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Oh man. I am just now reallizing how insane yesterday was. So I shall share it.
Pajaro got the great idea in his head that we would go up to his Grandmother's old abandoned house to cut firewood to take to her in her new not-abandoned house. Fine. That's a great idea, a sweet grandsonny thing to do. So we grab a pick-up halfway up the mountain to a little pathway that points back down the mountain and clamber our way down through fruit trees and rocks to the old house. Abuela meets us down there and we all hack at branches and end up bringing down half a dried up tree that Pajaro breaks up into firewood. While he's doing that, Abuela goes down to the Pana market, then back up the mountain to her house to make us all lunch. While she is gone and we are still at the old house in the woods, the rain starts. Usually here, it rains for no more than an hour before the sun comes out, so Pajaro and I take up shelter under the eves of the falling apart house, which I might add was abandoned because the rain (aka Hurricane Stan) washed away a lot of the supports, while the water runs in rivulets about 2 inches in front of our noses. We're waiting for the expected hour of rain to pass when it gets stronger and stronger and we realize that it's probably going to be a longer wait that we'd anticipated.
While we are there, hiding under the eves, I realize that there is a reason that Guatemalans don't go out in the rain. If you get wet, there is no hot shower waiting at home. There is no heating system, rarely blankets and sometimes, not even a closed off room, being that many doors are just curtains. Getting wet is an easy way to get sick quick.
Also at this time, we are beginning to look at each other and see T-bone Steaks and Ice Cream Sundaes and thinking of the food that is waiting up in Abuela's house. She was going to come down again and help us transport the wood up the (STEEP) hill to her house, but I figured there was NO WAY she would come back down in the rain. The path that we took to get there was now a decent sized little river that I was not thinking of traversing, when, low and behold, here comes Super-Abuela! With a sheet of plasitic over her head and two more in her hands for us (though we're pretty soaked already) Abuela saves the day and we all trek our way up the hill to her house.
Back at the house she hooked us up with Jocon (chicken with this fabulous green veggie stuff), rice and tortillas. Then she gives us a change of clothes and sends us on our way. So, again, in the pouring rain, we are both wearing Grandma's clothes and pretty much get soaked again on the way down to catch another pick-up. We looked like twice-drowned rats when we got back to Pana.
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