Saturday

Today myself just woke up around 5.30am! I so wanted to sleep in, but to no avail. I´d woken up everyday last week at 5.30 on purpose to go running for 30 minutes, because I love seeing the sunrise, and there´s hardly any people out and it´s cool, no cars to stir up dust. So I guess after only 5 days my body thinks that it´s normal. Well, I had a nice relaxing time to read and do some cleaning this morning. Later on I washed my clothes on the scrubboard, which I´m also really used to now. I´ts a workout in itself. I pictured myslef as tired as a boxer, needing a break, and wanting my coach to come up beside me to rub my shoulders and give me a snack ...maybe a chocolate chip cookie?,, and some water.

For lunch most of us from the apartments went to a little hole in the wall restaurant in the big market that sells everything from fruits and vegetables to dishware to soaps, etc. The lady who cooks has gotten to look forward to us becuase we´ve been eating lunch there every saturday for about 3 months. She serves great tacos or a plate of fried chicken with extras for only about $1.50 a plate. Sometimes she has fish, like i wrote about before.

After lunch I was supposed to substitute an english class taught by a co teacher, but only one student showed up and the building was all locked up becasue the electricity is out all over town. I can write here because there´s a generator.

I saw the market today through the eyes of a visitor and not a resident. It´s bustling with large baskets and people sitting on wooden benches trying to sell as many of their wares as possible. They shout what they sell, trying to get you to buy from them. There´s not a lot of room to walk down the middle äisle¨, especially when there are two different men with their bikes trying to go in the opposite direction. It´s THE place to hang out, especially on the weekends. That´s where people fellowship, gossip, and lounge the day away with their friends.

There were a lot of plastic plate sets wrapped up in colored plastic wrap and paper tissue flowers being sold for Mother´s Day. That day is huge here. It´s huge in the States too, but it seems more of a big deal here, more like how the STates celebrates for Christmas. Most schools have big programs and the day after is even a holiday for a lot of businesses and schools.

Back to the market, one must walk through all of it, asking the different prices, to see who has the best deal. That´s one thing I miss about the States, is that there everyone gets the same price in the Ralphs or wherever. You go in, pick up your stuff, and don´t leave feeling ripped off...well, maybe you do anyways, but at least you don´t feel you´re the only one because you´re a certain color so everyone thinks you have plenty of money and can surely spend twice as much on fruits as everyone else. For instance today Beto got to a vendor before me and was waiting there. When I asked the lady the price of her tomatoes she gave me a higher price than she did him, but she lowered it to what she charged him when he told her that we were together.

Finally, another observation...as I walked to this internet cafe, the streets were packed with mountain people waiting for the ¨chicken bus¨or a pickup to hail them up the mountain with all of their goods they´ve bought for the week. I saw one large truck with wooden slits up the sides packe with people...they looked like cattle. I wanted to take a picture but felt a little uncomfortable. It´s totally normal to them and I see it all the time, but today it struck me hard somehow. People here for the most part are really really hard workers and live in, what would be such uncomfortable circumstances.

Happy Mother´s Day to all the mother´s , especially mine!