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No hay gas (we've run out of gas.) We were boiling the kettle on Sunday for tea and the hob just went out! This was a huge disaster on Sunday as we'd planned to make Chilli con Carne and were very excited about it. When I say very excited, I mean it. We love food. I don't know why my love for food has grown so much from when I left England, and in England I already had a healthy love for food. Here however food takes up most of my thoughts. And showers, but we'll get to that later. I think about lunch all morning and sometimes I open my "Ben's Cookies" lunch box to get a waft of the sandwich before I eat it. We usually have tuna. It smells heavenly. At "recess" (I still can't get used to calling break-time recess) I savour my sandwich by eating it really slowly. The kids at school love to give us food as well, so sometimes we get extra! I've been given crisps (in Honduras the crisps are made of banana or corn instead of potato), bananas, apples, crackers, chocolate, biscuits, rice, cheesy tortillas and, most bizarrely, a corn on the cob, which was whole and I think boiled instead of barbequed, which was odd but surprisingly nice. Anyway it is an added bonus to the day if I get given food. Then, after lunch I start planning dinner. I don't know why I plan dinner because we usually just have rice and vegetables, but I like thinking of food, so I do. We start making dinner around 6pm each day, which is pretty much as soon as we get out of school. While cooking it all we do is talk about how lovely it smells, how hungry we are and whether or not it is ready. Again, we eat really slowly to make it last as long as possible. Then after dinner we usually sit at the table looking at our empty plates and reminiscing about all the food we miss. We go to bed around 8-9pm most days and lying there I try to remember if we have bananas for tomorrow mornings granola. I'm pretty sure I dream of food too.
I've had some weird dreams here. One I had the other day involved myself and loads of my friends in the Olympics. If you're interested read on, if not, skip this paragraph. I ran the 200m and won! This was always my race at school. Then Abi, the 100m runner got pulled out (I think you pulled a muscle Abi) and I ran that one too and won! Aren't I great! I certainly felt pretty good right then. Churchill School sports department must have been pretty proud of themselves at this Olympics because Tom won the rowing, Lorna won the Javelin, Jasmine won some swimming event and Char, you won the shot put (it must be because you used to be incredibly strong in Aikido classes!) Everyone else was there supporting us and Corry was filming with Charlie as the commentator. It was a pretty great dream, and I can still remember bits of it which is weird because I can't usually remember dreams. I've also had a dream about a rhino (Ellie's influence I think) and one about my future wedding which was set inside a volcano. Anyway I heard someone once say that they hate it when people babble on about the dreams they've had, so I'll shut up now.
Showers - they are one of the best parts of my day, and another thing I look forward to constantly. On days when it's so hot that I feel like I'm melting I'm sweating so much, there's no breeze, standing in the shade doesn't make me any cooler and the water in my water bottle is always annoyingly warm, I get through it by thinking of showering. It's one of my favourite things to do. To get home and to stand in the shower and pour bowl after bowl of cold water over my head is amazing. It feels like you're no longer suffocating. Does that make sense? It's like all the days heat, sweat and worry just washes off you and you feel more refreshed than any amount of watermelon liquados can make you feel. It's simply the best feeling in the world for those few seconds that you can stand and pour. Unfortunately it is seconds rather than minutes because our shower hole is linked to the sewers, and if we shower for much longer we start to smell them, and pretty soon after that we start to see stuff we don't want to see. We're still trying not to think about how the match that got into the shower arrived. We've made a shower stick though. It's a pole that we use to poke the drain with and hope that the water goes down. It sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, but we felt pretty inventive making it. It's funny how when you have very limited supply of things you become more inventive like this. We've noticed this a lot.
Also, I nearly had a heart-attack because my Kindle froze yesterday. What would I have done without books for a year? It's okay now though. It just really scared me.
