Paige came! I am going to use this as an excuse for not writing for so long. (Even though she was here for less than two weeks.) I will new give you a brief re-cap of her trip. Paige got in on the Thursday before Easter. We hung out in my site for 5 days. A very brave feat for most, but Paige is a champ and has spent some time working at a clinic in Honduras, so she knows what it's all about. I showed Paige all around my community. 
One of our most important stops was to visit the Mango Man. He and his wife are some of the kindest people in my community. They always seem so excited when I stop by. The Mango Man and his wife are about 75 years old. They have been together since they were 13 and married for over 50 years! The reason I call him the Mango Man is that he has over 13 species of mango trees on his property, and over 20 mango trees. Whenever I visit him during mango season, he always sends me home with a bag brimming with mangos. More mangos than I could ever eat. Mango season is great. (Side note- my host dad, Orlando, cut down a mango the other day that weighed 2.5 pounds!) So, we visited the Mango Man. While we were there, we came upon these strange plants in his yard. We asked him what they were called and he pulled one down, peeled off the skin and told us that it is used to exfoliate. He grows loofas in his yard! 
Another fun thing about the Mango Man is that he is totally ripped. I do not think I have ever seen anyone who's muscles are that visible. I mean, look at this guy ------------->
Another highlight of the trip was Easter Sunday. My host family invited us to attend a 4 am procession, followed by mass. Now, since I have lived here for over a year, I kind of assumed that we would be a part of the procession. Parades where people watch are not very common, usually everyone participates. So we get up at 3:30 am and head into the pueblo. By 4:30 everyone is ready to go. A set of people are carrying a statue of Jesus. We start walking the streets of Metapan, all the while a woman speaking into a microphone is instructing the procession when to sing and chant.
At some point the woman tells the crowd to watch out for the angel. All of a sudden a swarm of children come running up to the Jesus statue with a statue of an angel. They press them together as though they are hugging or blessing each other. Honestly we could not figure out what was going on. My host mom did not know and neither did anyone else we asked. By the end of the route, the angel had done this approach and hug routine about 7 times. Clearly it has importance, too bad everyone that got up at 4am to see it has no idea why.
For lunch we went over to my counterpart/ community health promotor/ friend's house. Orlando, Melida, their four girls, Paige and I woke our selves up from a lovely (and necessary) mid-morning nap and headed over. Salvador is recently married, but we never see his wife, so Melida and I always give him hell about it. I am pretty sure this is what prompted the Easter lunch invitation.
Paige learned how to make pupusas. She was slightly self conscious about her pupusas not being up to par. Everyone tried to convince her that her pupusas were fantastic, but I could tell she was not buying it. The great thing about pupusas is that it is very imperfect, there is really no wrong way to form a pupusa. (The same cannot be said for tortillas. Those are a science and if they are not the perfect thickness and round shape they will be fed to the dogs. Not that I know that from experience or anything...) Paige's pupusas were great and we had fun at lunch.
One of my host sisters, Katherine, taught Paige a hand game. It goes 'En la calle ocho esta un chucho muerto. El que diga ocho el se lo comio'. So it means 'On 8th street, there is a dead dog. Who ever says 8, has to eat it'. haha Then you each take turns alternating number. I say one, you say two, I say three, you say four. The object of the game is to not say the number 8, or whatever number you you choose between 1 and 9. So you count up skipping all numbers with 8 in them, like 18, 28, 38, all of the 80's, etc. If you forget and say a number with 8 in it, you have to eat the dead dog. It is kind of morbid, but I have heard some worse ones. hahaAfter several days in the campo, Paige broke down and did some laundry. (PS Girls hair is crazy long right now!) Not super exciting, but I thought it would be good to document her doing her laundry by hand.
Paige and I sitting on my front steps before our trip to the beach.
Ok so due to a miscommunication, my host family got the date of my birthday and the date of our beach departure mixed up. When I told my host mom we were leaving for the beach she had a minor freak. Apparently Joelle's old community decided they wanted to come down to my community on my birthday and sing to me. (Do you all remember when Carolyn and I did that for Joelle's birthday?) Well since I was going to be at the beach on the day they had planned to come down and sing, I had to figure out who was planning in and call it off. Luckily that was not too hard. I feel so lucky that people down here care about me so much.
After we arrived at the beach, Paige insisted she have a picture taken sitting on these rocks. Oh man. It was struggle city for her to get out there. Fully clothed. Also about half way out she remembered that she had a money belt on with her passport in it. I did not know this and just sat there watching her struggle and fall and eventually make it out to the rock. She did finally make it, but while she was attempting to make it out there, among the rocks and waves, this kid just strides on out, plays for a while and then as Paige is making her way back, offers to help her. She made it back, soaked, but she got the picture, and that is all that matters right? 
Our last days together we spent visiting some family friends of hers in the capital. We showed Paige around the fancy parts of the capital and later we all attended mass. I had accumulated a lot of clothes that needed to be washed at the beach and I asked if I could wash my clothes in their pila The family has a washer and dryer, I cannot tell you how elated I was when they offered to let me use them instead of the pila. There is just not much better than a towel straight from the dryer.
Paige bought her ticket to come down here months ago and it seemed like it would never be time for her to come down. But here we are, in May and she has come and gone. I think the trip did both of us good.
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| Mango flower!!! |
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