cause, you know, dumb people might pronounce “corps” as “corpse”…. AND it works in Spanish, because we’re known as “El Cuerpo de Paz,” which means “the Body of Peace.” I found a sweet orange tie-dyed tank top with a giant white peace sign on the front, and shall wear that with many other stereotypical hippie paraphernalia whilst smearing my face with corpse-like face paint and fake blood. Basically, I win.

My buddies Noel, Alison and Douglas just barged into my house asking permission to collect the many windfall cherries that are strewn about my yard, so I’d better wrap this up. If you give a kid permission to pick cherries, chances are, he’s gonna want a plastic bag to go with it…and a glass of juice. And if you give him juice, chances are he’s gonna pee on the floor and then you’ll have to splash some water on it and make a promise to mop later, which you inevitably will not.

Only 27 more days until parental units Andy and Wendy fly down to Honduras for nine days of Adventures!! They’re gonna spend two days in the tourist gem that is Alubarén, and then we’re heading north to the Pico Bonito National Park, where I intend on tricking my mom into going white-water rafting in the rain forest, which sounds too bitchin’ to pass up. Then we’re headed to the sexy Bay Islands to snorkel until a sea turtle eats a stray appendage and/or the backs of knees become too sunburned. Then we’re heading off to Copan to scope out the ruins (I’m gonna bring my dog-food costume just in case). Then they head home, filled with tender memories of the best nine days ever spent with their precious first-born child. And to that I say, yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!

Love,
Hayley

much like alex mac acquired super powers from slime, i now have electrical abilities from lightening.

according to patrick, i look like "something from harry potter" in this picture. i don't know how to interpret that, unless perhaps he's inferring that everyone in harry potter has a sunburned forehead. patrick looks like a dork in a honduras-purchased polo shirt.

Hawk Waterfall! in the beautiful misty cloud forests of Parque Nacional Montana de Comayagua.

cascada!

Gabe doing his duty as a tour guide [note: this photo is definitely not staged.]

you may consider us the three musketeers.

tiny baby waterfall!

Gabe utilizing his sorry excuse for a pila...but it's okay because he has the sweetest view in the world.

Douglas chillin' in my hammock. That's his cousin Andri in my other hammock in the background.

My kindergarten buddies marching in the Independence Day parade of Alubaren.

Alison and her neighbor Yesica, her cousins Lisbeth and Andri, and her brother Noel.

Nina Independencia!! I guess I could have put her in front of something prettier than my clothesline.

Remember baby Javier, my old host mom Suyapa's youngest? He's a crazy monster baby now and runs around like a track star.

27 September 2009
Hey, chochachos!
Guess what today is? Nothing other than my official half-way mark of service, THAT’S ALL. Though actually it was the 28th of September that I arrived in Alubarén last year, but that’s because I cheated and came a day late so I could be sneaky and have a fun time with my buddies from training one last time. Anyway. I can’t think of anything to say about this moment that isn’t just a bunch of clichés out at a cliché family reunion, totally singing songs about bein’ clichés and eating snacks that clichés eat….I can’t believe how time has flown; it seems like only yesterday I was dragging two huge suitcases up the dirt road, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and sweaty-faced, etc. Time really has flown, but not any faster than it always does. That would require that Honduras be in some sort of time-accelerator-warp. Let’s not be crazy here people. EVERYBODY CALM THE HELL DOWN.

I am currently eating hot green squash with sugar sprinkled on top that my neighbor Glenda just brought me in a little bowl. It is delicious.

After a particularly long period of “mini summer,” we have now departed the hot-and-dry-all-the-damn-time period and entered the hot-and-muddy-because-it-rains-like-the-tears-of-an-adolescent-boy-listening-to-The-Cure-in-a-sit-down-bath-in-the-eighties every dang day. I rather like thunder storms…they’re so violent and warm and extreme, nothing like the cold wintery rain that California gets. My yard LOVES it; I’ve had to pay a dude to come machete all my grass and weeds into submission again because it was getting waist-tall and I’ve been finding snakes and such in places I do not want them (aka eye-ball level in my shower, for starters). I’ve planted a bucket full ‘o basil, which is coming along delightfully. I can’t wait to eat it on EVERYTHING. The rain is also making the river grow, which is awesome…I can’t wait till October (wait, I guess that’s this Thursday…I can’t wait till late October) when the river gets nice and swift and deep and we can go tubing in it. Lightening, however, can just take its business SOMEWHERE ELSE (more on than in a second).

