When It Rains, It Pours
This is the story of Yesterday, when we hiked up a volcano and a lot of things went wrong:
On Friday night, Irma, our incredible host mother who has never let us down, told us to leave her a note about when we were leaving the next morning and when we would need breakfast. We did. But when we woke up (at six am), there was no breakfast. Oh sad.
No worries, on our way to the volcano, we stopped at a Texaco and spent way too much money (by Guatemalan standards) on donuts for breakfast and cold, pre-made sandwiches for lunch… oh, and coffee that we sipped through a straw. Tres chic.
On the way to our volcano we passed the scene of a car accident and saw a dead woman lying in the street. She was not covered up although there were police everywhere. I don’t think I have ever seen anything quite as disturbing. I still can’t really stop thinking about it.
Then, after all of this, we had to walk up… a mountain… Why did we think this would be an enjoyable activity? What were we thinking when we decided that we wanted to spend our Saturday climbing a steep hill for three hours?
But at the top we were able to dig in to our Texaco feast. I’m not quite sure why we hadn’t anticipated the fact that lunch from Texaco might be especially unappetizing. However, it came as quite a shock when my chicken sandwich, made of those breaded chicken patties that make my mouth water when in the States, had ground up chicken bones in it. I did not take more than three bites. Thank God… because on the way back down the mountain, it became quite clear that the chicken wanted out. And it wanted out NOW.
“Now” happened to occur right when we were approaching a small village and I enlisted Megan to help me find a bathroom. Our first stop was three nine year old boys. I leared something important from these boys: no matter where you are in the world, when you talk to nine year old boys about something that relates to a bathroom, they will find your conversation very funny. And often I agree with them. But on this particular occasion, I was not seeing the humor. Luckily, our guide, Luisl had been on the banyo hunt as well, and he was much more successful. A bathroom was found. Actually, it wasn’t quite a bathroom that was found, it was a wooden hut that had a pot sitting on the floor and lined paper covered with other people’s feces. But hey, when you gotta go… Luckily our friends from Australia had those little “wet one’s” napkins with them. They’re doctors. I like having doctors around.
So we hopped into the van that was taking us home and drove for, I kid you not, about two seconds before getting a flat tire. When it rains it pours.
However, all was redeemed when we ended our day by going to a Buena Vista de Corazon concert where Megan and I danced the night away. The group is made of a the living members of the Buena Vista Social Club and some other incredibly talented young Cuban musicians. I guess there’s always some kind of rainbow after a storm.
Needless to say, we went to sleep exhausted.
-Sarah (Megan helped by speaking to nine year old boys about bathrooms, salsa dancing, and finding all my spelling mistakes)
OH… we’ve got more pictures up. Go here to see them!
Tags: Central America, Guatemala, Health, Photography, Travel, Xela
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Oh my. That counts as a really bad day. I don’t really think the dancing saves it. Gee. I mean, when you find yourself grateful for wet-ones, you know you’ve got it bad. I personally think wet-ones are some of the creepiest things on the planet. Not as creepy as chicken patties with ground up bones in them. Or dead people. So maybe not really THAT creepy. But still.
Let’s see. Do I have anything to tell? Last night we went to a piano bar in Philly and I wished you, Sarah, were with me, because it turned out to be “show tunes night.” And there were all these lovely old queens belting out the tunes and it would have been great to have you there to out-belt them all. But you, apparently, were having a no good very bad day, and so were not available.
In other news, Thanksgiving approaches which means that Katie-Louise is going into overdrive. This year we are having t’giving with friends. One of these friends is perhaps as dedicated a cook as Kate, and the two of them have been egging one another on. Yesterday they drove off to Maryland together on a mystery food-buying excursion. They were gone for HOURS. And returned very pleased with themselves. So . . . good times are anticipated.
And that, my loves, is all the news that’s fit to print. There is, in fact, unprintable news this week, but you will just have to wait for that.
Oh dear… this is a bad day. When the little chicken bones are in your sammy, all ground up, it’s a bad sign for the eating.
This and being especially grateful for a thing like Wet Ones, as Bethany says, doesn’t add up well.
But, into each good long excursion, some bad food must creep. So you’ve had this happen and can hopefully steer clear of Texaco cuisine on future hikes.
Sorry to hear about the dead woman. I encountered a fatal accident in Baja California and a similar scene– and it still sticks with me too.
I hope each day improves going forward. Love you and Skype. Use it whenever! Richard Simmons was a big hit in Trenton, by the way…
In other news, Bob Jenney is coming soon and we’ll pass on your love on to him and Kathy. Will see them all at T-Day in MA this Thurs and will think of you two.
Many Hugs,
Dad
Dear ones – it has taken us two days to read all the blog entries, responses, and responses to responses, since I returned, having departed this internet connection for parts west two and a half weeks ago. And a happy two days it was. I read out loud, and great-grande-gato purred in his chair. My goodness, what a lot of adventures you’ve had in two and a half weeks!
Loki is composing her epistle. She refuses to be spoken for, but has given permission to tell you that she is almost over her shock at having been exiled from her throne by her very own high servants numbers one and two, and exiled to a strange land where if you think your adventures are awesome, just you wait, ‘enry ‘iggens! She will report anon.
As for me, I have just returned from Sutter Writers at Sutter Medical Center. What a great time I had in Sacramento! Wow! I carry it in my heart like a bouquet of wild flowers. Two weeks with 14 people each week, in workshops where people with life-threatening illness, caretakers, and medical professionals wrote together. Awesome.
