(Casa)
I slept in until 7. I really needed it. My insides are still not happy. Marcia had some Pepto with her and I took it. I didn’t eat a lot for breakfast.
After breakfast, we went to the market with Idalia so she could show Marcia where to get some items she needed.
Her church is going to fund ‘care packages’ for each family in her community and she was getting the items to show people what they were buying.
We stopped at Haydee’s pupuseria so I could get some of her hot cocoa to take back for Alicia.
At another store, I got a bag of powdered milk that I buy every time I’m there. I don’t know exactly how it’s different from the stuff I can get in the States but I know I can’t stand powdered milk from here but that stuff is great in oatmeal or coffee/chai so I buy some every time I’m there.
Then we went to the women’s cooperative that has the cool coconut shell earrings. We got a bunch of earrings and necklaces to sell and I bought a necklace for myself ($2).
I stopped at Tienda Rossy on the way back and got a couple cans of pop ($1).
We met with Otilia, Blanca and Cecilia on some Team concerns then walked to the Brisas del Sol (breezes of the sun) school. This community was mostly washed away in mud slides a couple years ago and relocated here. We helped them buy land for a school and then the parents and teachers with transportation help from the Alcaldía (mayor’s office) dismantled and moved the school from the old location to this location so that the children wouldn’t have to walk all the way back to the old location to go to school every day. Hopefully, in the next year, they’ll have a new school completed with an additional classroom, a bathroom and kitchen.
We went back to the Casa for lunch…uisquil (a squash-like vegetable) relleno, rice and salad. The Pepto helped…I was actually sort of hungry.
Our afternoon plans were to walk to Alejandria, the community where Blanca, Balmore, Cecilia and Jesus live. It’s about a 45 minute walk and it looks likely that we’ll get wet. I have a poncho but it’s one of the super-cheap ones…you’re lucky I you get a single use from it. Since we were a little late leaving Brisas del Sol, we were behind schedule. That in itself is not a problem but the later in the day it gets, the greater the chances of rain and that we’ll get wet on our walk.
We headed out about 1:30, no problems. We stopped partway down the mountain to pick pepitas…a pod thing with seeds in it that grows on trees. The seeds are surrounded by a white ‘fluff’ only the fluff isn’t dry. You open the pods, suck the fluff off and spit out the seeds. They were nice…lightly sweet.
Joe helping Cecilia pick pepitas
At Blanca and Balmore’s house, it started to sprinkle. They were afraid it would rain on us so Cecilia called the house to have Alejandro pick us up in the truck.We went to Cecilia’s house and met her mother and 2 boys. At one point, the boys monkeyed up a tree to pick marrones ( a type of cashew that doesn’t have the nut growing at the bottom of it). They would pick them and throw them down to someone on the ground. Cecilia washed them with clean water and cut them up for us so we could try them. They had a taste and texture that was kind of like a cross between a pear and an apple.
Blanca said that there are 2 types of marrones…marron japones (Japanese cashew) and marron indio (Indian cashew). The Indio type is the one that makes the cashew nut we know.
Marrones indios
I filled my camera’s memory card around here so I don’t have many pictures after that and none of the fruit we ate.
We visited Jesus’ house. He wasn’t home as he was at work but we talked with his mother and aunt.Then we continued down to the bottom of the ravine, crossed the stream and then started up the other side where Alejandro met us with the pickup.
When we got back to the Casa, I used Kathy’s computer to back up all the pictures from my camera’s memory card then delete them from my camera. Tomorrow, I’ll be able to take more pictures.