A couple weekends ago I went with my buddy Patrick to go visit our friend Gabe in his site, a tiny 400-person village up in the mountain of Comayagua, in the western-ish part of the country. Gabe is a Protected Areas Management volunteer (as is Patrick) so the lucky bastard lives practically IN the Parque Nacional Montana de Comayagua, a beautiful national park that is mostly cloud forest and dripping with water (it supplies water to a jillion communities, I believe). His town is called Rio Negro, and is basically a small cluster of houses nestled into the forest. “This here is coffee country,” said Gabe, hitching his thumbs behind his over-all straps, and I believe him. Everywhere I looked grew short, shiny coffee bushes, and I tasted some of the best coffee I’ve ever had while eating dinner at his old host-mom’s house (and promptly bought three pounds of it). Gabe’s house is small but nice, though like the rest of his community, has no electricity. We’d stopped at the grocery store before heading up the mountain, so the three of us prepared a tasty meal of eggplant, spaghetti, and quesillo (a mozzarella-like cheese). Then we sat out of his amazing porch that looks down onto the basin below and admired the incredible lightening storm dancing on and stabbing up the open valley. In the morning, the clouds hang in the trees like they ain’t got no better place to be, and the birds just go crazy flyin’ around while Gabe identifies them with his nerdy little bird book (I’m jealous). Then he took us on the sweetest hike ever, especially considering the trail head is a five-minute walk from his back door. The trail winds through cloud forest for about an hour before reaching a small waterfall, and Gabe stopped and explained all the leaves and trees and plants and insects for us whenever we asked. Then we decided to scramble up the higher ‘trail’ to get to a bigger, more impressive waterfall, which was about another hour up the mountain. The trail, however, was barely existent, and Gabe had to force our way through with his machete much of the time, constantly looking out for the bright orange plastic ribbon marking where the trail aspires to be. The trail was also hells of steep and quite muddy, which meant that we had to crawl on all fours for much of the time, pulling ourselves up by vines and roots and branches. I pretended I was a chimpanzee and thoroughly enjoyed myself. We were so filthy by the time we got there! It was awesome. I love filth. Especially cloud forest filth…everything there smells so awesome and mushroomy and soily. Delightful. Getting down was even harder, because it was so steep and slick, so I finally just waited until the boys got a good ways ahead, squatted down on my heels, and skied down the slope. I don’t think I need to mention how filthy I became after sliding down a muddy mountain on my ass. Patrick didn’t like it much, though, because I would invariably catch up to them in about 10 seconds and smash into the backs of his legs. I kept doing it, however. Soon karma caught up to me, though, when we began walking through a sunny meadow and I tripped and fell flat on my face in a GIANT ant-hill. Biting ants, people! I start screaming and leaping around and smacking at myself while the guys just howl with laughter. I think the worst thing about Honduras is definitely the bitey ants.

We got home late afternoon, with just enough time for the three of us to shower and head over for a six o’clock dinner with Gabe’s old host family. I was busy scrubbing my filthsome shorts, so the guys went first. When it was my turn it was already raining pretty good, but no one ever told me of the dangers of showering during a thunder storm, so I jumped into the bathroom and rinsed myself with nice cold mountain water. I has just finished soaped and shampooing myself to hell and was just beginning to rinse myself when….when….I TOTALLY GOT ZAPPED BY GOD HIMSELF. A lightening bolt landed just outside the house and the electricity ran right through the hose I had in my hand and the water I had squirtin’ all over myself and just jolted me. I SCREAMED bloody murder and threw the hose down, then screamed again. Then I leapt out of the shower and stood dripping soap all over the floor while I whimpered to myself and explained in hysterical tones to the concerned boys on the other side of the door what had happened to me. It reminded me of the time I grabbed a hot-wire fence as a kid and stood there screaming and electrocuting myself until my dad came and ripped my fingers free. I continued to stand there and stare up fretfully at the small sky-light in Gabe’s bathroom ceiling for about half an hour. Finally I jumped back in, rinsed off for about 30 seconds, and jumped back out. I then spent the rest of the night recounting my horror story to anyone who would listen (Gabe’s old host-family, my family on the phone, and the boys several more times).

The next day we had delicious hot mountain coffee and pancakes for breakfast (I warmed everything by zapping it with my fingers, like the Emperor) and then set off for another adventure. We went over to the little Tourism Center (basically just this guy’s house), saw the four eco-cabins they have built for tourists, and had some juice. The family was incredibly nice and the mom couldn’t seem to stop stuffing us with food, followed by promises of more food (“You like those fried corn cakes, do ya? Well wait till ya try my homemade CHICKEN SOUP!”) Then we hiked down to this little waterfall and pond where the guy had built a sweet hydro-generator! His house is only one in Gabe’s community with electricity. It was totally amazing. But not as amazing as his WINE CAVE. You slosh through this freezing cold pond and force yourself under a pounding waterfall to reach a little cave hidden behind the dumping water. There, this enterprising man has hidden a bottle of homemade wine, complete with several little wooden cups. Unfortunately, the idea is a lot radder than the actual place, because a) the wine tasted like vinegar and puke, b) the cups smelled like my childhood friend Jennifer’s turtle tanks, and c) the cave was tiny and freezing and very wet, not my ideal wine-drinkin’ local. But at least now I can say I’ve drank crappy moon-shine in a cave.

