Salud, amor, y dinero

No real crazy things happening other than the fact that I continue to eat like I have never seen food before in my life and I am really tired. I go to bed tired and I wake up tired.

Yesterday we worked in the morning (nothing wild to report)  and in the afternoon we returned to Finca Zepilote for more nutella. I need to start making this stuff. To my intense disappointment they were out! So I settled for a chocolate and banana muffin, two loaves of bread, peanut butter, and tahini. Dukie once again joined us on this excursion and thankfully no chickens were harmed in the purchase of these goods.

That evening to celebrate our general awesomeness  Sara and I ventured into town to the British expat’s restaurant for some delicious food. I had a potato, chickpea curry--with real chickpeas!!! For someone who profoundly loves chickpeas, I was delighted to have the real deal. Additionally the restaurant had a sweet mural and a really lovely vibe. When the power went out (a common occurrence here) we ate by candlelight. The Nico taxi driver chatted with us a bit before taking the Norwegian family back to Mayogalpa for the evening. They all seemed to tolerate Dukie’s mooching for food and chasing away other dogs.

Today we finally finished changing over the new bed, it only took us three days to do. It took a surprisingly long time to get all the old dirt out, new compost in, and just generally get everything done. It didn’t help that the compost pile we were using happened to be above the volunteer area and heated our shower water. We now have cold showers and a lot more work than was expected. We had to carefully break apart the compost pile so as not to destroy the coiled tubes. Then we had to cart the wheelbarrow an additional 50 feet downhill...However I now have a healthy appreciation for the work that Pablo does here.

One thing that you will hear frequently here is when someone sneezes here you first say “salud!” If that person sneezes again you say amor (love) and then dinero (money) if they grace you with more bacteria. In Guatemala the order is salud, dinero, amor. When I told him about that he said things like “life is nothing without love” or “you can buy a lot of things but it is nothing without love”. This man speaks the truth.

This afternoon I finally came to check out the pool up at the lodge. I swear to the heavens above, it was the most glorious thing since sliced bread. After moving what felt like thousands of pounds of dirt, it was amazing to slip into the slightly cool water and just bask a bit. Plus the clouds had cleared on Volcan Concepcion and I was able to see the top! Absolutely breathtaking view from the pool of the other volcano and basically had another “I’m in a pool, in Isla de Ometepe, Nicaragua staring at a volcano. How lucky am I?” moment. All I can say is that view today alone made all the bugs, spiders, sweat, blood and tears worth it.