I am home, mostly un-jet-lagged (coming east, everyone says, is a real bleep) and dealing with all leaves turned brown, playing on the lawn in a cold wind coming down from Canada. I walked this morning on the bike path with my clippers hidden in my coat pocket. I went early enough to miss most other walkers and bikers, and went off into the huge Amherst college woods and cut some wild winter berries for my front porch. I actually love winter, it’s just the transitions that are annoying. We work hard to have deciduous leaves and snow — but it’s worth it.
Peter is happy as a pig in a mudpuddle because the basement is now a construction site and the back yard is full of piles of dirt, broken concrete, leaves and discarded junk. He’s making “a room of one’s own” for himself at the back of the basement, and a tool room out of our junk room. I’m calling it his “hermitage.” The neighbor who’s helping him calls it his “suite.” Whatever. It’s a royal mess, but as long as he’s happy, hey! What’s an eighth of an inch of dust on every book, every piece of furniture, every stair step in the house?
He has painted his floor brown. He did not ask my opinion, and that was wise. It reminds me of — well, something brown. Never mind. It’s his floor. There are strips of aluminum stapled onto the floor around two sides where the walls are big rocks and concrete, to keep things from falling off his desk into the gutters that run all around the edges of the concrete floor so spring rain can be pumped out every five minutes or so. I mean, we are talking basement here, not a “room” in the ordinary sense. He doesn’t have a wall between his room and the rest of the basement yet, but there is concrete on the floor of the tool room, and a new door with a window outside it in that room, and I have to say I am really impressed. I never thought I would live so long as to see this. It’s in the realm of miracle. I mean, we are talking about a man here who loved the junk in that room so much that once when he made his only effort in forty-nine years to organize his tools, he ended up with a series of piles in the yard that lasted so long I went out and took pictures of them, got them developed, and handed him one of the most ghastly. He stood gazing at it for a moment, and then murmured reverently, “Oh, isn’t that beauuuuutiful!”
Well. Now he has the floor of a room of his own. No wall yet, but a floor that covers the whole back third of the basement. At least he’s not in the darkest, most spider-infested corner any more. When he announced, in the days when we had eight work stations down there (doing AWA and AWA Institute outreach to low income folks) that he was moving back there, I told him over my dead body. And he said, “I’m moving!” After about six repeats of this inspiring dialogue, plus my lectures on the dangers of mold, rot, and ruin, I told him, “O.K., move. But if you haven’t knocked a hole in that back wall and put in a window by November 1, I promise you that on November 2nd there will be a man with a sledgehammer outside knocking one in for you. He won’t put in a window, and you can be there with the hole all winter, if you want.” I have been known to live up to my threats, so on October 31 he knocked a big hole in the wall and needless to say, since it often snows by Thanksgiving here, he soon had a nice big window above his desk. Now that the furnace quit and had to be replaced by a much smaller version, with new pipings to every room in the house (thus the mess everywhere to which I returned as mentioned above!) he no longer has a water heater looming over his right shoulder, or a sump pump near his right knee that sounds like a freight train (the new one sounds like a Harley Davidson, but there will be “a sound barrier” built around it. When he has his tool room.
Lest I sound like a ruffled grouse of a wife, let me say that Peter has as much fun at my expense (or more) than I have at his. And I’m not about to tell you about that, except as you probably know, his nickname for me, which he calls me about half the time, occasionally by slippage in the presence of people I might have liked to impress, is “P’trash.” (For other readers who might wonder why, it’s his short for “Patricia.”)
So he deserves whatever he gets.
The truth is, I’m beginning to like the idea of that tool room. I’m starting a list . . .
For the first time in 47 years (that’s 49 of marriage minus two waiting for Becca to join us) Peter and I will be alone on Thanksgiving day. Almost. We plan to prepare a feast for Nellie and Loki. Wait till Loki tells you what her favorite food is!
More later — your blogs are so great — thank you for taking all of us along with you.
G’ma
P.S. Sorry for the formal name on my entry above. I thought they required the full name. I’m a cyber-neanderthal. — G’ma
TEN THINGS Report
to High Servants Numbers One and Two
From: Her Highness, Loki the Magnificent
l.Agarré a mi primer ratón.
2.Agarré a mi segundo ratón.
3.Agarré a mi tercer ratón.
4.Grandegato Pedro dice que todos los ratones eran ciegos.
5.Esta es un gato viejo.
6. El Grandegato viejo se piensa que yo soy un gato. HA!
7. Yo soy raton aggaredor magnifico.
8. El Grandegato viejo agarre somamento voles. YUM! YUM! Yo soy INVINCIBLE!
9..El Grandegato ponen una cerradura sobre la puerta de sótano. ¿Me pregunto por qué?
10. Mañana voy al salón de belleza para recortar mis uñas.
Sweeties —
It is true. Every word of Loki’s is true. Who would have guessed? Ah well, adversity brings out hidden talents in all of us, saith the Great Gato in el cielo.
Love,
G/ma
For some reason, Loki’s response disappeared after she posted it. She can’t re-do it right now, she’s at her day job: sleeping.
Signed: Loki’s temp secretary
Oh Grandma, gato grande, and Loki,
You all warm my little Guatemalan heart.
I am incredibly impressed with your exploits Loki. I always knew you had it in you.
-Sarah