Monday, December 12, 2011

From REVOLUTIONS to CROCODILES...


Yes! Every year, these well-armed revolutionaries parade down our little village road. In the photo above, they are just passing the corner fence-post and fencing of our property along the right. What especially interests me is seeing the dress-styles of yore. . . . and all those guns and bullet-holding vests -- men and women alike. That must have been some fierce revolution against tyranny.

The parade is reaching the end of town -- well, in the photo below, they ARE at the end of town. The house in view, below, is our next-door neighbors' home -- we're that close to the edge of town ourselves.. Then begins the jungly land and coco / papaya groves.

Once at the end, they break formation and the boys begin gymnastic displays -- towers of boys on shoulders some three levels high; big leaps into the air, to be caught by two lines of boys holding hands as a long cradle; and the girls do swirling dances; and everyone sings patriotic songs. Then they process back again, presumably for a feast at the schoolgrounds.


Mygosh! This is how I dressed daily in the hippiedaze of yore:


And now? These kids dress in modern and stylish clothes, and paint their nails (while I run around in shorts and tops, and swimsuits). But oh, their parents remember the past -- it all changed in one generation and that generation is barely middle-aged, and they are happy to tell tales of how it was before vehicles and electric lights, those days when they carried torches to light their way through the jungles between the sparse houses. But they live in the present.

And this brings me to crocodiles (see earlier posts). Here is a crocodile's child, who swam out to the mouth of the river, got caught in the seine there, where he drowned....


...and became dinner for us all. Who knew (certainly not I) that crocodiles are white, tender meat, not stringy at all. They have a pleasant but slight taste of fish (their primary food), but the meat is not of itself gamey. Then of course, cook the meat in barbecue sauce, and you get smiles like these. The cook, Sara, is busy preparing fresh-squoze fruit drink for us in the background. Her husband, Guillermo, and youngest daughter Ariana -- well, their smiles tell all:


And the neighbors start coming by for a bowl as well.... This is their niece who lives just across the road, and those eyes just peering up over the table on the right -- that's her little brother. He wants some, too. And he shall have some.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Man, Am I Lucky, or What?

Last post, I commented on how I have deduced, from observation, just how excruciatingly painful an attack from a stingray must be.

Today I was hit!

My friend and I were busy boogie-ing the big ones that crash close to shore, yeeee-haw and all that, bouncing and careening wildly amid the whitewater swirls. We were wearing sandals (yeah, as if that could help), and mindfully shuffling our feet every time we touched the sandy bottom... and we kept ourselves in one well-shuffled section of the ocean -- figuring we had thus cleared it of the stingrays.

Wrong.

I had just come off a big ride towards shore, and was turning back to go catch another one when I felt repeated and very hard jabs against the ball of my big toe joint. But no pain whatsoever!

Yeah! I am One Lucky Being.

Mind you, I was wearing only Chacos --- which are just a few straps wrapped around the foot, holding on the thick rubber sole. However, the ray happened to mount its attack and hit my foot EXACTLY on the strap that wraps itself just above my big toe joint!

I left that water grinning!

Now we are all plotting of a way to make over-the-ankle booties out of that thickness of strap material.....