The messier the better

Tuesday, August 13 

 

I was going to write separate posts for these stories, but it's past my bedtime. All sleep is precious sleep when the roosters start at 4am. 

I think I've done a decent job the past three weeks of integrating into my community. I wear long pants during the day and I can "surf" in the bed of a truck. But there is one thing I just still cannot get over- Salvadorans do not pee. Never. I don't even think they have bladders. I've never seen anyone in my host family go to the latrine, and I don't blame them. It smells bad and spiders jump up and bite your butt! But when you gotta go, you gotta go. 

So last night in the middle of the night during the nighttime rain I just had to go pee. Couldn't wait. I made it to the latrine fine, but on my way back I made sure to keep my eyes on the ground so I didn't fall in the mud and oh. my. god. 

Right in the pathway to the house there was the ugliest drowned opossum that you ever did see. I freaked out and ran the rest of the way to my room. The worst part is that this morning when I went to take my bucket bath (with warm medicine water mmmmm) it was STILL THERE. I honestly tried taking a picture just so I could show you how gross this thing was, but you get the idea. When I asked my host mom whyyyy the opossum was decaying so close to the house, she told me that Taz (our guard dog) killed the opossum because it was trying to eat the baby chicks. So I guess when you put it that way, it's good the nasty opossum was dead in the path because otherwise I might not have dinner in a few weeks. 

It really seems like the messier the better in El Salvador. Today we had 25 women and children (and one annoying drunk man) show up for our SanAn exercise class. I somehow managed to run and do push ups and jumping jacks before noticing that one shoe felt different than the other. But oh well, it's probably just all the mud. Right? 

We picked teams to play softball as our "team sport" time of the class. I mean, I guess you could call it softball. There are four bases, a ball, a bat. But with different rules because you can still run to first even if you didn't hit the ball? And the little kids never get called out, no matter how much they suck. When I stepped up to bat I heard my nickname, "Cheecago!" and thankfully I managed a hit! Even the youngest kids were able to swing the wooden log we called a bat with ease, but when I picked it up the thing felt like a ton of lead. Yes, it was literally a wooden log somewhat chiseled into the shape of a baseball bat.  

But what was up with my shoe? Both of my feet are equally covered with mud at this point, so I start to take off my left shoe hoping to god nothing will fall out. But no. I am not graced with good fortune. Crushed into the big toe of my muddy shoe was a big, black spider. Of course there are spiders living in my shoes. Why not/Por que no?

The messier the better and the mess is alright.