Hola! Buenos tardes! (Good afternoon)
Today I woke up after the best sleep I've had on the trip....to the sound of little voices outside our bedroom. Irma was up at 3 making homemade tortillas and Mundo (Irma's husband) left around 5am to go to work and will be home around 4 or 5pm. We spent the morning hanging out around the house and Irma insisted on washing our dirty laundry. My clothes are now cleaner than any washing machine could get them. Irma spent most of the morning doing laundry and she is amazing at it. She says that she does a pile of ropa (clothes) everyday and it is part of her routine. It makes sense that they have a lot of laundry with 4 children aged (13, 7, 4, and 1). The system she uses is amazing. To dry we hung them out on lines in the back yard.
......This is where Irma makes her homemade tortillas. The tortillas are much different than in the states. they are not flour, but not quite corn like we are use to. They look like flour but taste much different.
The laundry area, dish washing, and shower are all in the same area. It really is a genius design. Their water tank is treated with chlorine to purify and then that water runs into a center area to a be scooped up and used for the laundry on the left and dishes on the right. To take a shower you use the water to wash off behind near the drain and use buckets to wash. It seems rather harsh to not have actual running water and cold water at that, but the temperature here is warm/hot so the cool water actually feels good. I can honestly say their house is extremely clean and the girls take baths/showers everyday and are probably cleaner than me at this moment. We are not use to the heat and are sweating like pigs. Hah!
.... Juanito's puppy (perra).
We then went into town to the Internet cafe to get Juanito connected to the Internet and to download an encyclopedia and some games as they don't have Internet at the house. We then went to lunch and had a wonderful time and the kiddos had hamburgers and Gramma and I shared vegetable lo mein. We then took Juan back to the Internet age to download more and we headed to the market for school supplies.
We travelled via Tuk Tuk the whole day with 3 adults and 3 young children. It would be an understatement to say the market was busy....it was a mad house with chickens in baskets, fresh vegetables everywhere you look, and Tuk Tuks at every turn. To be honest, I felt the same haze I feel in a busy mall in America.....it wasn't bad and we got to spend time with the locals, which I really liked!
We managed to get book bags for Juanito and Kimberly and school supplies for both. The bookstore was wonderful...all we did was give them their school list and they gathered everything with gender specific items. I remember going school shopping when I was younger and it would have a been nice to give the list to someone else and have them do it. It worked well and the women helping us were very kind and helpful...one even spoke English and was happy to practice with us.
We then went to the Max Dispensa (supermarket) to buy groceries. It was certainly an experience with 3 young girls who don't speak my language, but they are just like young children everywhere....asking for every bright colored item they see. We had an entire cart full of groceries and took a Tuk Tuk back to the house....now imagine all of us in 1 Tuk Tuk and a full cart of groceries......quite a sight.
We will spend the rest of the night at the house and Irma is making pasta tonight and we bought ice cream and cake for dessert....and some dancing! Tomorrow we will travel with the family to the Rio Dulce and stay in a hotel for 2 nights.
Adios from Morales!
Abuelita y yo (Gramma and Kristin)
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