Hace Mucho Calor

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Letting the days go by.. It's fucking hot. Weed is extremely cheap. I can smell the fresh pineapple across the table. The air is damp and still. I can usually hear the chickens and turkeys outside. A group of turkeys patrols the streets occasionally, meandering around keeping the town in order by puffing up and gobbling; we dubbed it the 'turkey mafia.' It seems like a lot of the guys spend their days going to the jungle with machetes to harvest fruits and beans, or to clear land for the ecopark. Most of the women seem to look after domestic affairs, spending a majority of the day feeding everyone, cleaning and tending to animals. Church is pretty big:. Catholics and Jehova's Witnesses. Black beans grow here and there are a million chickens, so we eat eggs and beans almost every day. And tortillas with everything. The lady next door cooks for us and I think about eight other family members every day. We have to travel to nearby Heradura for fruits and vegetables. One mango every day is a luxury everyone should afford them selves. Lying in a hammock during the dead heat of the afternoon is divine. There's a reason why 'siesta' is a thing. And so many ant bites. Fucking hormigas!!

We've disassembled and moved some beds around, collected decorative plants from the jungle, helped keep the hostel clean and organized and feeling like a home, painted more decorations, managed guests and made sure they feel welcome. It's hard to know what exactly I'm supposed to do; often a random person will come and clean the bathroom or the floors, but most of the time I just do it. I want to be productive, but I also don't want to take anyone's job.

I've met so many magnificent Mexicans. A couple dudes on the roadside offered free horse rides one random day on our walk to the convenience store. Another Mexican guy, Alex, came here as a guest, then decided that he liked it here and stayed to work with us for two weeks. Luis manages the bookings for the hostel; his family lives about an hour away in Huimanguillo, and when I discovered that my debit card no longer worked in this country, he let me send him money through Paypal. Not sure what I would've done otherwise. Carlos also helps manage the hostel, and his family lives in the same city. Both have invited us to stay a night there to get supplies, to see something new and to experience the ubiquitous hospitality of Mexican families. My favorite recent memory is sharing caguamas with grandma (probably at least 75 years old) on the hour-long drive through the countryside back to Malpasito. So laid back.

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