Thursday, August 11th

Some sort of event was going on very near the house, and loud announcements and music were going until 11:00 or 12:00 last night! At some point, I recall hearing loud boat or truck or train horns. Then the cats and dogs barks, meows, roof scratches, and screams (fighting or mating…or both?) started in, which were eventually replaced by morning rooster crows…it was the loudest night I can ever recall. Maybe I was just hypersensitive that night…hard to say, but the window will stay closed tonight!

I was happy to finally see daylight and 6:00 am on my watch today! Alejandra fixed a yummy pancake and bananas for breakfast, again a perfect meal for me at this time. After breakfast, I washed a bunch of clothes and hung them to dry on the roof outside my room.

Below is the view in one direction from the top level roof above my room and drying area!

Then I headed down to the school to figure out my departure plans and work on my computer a bit. The power went out, so I wasn’t able to do much on the internet, but I did get some journaling done and I set up my shuttle ride back to Antigua. After lunch, in my class I learned a whole bunch of past tense verbs – both regular and irregular. I still have to think really hard about how to say things in past tense, but I think I’m finally catching on! I also learned some helpful little phrases with “vez” and “por” and “a” and a little about how to use “lo” with adjectives and adverbs, but I’m still a bit confused about that. I was going to go to the night activity now that I’m finally feeling 100%, but because the power was out, the “conferencia” was cancelled. Jia and I were talking after dinner and she told me that there is a place in town that has free salsa dancing on Friday nights, so maybe tomorrow night I’ll finally get to try or at least watch some salsa!