Mañana es para siempre

Much to report.
First I am to tell you that Juanito, my cat, ate lentils four times today. Havivi wanted you to know this. We think he has worms and is therefore feeding an army.

This afternoon, as I am peeling mountains of chicope for jam, Abuelita comes in to prepare her daily soymilk. I say,” Abuelita, careful with the ants” and she laughs and tells me they were in the sugar the other day. And that is why I found her at the sink spooning ants out of her soymilk one by one. So five minutes later she is back spooning ants and laughing, I pull out the strainer once again to help her out. Maybe this is why the other day she said as we were sitting down to lunch, “ con la gringa somos como familia” With the gringa we are like family.

It might also be because Tuesday night as the rain was pouring down me Havivi and Marisella are lounging waiting for Havivis boyfriend to come for dinner. One of us says something about the infinite rain and Marisella says, “ I know lets scare Joel”, the boyfriend. So we get to it expecting him any moment now. I have the comforter over my head and am sitting behind the dining room door which I am too shut after joel enters and start making creepy noises. Marisella is crouched behind the curtain into the bedroom with black gloves on to reach for Joel’s feet as he enters the room and Havivi is in bed luring Joel through the trap. All the lights are off and Abuelita is watching Chabo in the living room.

Joel knocks on the door comes in and greets abuelita. Havivi calls from the bedroom and Joel proceeds into the dining room, but he turns the light on. HA. So here I am covered having just closed the door feeling Joel staring at me very confused. Now instead of turning the light off, I somehow think rolling around on the floor in my sheet would be scarier. So that is what I do and I can just see Joel looking down at me totally confused. He tries to pull the comforter off but I don’t let him and I try and force him into Marisellas trap but by this time no one can keep from laughing and we all end up rolling around on the floor.
But poor abuelita was terrified almost to tears that we were going crazy what with our frantic preparation and then our hysterically poor performance. I sat and watched the rest of Chabo worried Abuelita wouldn’t recover.

Lately……

I have learned Spanish soap operas are just as terribly addicting.

That one never throws out pineapple peel because Agua de Pina is one of the greatest delicacies on earth

And that the minute something is dirty, you wash it, otherwise mold will come

I learned not to wear pants that are see through when wet if you plan on playing with water

And I have grown into a deep relationship with The Guardian Weekly, so much so that like my father, I am always three or four behind and once finished can’t bear to throw them out feeling a sense of accomplishment and sentiment towards such a wealth of information so easily compactable.

Finally I have learned that the community here looking for anything to do with a youth development volunteer seems to be in hiding or of very shy, perhaps invisible personalities and yet somehow there is enough work for two volunteers. Yes, starting tomorrow I have a site mate, wonderful. Now he does come for small business management so I am happy for Marisella and her many products waiting to be commercialized. And I wont be the only foreigner dancing at the discoteca but I have officially given up trying to understand reason behind pc administration.

I’m off to Ecuador in a bit here so you all take care now and just boil that pineapple peel in water with brown sugar and cloves. Good for your kidneys too.
Leba-Flava