On Saturday it was the Dia de la Bandera (the day of the flag) and we had to march into town. It took a long time and it was unbearably hot. Alix and I were in charge of keeping a line of children in line and walking, which happened to be pretty easy, so we just marched along beside them. When we got to Parque Central (the central park) we all lined up behind Honduran flags and the marching bands went past. They were actually pretty great! They consist of lots of medium-sized drums (I'm sure that they probably have a proper name,) three or four very large drums always played by tall, well-built older boys because anyone else would fall over, these tinkley xylophone things that they carry and are most often played by girls, and loads of these cheese-grater looking things that make a scraping noise. All together it sounds really good, and they even do funny dance-marching as they go, twirling drum sticks and everything. Have a look at Alix's page, she put up a video.
Oh yes, the biggest news this week is that we're moving again! We're going to live with a lady called Graciela. She is the mother of our host Vanessa and the Grandmother to quite a few kids in the school. She's also running for town vice-mayor or whatever the position is called. We are so excited to move in with her! We'll be leaving smelly drain, won't have to walk past cat-dog anymore and WE WILL LIVE ONE BLOCK FROM THE BEACH!!!! This means that instead of weekend trips to the beach, we can now go practically daily! Also, Graciela happens to be an amazing cook. So looking forward to moving day on Saturday! I'll let you know what out new home is like in my next post.
By the way, cat-dog is this monster of a dog that lives a few doors down from us and we have to pass it every day we walk to school. It's called cat-dog because it looks half cat and half dog. It also happens to live with a cat and a dog, so despite my A Level biology knowledge of the rules of interspecies reproduction we have come to the conclusion that those are its parents. Cat-dog is unbelievably ugly and looks quite crazed. It's so ugly that we sometimes cross the street early to avoid walking past it. It has a really long body, but is tiny in size (about the size of a cat) and is honey coloured. Well, it would be honey coloured if it wasn't covered in mud and dust all the time. The weirdest thing is its eyes. They are red-black, really tiny and really creepy. It's a really creepy dog.
Today Vanessa gave us some electric hobs to cook our Chilli con Carne on. We were ridiculously happy! It came with a warning of "you have to wear shoes when you touch it" though. Hopefully the next time I post I won't have been electrocuted. Wish us luck! Yum yum yum!
Also, I have lost my voice, so teaching tomorrow should be interesting. We'll see...
- comments
martha Warm water is more soothing for your throat Anna, and citrus and vegetables will be really good for it :) Hope you manage to get it back xxx
Uncle Mark Another great blog! I hope your new home is a little cooler. Any chance of a photo of "cat-dog"? Come to think of it, maybe it's better to let our imaginations run wild using your description.
Charlotte Hope your new home will be fabulosos ;) xx Missing you gzillions :) :) xx
Wendy Rogers Now, that was a funny blog. Brilliant! Really put a smile on my face. Thanks!
Mum great to read this, but please wear those shoes when you are cooking! drain sounds disgusting, but it is true how inventive you get. remember the book about the Boy who Harnessed the Wind?! Heres to Sat and moving in with the lovely Graciela!
Jill Anna, your blog is enthralling! Enjoy your new home.. look forward to hearing more about it on your next blog. :) xx
Béla Alex' grandpa. Fascinating blog. Reading your description of food made me hungry. The sporting achievements you described is not my favourit passtime. Sport is tyring. All in all, I am pleased that Alex has such a nice friend like you to be with in that faraway land. Keep up your blog-ing. You are quite good at it.
Pat Its the girls from Scotland - lots of chat and laughter and squeals - and hope your ears are burning as the oldies marvel at your adventures!!! We are jealous. At Cowhythe we are delighted that you are almost aspiring to the levels of food obsession that we do..... We have just stuffed your mum, Ruth, and Sarah with dlights and pink champagne. Have lots and lots of fun. By the way - Oceanography has lots of opportunities for large amounts of EU money from grants -so good choice Anna. It seems to be the new flavour of the month in science according to a talk I went to last week. I hadn't realised how diverse a subject it is. Anyway - lots of love from Pat and all here. xxxxx