It is also the word for a celebration which, at least in our village, involves creating huge altars to Jesus Christ, visiting the houses where the altars are, eating bread and coffee and tamales and listening to music, waking up the next morning and decorating the streets in white and yellow and multicolored flags, nearly passing out in the heat during Mass, and then a procession to the altars AGAIN, which I skipped because I was dehydrated and not Catholic, goddammit.
It is really hot where I live right now. As hot as it was during the hottest months of the year. I just looked us up on weather.com and it is somewhere in the range of 95 degrees with 70 percent humidity. But that is right now, at 4 pm -- I'm sure it was over 100 earlier.
Next week involves a lot of teaching environmental classes, a meeting about the citrus fruit nursery we are STILL trying to start, and a visit from the new Peace Corps environmental education trainees, who are visiting my site because it is the closest one to the training center. So now I have to pretend I've actually done some tangible work since I got here. We're all going to plant trees together, as if I plant trees on the street all the time.
Last week I went to a funeral for a retired professor who died suddenly of a heart attack. During a church trip to the beach last weekend, another girl my age almost drowned and is still in the hospital in critical condition. I didn't know the girl but the whole town and village are freaking out. It is really horrible to think about.
Here are some pictures from decorating the street this morning:
The youth group hanging the streamers
The balloons match my house! And most houses in the village, because all the earthquake houses the EU built are yellow.
Paz y amor.
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