The Dry Season is Upon Us

The rain is gone…I think. We’ve gone over a week without it anyway, the longest we’ve gone in about six months. I’m not thrilled because it’s dry, hot heat from here on out. I mean, I imagine we’ll see a few more showers before the end of the year, but hopefully nothing like last year; November was plagued with devastating mud slides. The good thing is though, my laundry will start drying again…and stop molding. Hurray.

So now that I’ve given you a somewhat adequate, probably incorrect, super exciting weather update, let’s continue with my other entertainment source. My cat. To begin, she is a rat killing failure. She’s still a kitten and all, but a recent chain of events, okay well one event, has lead me to believe that she may never get this whole hunting thing down. One night last week I was in my hammock and saw a rat crawl into the middle of my floor. Instead of the usual routine of screaming and chasing it myself, I stayed quiet and urged Coco to check out the competition. Let’s put it this way, I had time to get up, find my memory card, put it in my camera, and take a picture of the new couple as they proceeded to stare at each other for about ten minutes. My god. Just kill me. She ended up following it around the couch for awhile (notice how I used the word following and NOT chasing) until it disappeared. Fail. I’m still hoping that once she’s actually bigger than the rat she’ll start hunting. For now she likes going after leaves, and bugs that look like leaves. Well, and one other thing, redeeming her from this rat failure.

So, I could deal with the bugs, the frogs, the bats, and even to some extent the rats. I definitely draw the line at snakes though. But, to my surprise, my lovely little Coco CAN kill snakes. It was a small one, but not one I was interested in entertaining for the night. Maybe she’s getting the hang of hunting after all. Or at least, she thought it was a toy and that’ll do.

Also, I tried to take my cat on an adventure. Well, I was going to visit another volunteer for the weekend and didn’t want to leave her alone so I took her with me. Well, I thought I could just through her in my big plastic tote, but on our way out of my community she jumped out and into the river. I had to go on a rescue mission. She can swim. The trip was pretty much three hours of hell and trying to keep her contained. Anyway, I bought he a proper carrier for the way back and it turned out okay. But it’s true, cats don’t travel well.

Work-wise, everything is pretty much the same. Despite the mishaps with my women’s group, we should be meeting this coming Wednesday. I finally met with Elba to work everything out. That aside, there’s four more weeks of school and I’m looking forward to a break. I’m meeting with my teachers next week to discuss my plans for next year and start the process of reorganizing a handful of projects. And last but not least, shelves are being built for my library as we speak. Yep, my library has finally been resurrected and I’m going to make that happen before next year. That’s about it, I’ll keep the updates coming as things proceed.

On another note, there are a few aspects of El Salvador that I’ve been meaning to share. Today we’ll begin with one of those things. You can buy anything on the bus. Vendors are constantly selling a variety of goods on the buses. And these vendors pile on everywhere. You can buy any kind of food, hot and ready to sell pupusas, fries, hamburgers, bread, fried chicken, bags of fresh fruit and veggies, peanuts, cashews, candy, cookies, crackers, snowcones, juice, agua de coco (I could probably add that in seventeen times to equal the relative occurrence), sodas, bags of water, Gatorade, the list of food products goes on; kitchen ware (and I use the word kitchen loosely here); cleaning supplies; school supplies; bedding; hammocks; bras and underwear; boxers; kids clothing; medications; the word of god; the word of Madonna; clown services (clowns get on the bus sometimes and collect money for their entertainment); stickers; etc. I mean, it’s ridiculous, but kind of awesome. You just need to be careful with some of the food products breeding parasites. Anyway, if you ever get on a bus in El Salvador, be prepared to be bombarded by a variety of these products.

Well, that pretty much sums it up. Now, just counting down the days until my December vacation!