Although being a PCV is a string of stereotypes, every one has their own experience. Today nicely represented my general modus operandi. I spent just enough time shaving before an icy shower to remember how much nicer hot showers are on such cold mornings. My hot breakfast and coffee waiting for me more than made up for the previous temperature offense. I co-taugh my three monday classes without incident, the first being at 7:15am.

My coffee counterpart called me on my return at 11 am and informed me I was needed. I led our new technician on an unexpected adventure to the misty mountain of El Volcán, where I introduced him to one of my favorite farmers in our group. His wife happily fed my avacados, cuajada, and tortillas, and of course coffee. Post return I relaxed and finished a Michael Pollen book on American eating habits. I rearranged my clothes drying inside and practiced yoga for an hour or so as the rain picked up. I briefly picked up another book before eating my gallo-pinto, tortilla, cuajada, and coffee dinner. Of course, I did none of the cooking or cleaning, but rather ran accross the street to the cyber where I waited 14 minutes to upload this very page due to the ever heavy rains.

As it turns out, members of the superfamily Hymenoptera vespoidea can pack a punch for their size. This superfamily includes all wasps, between which I can´t decide the culprit. About two and a half hours into a four hour hike to a nearby lagoon, I trapsed into the wrong side of the tracks. A pure black wasp stung the upper inside of my right calf, and it swelled almost instantaneously. I slept through it last night, but today walking to and from the institute was a serious problem as I can´t quite command my right calf muscle to flex. By the end of my classes, my calf was red, hot, and swollen to the point that my sock was cutting circulation off. I talked to my doctor/host sister and called the PC medical office. Making a compromise of the two advices, I´m now on an anithistamine, pain-killer, antibotic slurry. Yumm...

Don´t worry, the rest of the hike was beautiful. I didn´t let a swollen calf get in my way of enjoying the all powerful Mother Nature.

The evangelical priest that started the prayer service didn´t know the family name, much less that of the little girl. At seven years old she at least deserved someone remembering her name. Not the priest, the following eulogizer, nor I remembered her name. After an hour and a half of claiming that this already forgotten girl was never really of our world anyway, but rather--like all of us--a possession of god, the torch was passed.

The diminuitive white box, which had oddly been the focus of the sermon, was angled and prepared to be filled. Cal and salts were tucked between liners, although their combined aroma sacked the room. The angelic body was picked up by a slight woman and put into the freshly painted box. The woman then picked up the blood soaked pillow as though uncertain what to do with it. It was soon removed with the bed she had been imbedded in pre-box.

My four friends and I sat awkwardly in near-silence downing coffee and rosquillas. As we left, we stopped in front of the box. Nothing but a piece of clear plastic seperated the living world from her. I was expecting a manicured face, like the open caskets at home. Instead, her nose and mouth were stuffed with cotton gauze to keep the fluids in place. Her forehead still bore the three marks that most undoubtedly left her unconcious long enough to drown in the rocky rapids near town. Rain spit at us on our way home nailing home a reminder.

* * * *

After my pleasantly soaking Thursday morning run, I ran into a couple of friends on their way to work. It was the birthday of two twins, and I balked a sweaty hug to the one present. We talked about the potential of going out that night to celebrate, despite the terrential downpour. Hours later, my counterpart called to tell me that we would not be leaving town nor would the coffee producers be coming in for our usual work. There had been a man and a young girl washed down stream from the nearby fiord, truck and all. I walked to my friends store, whose older sisters were having the birthday. They all told me they would be going to the vela, (a late night observance of the recently dead including unending eulogies, rosquillas and coffee) instead of celebrating the birthday duet.

It was their second cousin who had been washed downstream. Her uncle had been driving at around the same time I was running. The girl had been found on that very friends´--her second cousins´--family farm. The Uncles´ jeans were found with C$11,100 from their recent frijoles crop. Not knowing that the Uncle was to be found at the end of the weekend, bloated, and with his eyes eaten out, we all went to the depressingly unattached service. They tried to cross a swollen river I´ve crossed time and time before, and in worse-off trucks. The rain had been beautiful and ceaseless for weeks. Tragedy was now tacked on as Mother Nature´s reminder that ravishing beauty can be deceptive.