i´m back

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I´m back... and so don´t wanna be.

Visiting the inlaws was a breath of fresh air. New people. New conversations. New things to do. No email. No cell phone. No internet.

But now I´m back in the real world. Back in the Mopo. And I´m not gonna lie, am a bit depressed. Came to Somoto for the morning. Had 64 emails in my inbox. 5 of which were worth reading. One from my mom about my granddad passing away, three from the wife, and one foward from Liz that had me cracking up and missing the good ol´USA.

Man, the adventures with my future inlaws was great. I love his family. We told his dad that we were actually getting married and he just lauuughed and hugged me. His mother wanted to know when and where.

I learned how to milk cows. Every morning at 6:30am. They have 4 milk cows, each giving about 4 liters. I was just learning technique, which basically means that my tiny hands only put forth maaaybe half a liter before I felt like I was holding up the process and deferred to the suegro (father in law) or cunados (brothers in law).

And after I deferred I´d have my first cup of coffee.... drink half, and give the cup to Don Bernardo, father in law, and he´d squirt some milk from the cow into my coffee. And it was awesome.

We made wiwila and tamales and montuca and crema and cuajada and alote asado and cocido and....

Well, there was no shortage of food. I didn´t eat beans for like 5 days.

There was also no shortage of water. I´m not gonna lie, I hate hauling water in my community. I hate the politics of the pump, I hate waiting in line, I hate when no one else helps me haul to the house.

But there! There they have hoses coming down from rivers and wells up the mountain. There is so much water that they don´t even have taps. The water in the kitchen just runs and runs. The same for the outdoor shower and washing rock. I bathed twice a day, every day, and washed my clothes all the damn time, just because I could. Just because I didn´t have to wait for two hours in the morning to haul water for the whole house to bathe and do laundry. The water was GLORIOUS. Glorious, I tell you!

In general, besides the hike up and down from the house to the bus, it was an idyllic week.

Lenin has two brothers and one sister. The second oldest, David, is 20 years old and has an adoooorable one year old daughter. At first, she wanted nothing to do with me, but by the second morning I was helping her walk and carrying her around talking to her in English. And wouldn´t ya know, while she was burbling and squeaking and I was just answering her in English (¨You´re sooo right, Asly. I know, what are they thinking? Man, you are so right, those dogs smell...¨and other such nonesense), she just kept on ¨talking¨. They thought it was the darndest thing, but I think I was the only one that was encouraging her babble... by babbling back.

Anyway, so Don Bernardo bought a small house on the other hill for David and Sandra and baby Asly... and Sandra´s pregant again, so there will be two grandchildren.

The other brother, Carlos, has a girlfriend who he robared two years ago... when they were 14. Doret has been living there for the last two years. She´s the same age as Lenin´s sister, Iris, and the two do most of the household work together.

Household work being starting the stove fire at 4am and cooking breakfast and straining the milk as the guys bring it in and taking the cows to pasture and washing the corn and grinding it by hand so they can make tortillas and roasting and grinding coffee by hand so there´s coffee and cleaning up the cow crap from the yard and do the boys laundry by hand and iron them with a mid century actual iron iron that uses coals from the stove because....

Because there is no electricity. Well, now there is. Because they put up a $5,000 solar panel. So there is electricity. Lights. TV. Cell phones for when they go to town and have signal. No fridge, but it´s not really needed. And it all works remarkably well. You can see at night who has the money for solar panels...

At any rate, it was a grand adventure.... and I am less than enthused to be back here.

Now I´m gonna go check the post office, buy a coconut raspado, buy rice at the market, and catch the bus. Le sigh.

.............

Mail shoutouts! Box from jlynch-jbaade full of packets of garden seeds and a ¨sugar variety pack¨of Starbursts and Skittles!!

I love mail.

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Comments

[Jay Cahail]

nice people
Sounds like you're marrying into one fine family...our best to you...I think the two of you will do well...your past references to you and Lenin being best of friends says it all...too many young people get absorbed in sex and get married because of it...if you are going to share space with someone you had best be best of friends or that space will get to be awfully crowded...you can get sex on any street corner...true friends are rare! Getting close to our departure for CR...heading up to St Louis on the 9th to visit Heather (our daughter) and Andy for a couple of days before heading out on the 11th. My brother Cal is going to meet us at the airport when we get there and chauffuer us around...will probably park our butts in Cartago initially...then wander around the country and see where we want to live out the rest of our lives. Will do our best to come visit you after we get down there. Will need to get settled first. Need to have a Costa Rican address before starting the "Pensionado" paperwork so will be quite busy for awhile. nos vemos luego, los ticos nueves