Thursday, October 30, 2008

Sapo Verde Es Tu

"Sapo verde es tu "-- which translates roughly "Hippo birdie two ewes" if you get my drift.
But in actuality I am not celebrating any one{s birthday. I just recognized a kinship in the phrase "sapo verde es tu" and an incident at dinner last night. (This typewriter is badly badly damaged so forgive typos and mising leters)

A "sapo verde" is a green frog.
Last night two village kids dropped by for dinner. When they hudled around the pot for refils, I felt a banana peel land on my shoulder! Yikes! I figured little 9yearold Ariana did it as a joke.but then this "banana peel" hopped OFf my shoulder and right next to my bowl of soup! It was, of course, a sapo verde! ) EDIT--it was actually a large green ¨rana¨' which means frog -- I just learned that a ¨ ¨sapo´¨ is a toad. END OF EDIT

Th joys of life in the semi-tropics! In another moment, sapo verde hopped off the table into the jungle at the edge of our porch.
I can{t deal with this typewriter (keyboard-I have just badly dated myself).
Love from paradise! Sara y Roverto

Monday, October 20, 2008

La Tormenta

(I just found the time to write something here...so I´ll start at the beginning: our arrival in the Little Salty Place on October 10)
LA TORMENTA--
We bumped and splashed down the twisty hilly dirt road to our village after four days on the road... and stopped every three or four houses to get out and hug dear friends, and then drive a bit more. All the while, the kids velcroed to our car, laughing and babbling in excitement. Finally, I just joined the little cloud of enthusiasm and together we made our way to the far end of the village, and to the gate below our humble casita...
...and there we stopped.

We could go no further.

The rainy season had caused the jungle to completely obscure our property.. you could barely see the roof of our little casita at the top of the little hill. You could open the gate, but you couldn´t walk in... far too thick and high and tangled for that.

But aha!! Comes the Man With a Machete! The Mayor, and our dear friend!

As though he were the Pied Piper, we filed in close behind him as he powerfully slashed a twisting, winding route up the hill to our porch. From the porch, we looked out on..... jungle. Jungle with ZINNIAS peeking out here and there. Did I ever plant zinnias? I don´t remember.

I opened up our three rooms -- all was fine and safe, sequestered in neat rows and stacks of plastic boxes to keep out the animals and insects. Robert sauntered in, grabbed HIS machete, and together he and the mayor cleared our driveway and brought the car up.

By then, the kids had settled in on the porch floor as if we had never left (which we HAD-- last May!). They know where all the toys and drawing implements are, and set themselves up for a lovely afternoon with us...

Then came La Tormenta!
¿Isn´t that a great name for the swirling tail of a hurricane?

Solid rainfall pounding all around and I swear there were fish swimming out there... But no wind, so no one got wet. It fell straight down, and we were safe under our porch roof. The pounding torment of hard rain on our tin roof was deafening and we yelled over it to be heard. Other than that, no one seemed to notice. It is just la tormenta. No es nada.

When the rain let up, the kids wandered home for dinner. They had about 30 minutes to do that before it started up again... and that was the pattern for our first few days. The breaks were just long enough to get stuff done before it all started again.

What sweetened our arrival even more was the next morning... our first morning back. There was a brief break in la tormenta, and in that break the Mayor and his wife walked down from their house bearing a big bowl of chicken soup Mexicana, and fresh home-made tortillas.

AND NOW...
We are expecting a huge swell, growing ever higher all this week. Not many surfers around, so that is a good thing, too. The surf has been quite small for our first days here, and thus we got a lot done around the casita and yard. Muchmore to do, as always. And there is village gossip, of course. And kids have matured, friendships deepened. No sharks. I have gotten into crayon drawings again....

HEY
You can continue to write to us at my email address == you do not have to go through this blogspot. And if you DO write, then I will have YOUR email address and can respond. I did not bring down a list of emails, nor did we remember to bring our bedding, nor did we bring brown rice, nor did we bring our favorite spices for food, not even brewer,s yeast or soy sauce... we are coping with salsa and chile peppers of course. Gosh, the food is great here, and the fruit abundant. And Jojo,s gift of a box of Colorado apples is veryvery popular, too.