Lluvia keeps falling on my head

The day began as most days appear the begin on the lake. Clear calm weather and a gorgeous view of the lake. Breakfast was eggs from the family chickens, grilled plantains, retried beans and mangos. We are not sure what Rosa does to her refried beans, but they were full of flavor. Such a treat to have home cooked meals every day with fresh vegetables. These things are rarities when we travel.

We headed out to the school for a slightly different kind of day. Alex and Michelle had their usual lessons, but Tim went to help with a construction project that the school was undertaking for a local family. The goal for the day was to bring more construction materials to the site for the workers to use in building the family a home. Tim really enjoys these kinds of projects and dove right in. It was a good physical work out for him as well. The group finished the work a little early, so there was still time for a short lesson. Alex spent the day with his teacher learning Spanish while they were making a super hero mask. He now calls himself Super Money Hero because he drew a dollar sign on the front of his mask.

Towards the end of the lessons for the day it started raining again. The original plan was to go out exploring, but we opted to stay in for a lazy day instead. If you have read our blog posts from previous trips, you will understand what a rarity it is to hear us utter the phrase “lazy day” while on vacation. After a lunch of cooked vegetables, rice, grilled pineapple and guacamole we retreated to our room to rest. Tim and Alex slept for a bit while Michelle completed her home work. Yes, she had homework again. All good practice of course, and it is fun for all of us to see the learning come to light in various contexts.

There was a small break in the rain around 5 so we headed out to explore another area of the city. There are so many different nooks and crannies here, and everyone is so friendly. It is a little like Venice with the narrow winding streets that then lead to bigger streets. There are no street signs and house numbers are rare, so we are having to create mental maps ourself as we explore the various areas. We have already scouted out a few different shops we want to go into again and restaurants to eat in on Sunday. Alex was really interested in the smoothies in one shop and the cartoon playing on a tv in another ;) It turned out to be a nice walk about in the area.

Dinner saw additional family members come to eat. The company is fun, as it gives us more people to practice Spanish with. Some are good at explaining around a concept if we don’t understand it and some are not. Rosa usually jumps in to help explain things, and she is great at using simple Spanish words we would know and examples to help us understand and respond well. The family was the mother with her three daughters. One looked to be around 16; another around 12 and the youngest was a little older than one. They were a very sweet family.

The meal was a simple dish of pasta with eggs, bacon, parsley and a butter sauce. The plates put before us were heaping, and we all wondered if we would be able to eat it all. But we had no problem eating all of our portions as it was delicious.

Towards the end of the meal a dance party broke out with all of the kids in the corner of the room. Alex busted out his dance moves, which are a combination of the floss (a big dance craze at his school), the robot, and various taekwondo moves. Those kids were having a blast and the adults were cracking up. Alex, our child who would never dance, has now asked to have a dance party again. We are scheduled to learn salsa dancing at the school tomorrow night, so maybe this will work out well.

It is off to an early bedtime for us. Hasta luego!