So Honduras, like all over Central American countries, celebrates its independence day on September 15th. In a typical year, the kids basically stop learning or doing anything productive in school for a full six weeks before the 15th, spending their precious four hours of school practicing marching around, twirling batons or pompoms (if you’re a girl), banging on a drum (if you’re a boy), and singing the National Anthem, which has like 100 stanzas. However, this year was a little different, because the kids had already lost so much school due to the coup. So the Ministry of Education declared that no school could waste class preparing for Independence Day, which was sad for the kids but an excellent decision. As such, Alubarén’s “Quince de Septiembre” parade was rather thrown together and lame, but at least no minds were deprived of long division unncecessarily. My little neighbor Alison, one of Nelly’s kids, was crowned “Nina de Independencia” in her kindergarten class, so I had a great time walking next to her in the parade and taking a million pictures. She LOVED getting to wear lipstick and earrings and have her nails painted and her hair done (in case anyone is wondering how the exchange rate is doing down here, the local hairdresser charges one three-liter bottle of Coke to style a 5-year-old’s hair). It was a proud moment for Nelly…there are lots of cute girlies in Alison’s class, so the teacher must think Alison is pretty special to have chosen her.

I had a really special day the other day…about twice a month, I go into the health center and give a health lecture about high blood pressure to the poor people sitting in the waiting room. Usually there are about 30 people sitting in the church-like pews, talking quietly or comforting fussy babies. It’s almost always folks that come in from the surrounding villages, or aldeas. Aldea folks are, typically, must more shy and quiet, especially around gringos. Doing a workshop with folks from the aldeas is often like pulling teeth—people no one will even LOOK at me, much less participate and speak and contribute to the group. My monthly health lectures are no different. I always follow a similar format, asking questions about what they might know about high blood pressure, how it’s caused, how to prevent it, etc. And, usually, no one says anything, and then one of the nurses Franklin comes in and yells at them for being so rude to me, which just makes it WORSE, and then I just have to go through the lesson about the evils of salt and saturated fat and pretend I’m talking to people instead of robots who are programmed to only stare shyly at the ground. But this month was AWESOME!!! I don’t know what the difference was—all of the people were new to my lecture, no repeats—and most were from aldeas. But they listened when I was speaking, contributed when I asked them questions, and then began peppering me with so many questions I ended up staying a whole hour later than usual. I brought up the dangers of alcohol and how it can affect the heart, and encouraged them to give the local AA chapter a try if they were struggling with drinking. An older man then stood up, took off his cowboy hat, and began to share with this health center waiting room his own personal history with alcohol and how it nearly destroyed his life and his health. He looked around at all the other men and told them how wonderful AA was and that they should give it a try if they were “tired of being drunks.” Then he sat down. Then a young woman raised her hand a little, and addressed the group, saying how she had never really considered what her food was doing to her and her childrens’ hearts, and that from here on out she wasn’t going to cook with manteca (vegetable-based lard) anymore, only vegetable oil. And “only a teeny bit of salt!” She finished her speech and another woman declared she was going to start exercising to lose weight. Then we started discussing alternative recipes for meals (making rice without manteca, for example, or spaghetti without the obligatory 2 bars of margarine), and the women started getting all excited about the new ways they were going to prepare meals. Hooray for days like today.

Tomorrow is the “clausura” (closing ceremony?) of my “Yo Merezco” abstinence-education workshop. We’re going to eat cake, drink soda, bash open piñatas, play games, and pointedly not have sexual relations until we’re ready. This cake better be the best freaking cake ever, though, because it’s costing us $25 DOLLARS. That’s….so much of my money. God damn.

NOW I am eating dinner I just made, which is rice cooked up all tasty with tomatoes, celery, cilantro, sweet pepper, onions, garlic, and eggplant. One of the ladies who sells produce has really been bringin’ in the good stuff lately. I mean, eggplant?! In Alubarén?! It is awesome. I am kind of obsessed with eggplant these days. Weird.

The other day I played in the annual “teacher’s soccer game” (Alubaren versus one of the aldeas). It was rather hilarious because many the teachers were fat and running around in tight jeans, and everyone was shouting “GO HEELI!!” because my un-encumbered body could move around quicker than theirs. But then I got too cocky and totally wiped out, skinning my knee, which turned me into an instant celebrity. Even now, over a week later, people keep coming up to me—“Jili, is it true you hurt yourself?! Let me see! Oh, Diosito [tiny baby God].” Seriously. I’m FAMOUS for my skinned knee.

I guess since I’m describing my meals I’ve sort of run of out things to say at the moment. Lesse….I got a little bird’s nest in my lime tree! I think it’s a sparrow. I have no reason to think this other than the momma bird is small and brown. What else…man, I guess I actually went a whole blog entry without talking about Igor. He is doing excellently, and continues to grow, though I think he’s almost done now (he’ll be a year old in November!). The other day I noticed in the evening that his left eye was almost swollen shut, and totally freaked out, convinced he was pulling an Erika and going blind on me. I force fed him an Advil and slept fretfully. In the morning, however, his eye was totally normal, so I guess a bee or something must have stung him.

Time for bed…it’s nearly 9:30! Though the other day I made a new record for myself…the lights had been out all day and it was storming so violently I was afraid to be in my hammock, convinced a rogue lightening bolt would hit the roof and travel through the cotton and fry me. So I crawled into bed and decided just to chill and relax until the storm passed. This was at like 6:45pm…the next thing I knew, it was 7:00am and Igor was nosing me through my mosquito net. I am a human miracle!

Looove,
Hayley