Miscellaneous/trip to the countryside

-Occasionally, I see things that make me think, "Yep, I'm definitely not in America anymore!" Last Sunday on my way to church, I saw a goat on top of a car! How it got there is a mystery to me. One of its goat buddies was near the car, so maybe he had something to do with it... On my way to work one morning, I spotted a donkey laying upside down in a really steep ditch furiously kicking its legs trying to flip over. I felt bad for the poor thing, but it was pretty comical!

-The three most played artists that I have heard here are Michael Jackson, Shania Twain, and Dolly Parton; quite an interesting combination!

-I am now hooked to 'Storm over Paradise.' It's a Spanish soap opera with voice overs in English, which don't exactly match up with the characters. My family watches it every night. At first I didn't know how I was going to endure 16 weeks of it, but now around 8:00, I am eagerly anticipating what Maura will do next and wondering if Nicolas will find out that Aymar is pregnant with his child! It's sad, I know, but I just can't help myself!

-There has been an addition to our household. The 4 year old daughter of our temporary house help, Lydia has been staying with us for the last week. Christine is kind of wild, but she keeps Zahura entertained so that I can do my homework. The two of them are so cute! Last night they were 'fixing' my hair. It felt like they were just pulling it, but they were having too much fun for me to stop them.

-The process of buying meat here is interesting. A huge chunk of meat hangs from a hook in a small non-refrigerated Plexiglas room. When you tell the seller how much you want, he saws a piece off with an actual handsaw! Last night as I was cutting up the meat, I disgustedly thought about how it was a miracle that I haven't gotten sick yet...and then around midnight, the miracle ended! I'm still feeling pretty bad, but hopefully with getting a lot of rest today, I will be able to go to work tomorrow.

On Friday night, I went with my host mom to the small medical facility that she runs in the countryside when she is not working at the nearby hospital or at their 6 acre farm. It looks really sketch, especially with the lack of any sign outside of the building labeling what it is and there are no licenses for operation to be found, but my host mom seems to know what she is doing. There is a bench constituting the waiting room next to a small office for seeing patients. There is a table and two chairs in there, and that's all there is room for! There is also a back room separated by a curtain where numerous medications and medical supplies are kept. This facility is part of a larger building where there is a salon and grain store. My mom introduced me to all of her friends who were either working or just hanging out. Of course, there was a guy there that wanted to marry me, I'm used to this now. While my mom was finishing up her work, she told me to go with him to see the river. I wasn't too happy about this, but I grudgingly went. It turned out to be an adventure! The path there was pure mud, and I was wearing flip flops...pretty much the worst choice of footwear! I thought I was going to be covered from head to toe with mud, but I came out of it relatively clean, at least from the knee up! The river looked like a river...dark water rushing over rocks, and the greenery around it was bright green and flourishing, it was a beautiful sight!