(Casa)
Apparently, it rained really hard during the night…twice. I slept through them both.
Running water today! I had a thorough, hot shower and it felt great!
Today is meetings day. If we finish early enough, we’ll go to San Sebastian and Ilobosco to do some more shopping. Joe has never been either place.
I’m having coffee this morning. Marcia has tea she’s offered to share but I decided to go native today. If I put enough sugar and milk in it, it’s tasty. Usually, I just don’t want the extra calories to make coffee palatable and I like tea plain so I just drink tea.
8:30-ish we started a Pastoral Team meeting with Blanca, Balmore, Miguel, Cecilia, Otilia, Kathy, Marcia, Joe and me. Pedro was there to translate. We met from 8:30-11 when we took a 5 minute break. It rained off and on during the meeting. At times it was raining so hard it was hard to hear across the table. This is a REALLY good day to be en casa and not out doing stuff!
We wrapped up the meeting around 12:30. We had lunch, reorganized a bit then headed out to Ilobosco and San Sebastian. Ilobosco is basically a pottery community, although they have shops that sell all the usual touristy stuff too. San Sebastian is where the weavers are.
In Ilobosco, I got some souvenir pens for the people at work covering for me this week. I looked for the water bottle carriers but couldn’t find any. We stopped at this fabulous pottery place that’s off the tourist shop block. They had the coolest pots and the prices were ridiculous. A huge vase shaped thing about 3 feet tall was selling for about $30. In the States it would be many times that. I got a bowl-shaped pot about the size of a large salad plate for $4. I loved the larger pots but had no way to get any home. We went out back to see the kiln where they fire the pots and a worker was putting glaze on to be fired.
In San Sebastian, I bought 2 more scarves…same price as the market in San Salvador.
On the way out of the weavers shop, there was a goat tied up on the sidewalk. I said, “Oh, I like goats.” To which Joe said, “Those are goats?” We spent the rest of the trip pointing out the goats and cows and horses to him. Poor guy…
Kathy had some quesadilla – straight from the oven. It was so warm I could hardly hold it at first but it was very, very tasty and Kathy, Marcia and I shared a slab of it in the pickup cab.
Quesadillas in El Salvador are not what I think of as quesadillas. It has nothing to do with melted cheese between two tortillas. It’s more like a cheese bread that’s about ¾ of an inch thick with a cream cheese layer baked in the middle. Yummy!
On the way home, we passed some cows grazing in the ditch and Kathy said, “Those cows are so fat! I’ve never seen such fat cows here.” I leaned over and said, “The word you need here is ‘pregnant’.”
It rained a bit on the way back. I was in the cab at this point. On the way up I was in the bed of the pickup. Marcia and I started standing up, facing forward but when we got out on the highway it was just too much wind to stand there so we sat down with our backs to the cab. Apparently, I’ve never really done that before because I didn’t know it makes me carsick. Once I realized I was starting to get woozy, I faced forward and looked at the road coming through the windows of the cab. The majority decision was that I should be in the cab on the way back.Good thing we got home when we did…it’s been raining ever since we got back. Not hard…but steadily.
