Random Stories

**Creatures:
I don't think I am ever completely alone here. Wherever I am, there is some animal life in close proximity.

• In the morning, it begins with a visit from our neighborhood woodpecker. He apparently wants to be my new 6:00am wake-up call with his loud, incessant knocking. I often get up to shoo him away but then I can't get back to sleep. And I thought the hamburguesa man was annoying.

Then throughout each day I inevitably see:

• Horses - either they are munching on grass by the roadside (sometimes tied by rope and sometimes just wandering around) or men and boys are riding them bareback through the streets or men are riding on horse-drawn carts filled with fruit, vegetables, building materials, and once a family had their entire household belongings squeezed onto one (picture a 1930's-40's dustbowl family packed onto their little truck).
  
• Ants - a constant pest everyday. They are trying, anyway they can, to eat our food (even food you wouldn't think ants would like). They are exceptionally strong here, by the way. Many times, I have seen them carry leaves 5 times their body size. See them here stealing one of my macaroni noodles (they really know how to work together):

• Centipedes (or maybe they are millipedes - but who is going to count all their legs to find out?). They are pretty big but seem harmless. Mostly they come out when it rains (which is almost everyday. The weather here is strange. Almost daily there are, at some point, dark, ominous clouds accompanied by booming thunder and lightening but often not a drop of rain will fall. Though we have already been caught (either biking or walking) in pouring rain 5 times since our arrival.).

• One time a giant, dinosaur-sized, flying cockroach tried to attack Christina and I. Luckily, this only happened once and we had bug spray.
  
• On a daily basis, we ride our bikes past chickens, cows, ducks, turkeys, goats, and, of course, dogs. Our music as we ride consists of the weirdest bird calls I have ever heard, frogs croaking, and the constant, high-pitched buzz of cicadas. One day a cicada somehow got trapped in our "living room". It was so deafening our ears were ringing an hour after its demise. Lest I forget, the ever present mosquito. I have yet to be bitten but Christina is in a constant battle with them.
  

• Bees - for some reason there are always bees in my classroom. They seem to mind their own business but it is rather distracting.
• At dusk my favorite of all creatures appears. Fireflies! These magical, twinkling insects have been right in our own backyard lately. I hope they keep returning to delight me with their enchanting glow.
  

**Free Food:
We have discovered there is a banana tree going in our backyard. Recently, we found a whole bunch of bananas ripe and ready. The best part is they are manzana bananas. Manzana means apple in Spanish and these bananas really do have an apple flavor to them. They also stay ripe longer, which is good since we have so many to eat! I don't think I can go back to regular bananas after these; I have been converted. ** Things that are impossible to find here:

• Ziplock bags - how can you live without these? I really want to know? The second I get to the states I am bringing two boxes back.
  
• Cheese - we once found cheddar cheese but it was disgusting. They have a gross white cheese everyone eats but not us. They also have American, equally disgusting but it is okay for grilled cheese.
• Instant Oatmeal - If you know me well, you know I eat oatmeal everyday for breakfast and often for a late night snack. I would love some right now.
  
• Shampoo and Conditioner - technically they sell this here, but it is insanely expensive so that doesn't count.
  

**The Students:

• I teach 3rd grade here. The reading and writing levels in my class range from PreK to high 1st grade. Two students do not even know all the letter/sound relationships yet. This not like teaching 3rd grade at all. I can't even do read-alouds of my favorite kids books because they are all too high for them and the kids just stare at me with confused looks on their faces.
• Here are some excerpts from recent letters the kids wrote:
• "bicos ju sistar ard pridi" which means "because your sister is pretty"
• "Old yers you have 7 and my have 9 yers" which translates to "You are 7 years old and I am 9 years old."
• And the best student of all: "i af u aro" which (obviously!) means "I have two dogs". At least he knows there are four words and "af" is close to the sounds in "have".
  
• Even the ones who are "high" in English often have to use one or two Spanish words to communicate. Christina told me a student kept coming up to her saying, "I have a dollar in my head." Christina kept asking, "dollar? You have a dollar in your head?" and the student would nod. To clear her confusion, I translated that "dolor" is Spanish for "ache or pain".
  
• By the way, the schools here are so into holidays and celebrations it is ludicrous. We had to stay for a 2-hour meeting after work on Wednesday to talk about the United Nations Celebration. Each class will be in charge of a country, so we should have typical (read: stereotypical) food and costumes. It took 2 hours to say this! At the end, I asked about our upcoming exam week (which is before the UN day) and my comment was brushed aside as unimportant right now. "Oh, you give two tests a day, then school is over" the end. They are really focused on the education here, can't you tell?

**Volunteering and Beach:
Since we don't work until noon, and there is not much to do here except ride our bikes in the heat or go to the beach (or hand wash our clothes...no thanks) or read (I am already on my 6th book in as many weeks), Christina and I have been volunteering at a daycare for very low income families. The little tykes range from babies to age 5 and they are so cute. It is really a great way to start the day. We try to go twice a week. With all the hugs and attention we get, I don't think I can ever stop going. All of you who don't want to have kids are crazy!

We also tried to inquire into volunteering at the Red Cross. We rode our bikes over and went inside. All we saw were offices. We asked if they needed volunteers, they led us upstairs and, very formally, asked us to sit on the couch. We complied and asked again if they needed volunteers. They looked at us with confusion and said "no." What kind of Red cross doesn't need volunteers? Where was the clinic anyway? There are billboards around the city asking you to donate blood and there was an ambulance out front. We will have to try it again. Maybe there is another building. They are not going to get rid of me that easy.

We do end up going to the beach often though (oh, poor us). The water is always perfectly warm and so calm I can just float on it forever. Sometimes the sun gets too penetrating and we take cover under palm trees or a palapa. There are some tarps you can rent but it is not in our budget. If we are lucky, people will rent one for the day and leave after an hour or so. Then we can sneak in and lay under it for free. (By the way, it may look cold, but it has never been below 70 degrees F here. The temperature ranges from 68 to 93 degrees F, even in the middle of the night, even when it is pouring rain, even in January. Oh, poor me.)
One day at the beach, a man pulled out a rainbow-shaped parachute, strapped a motor and giant fan to his back, and began flying into the sky. He actually flew disturbingly high with his contraption. Everyone stared at the crazy man as he soared over the sea and land. Hopefully it all worked out for him.

About every 20 minutes or so, a Garifuna will walk by with coconuts and a machete asking if you want the milk, or if you want your hair braided, or if you want some pan de coco (good sweet bread with sugar sprinkled on top) or tableta (this stuff is gritty and terrible, not sweet at all). (The Garifuna are also known as black caribs. They are a mix of freed African slaves, Caribe, and Arawak races.)

And, of course, the ever present animals. One day, I swear, I saw a baby sea turtle swimming by me. You can often spot a crab darting out of its hole for a second. There are even horses are on the beach:
**Spanish:
One of main reasons I came here was to practice my Spanish. Since only about 10 people in the entire city speak English (including Christina and I), I get to practice my Spanish almost everyday. I am nowhere near as fluent as I would like but at least I am learning more vocabulary and gaining confidence. It is really fun actually (and often hilarious like when we kept asking for directions to the "oficina de correr" (office of running) when what we really wanted was the "oficina de correo" (office of mail - post office).

The best part is that since Christina has dark skin (she is Filipino) everyone assumes she speaks Spanish. So I initiate a conversation in Spanish with someone, they immediately turn to Christina and babble off a bunch of sentences in Spanish. She knows less Spanish than I do, so she turns to me and I reply back to them in Spanish. This triangle continues until they finally realize maybe Christina doesn't know Spanish...ah ha.