After rain the day before, on Thursday we got a bit of sun and clear blue skies in the morning.
The night before we had discovered an old bottle of “Off” in our travel bag, so we had tried to spray the kids at bedtime. Unfortunately some were already asleep, so they still woke up with more bites, but not near as many as they had gotten Tuesday night. They continued to look like they had “mosquito pox”
Yoli and Noemi went to the market to buy groceries, so I took Jadzia, Josie, and Joseph to the Plaza. The kids wanted their photos taken (“glamour shots” if you will), so I obliged. I also took some more photos of the misión since we had blue sky at last.
Some kids from local schools were selling food around the gazebo in the middle of the Plaza. I’m not 100% sure, but it seemed connected to the big cattle fair that is going on in town this weekend. We sort of walked around and people-watched as we waited for Yoli to arrive.
Among the things Yoli brought with her was a towel so that we could at last shower. I had gone since Monday without one. I should explain that the bathroom where we are staying is apparently also home to some pigeons, so the floor is often poopy. Imagine my delight when I entered the bathroom for the purposes of showering and found that the floor had been cleaned. The electrical shower head was surprisingly hot, so that I had to switch it down to medium. After the shower I faced another challenge — there are no mirrors in our bathroom or our bedroom. I ended up using the camera to help my comb my hair.
We spent most of midday at Noemi’s house. The kids played and watched movies. At one point Yoli and I went out to purchase a few wood carvings we had spotted on a previous visit to the Centro Artesenal. We took Joseph with us. Everything was going swimmingly until the lady there politely rejected one of our otherwise-pristine $20 bills because it had a very small cut in a corner. This was understandable, but a bit frustrating. A month before the trip, I had arranged for my Ferguson UMB Bank to collect pristine $20 bills so that we could avoid precisely this situation. Anyway, Yoli walked all the way back to get a different $20, while I tried to keep Joseph entertained. He was particularly interested in opening the wooden “treasure chests” they had for sale, over and over.
Anyway, we hung out at Noemi’s all afternoon. The skies became overcast again, and it seemed like it might rain, but it never did. At one point I was surprised and pleased to find Jadzia helping her cousin Raquel with hanging out the laundry.
When 5:00 came around, we headed over to visit with some of Yoli’s friends from her Seminary days. They had prepared lovely chicken empanadas and fried cuñapes to eat with tea. The kids were especially delighted to all get to drink tea.
The husband is a veterinarian, and so they have a number of pets at home. The kids enjoyed the parrot, and got to hold some parakeets. While the kids found ways to entertain themselves, I listened as the couple told stories of challenges that strengthened their fath early in the marriage. They almost lost their son to kidney problems. He had reached a point where doctors told them he would die if he wasn’t hospitalized again, but they could no longer afford it. They prayed, and he recovered that night.
Later on the skies cleared again, and at long last we could see the stars. They were beautiful. I had been itching to try shooting photos of the stars with my camera, though I don’t have any special lense or telescope for it. I couldn’t get it to work while we were there, but once we came back home I worked on it a bit more and at last got a photo of the Southern Cross. But there was too much light pollution to get anything nicer.
