Random thoughts

As I lie on my bed, drinking scotch from a broken Tinkerbell mug while the rain drips methodically from my ceiling to my floor (again), I'm contemplating the end of this adventure. I will be home two weeks from tomorrow. Home to my Tempur-pedic knock-off and my real-life husband. My chickens and my ankle-biting cat. All the things I love and miss.

It's impossible to know if and how this experience has changed me while I'm still here. My new normal is walking uphill about 100 meters to the clinic in the morning. Muddling through some conversations in Spanish with Miriam, perhaps the kindest and most patient person ever, then off to find an Internet connection fast enough to send stuff to Maura so the clinic website can be done. I then wander down to Moonfish to roll my eyes at the pompous people who also enjoy a really good cup of coffee and an unmatched vista. This idyllic scenario is invariably broken by the reality surrounding me. The very young children who are constantly, desperately trying to sell me something. (They can spot a sucker from 50 paces and I am constantly in their sights.) The single moms that Miriam and I visited who are just barely hanging on. The hundreds of feral dogs in San Marcos (as there are in every pueblo around the lake). Many are excruciatingly skinny, some have horrific mange and all have fleas. (They can also spot a sucker. Go figure.)

It's all a bit of a jumble at this point. My family here is exceedingly kind and accommodating. Tonight I made lasagna for everyone, trying to contribute and, to be honest, I wanted to get back into the kitchen. (Anyone who knows me knows that I would typically have to be in a coma to go five weeks without cooking.) The lasagna was a hit (I know this because two-year-old Mimi doesn't have it in her to say she liked it to make me feel okay). It was fun cooking with all the girls in the kitchen. They never use their oven so we had to take all the stuff they store in there out before turning it on. (This is not new to me. My mother has always stored things in the oven because she rarely uses it for anything else.)

I also learned today that my family is supporting a fascist for president in the upcoming elections. Sigh. This guy committed war crimes during the civil war. (Not my opinion - he's on video nonchalantly talking about the army's techniques.) It's probably a good thing that my Spanish is limited. If I could get into it about fascism, not to mention evangelicalism, I probably would have lasted about two minutes here, with these truly lovely people. I think that is definitely one of the most important takeaways from this experience. We all have our biases and those are two of mine, big time. To have that juxtaposed against how fond I am of everyone here reminds me that I have to check my biases at the door. (Note that I said biases, not principles.)

Okay. Enough rambling. Onward. Two more weeks.

kf