Un Semana con Las Mejores de los Andes

We're doing alright.  Health has returned and we've decided to fill our diet with mostly bread and fruit, though I have a large preference for cereal bars.  Anything not greasy, please.  

This weeks morning commute was more seldom and mostly on foot.  The first two days we didn't make it to the school because the teacher had meetings and the last day was a short one and we would not have made it to class in time to be of any use.  The trek began with the same mad taxi down and up the dirt roads and was followed by about an hour of panting straight up a mountain.  Wednesday morning found me not so happy about this, a lot more work than the first week for what I expected to be the same disappointment.  But once we got to the place I changed my mind.  Such a lovely little Andes village full of bulls and little irrigated streams of babbling water.

The school was new, fresh paint and educational posters on the wall.  The teacher was a pro, handling about ten kids in different grades, making games of multiplication and nutrition, and the kids were bright-eyed interested.  They called me Tio, meaning uncle but also the local slang for 'dude,'  and we played futbol during recess.  Bekka taught them volleyball moves and learned their names.  Lunch is made by a different local mama each day, and let me tell you, fresh homemade farm food sucks, but that's alright.  This one little booger decided to gun down the gringo with his plastic pistol, and he nailed me several times to everyones maniacal delight.  Savages.  The XO work was fruitful, drawing admiration from the kids and the teacher.  With only two days we couldn't do everything we might have liked, but I think they'll be using them more often for our being there.  I feel encouraged that this job could be worth something.

There was a parade on Thursday, a one year anniversary for a local grade school.  Bread box sized transparent plastic lanterns imitating flowers and airplanes and swans and cars and one glowing spiderman were swung about by their preteen creators.  They marched down the alleys and through the squares to the beat of a local brass band, much like that rooftop band from Juarez, and the players were sloppy and rocked.  The parade ended at the school, with the kids taking to the swing set and the parents commiserating and the musicians opening bottles with their teeth.  I joined the band and asked them about how and where they practice and if I could bring a mic and they fed me some beer and were entertained by my shameless spanish-inept whiteness.  

Bekka and I took our day off to do laundry in the local river.  I don't mind the work, but when you don't have a spot in the sun to hang your drenched threads, just a bed post and a tv antenna in a cold room, well it just don't do much good.  Last night my fellows finally joined me in getting a proper buzz on, very much thanks to Julio, one of the local bandsman, who passed around beer mixed with coka-cola and laid the flowery promises of wedlock thick on the ladies.  Good guy, though desperate and hung up on his moneyless life.  Relatable.

By the by, Billy Bragg & Wilco rules.  Ripped it from Tiffany and I'm listening to it constantly.  'Eisler on the Go' melts me.  Had it ringing in my head as we walked to a local waterfall yesterday.  It's a curtain of energy unfolding from the high rocks and I wanted to reach out and touch it.  We followed the path to where the rocks got slippery and sunk into the black wet dirt and felt the mist drench us as we stood above its crashing down.  You don't touch it, it touches you.