of mice and stolen cheese sandwiches

i finally told paulita (my supervisor) last friday that i hadn't had propane to cook with in my house the entire week. i'd been cooking everything in a toaster oven... which takes a bit of creativity. truth is, though, i need to be able to cook (and to at least boil water to get the bugs out of it) and i was getting a bit frustrated with the no gas situation. that and the fact that i've literally eaten 24 banannas this week and i think my body's beginning to reject them. NO WORRIES said paulita, smiling grandly and giving me a moment of hope, we'll take care of it. she ushered me into the school's kitchen and busied herself collecting all sorts of food items for me (spaghetti, oatmeal, mayonayse, sugar, and margarine... you know, the essentials). the best part of the whole situation was, that every item of food she got out for me i'd say "i already have that" and she'd laugh and continue to fill my box with the un-neccessary staples. so i ended up with a 2 LB bag of sugar (which i haven't used a teaspoon of sugar in the last 2 months), 4 sticks of margarine, a hunk of queso, two bags of oatmeal, and four bags of spaghetti. what i'd like is for someone, anyone, to tell me how to cook spaghetti noodles in a toaster oven. as i walked home with my box i eagerly awaited yet another weekend of toaster oven cuisine (ie: toast, ramen, and bananas) and laughed, again, to myself at paulita's unabashed joy at providing me with such an abundance of food resources... and wished desperately that the random guy who came to take my gas tank away last friday (for what i assumed was a fill-er-uper job) would miraculously re-appear with another rusty tank full of liquid gold.

now, in the still heat of sunday afternoon a quiet breeze blows through the heavy, normally dead-bolted back door and i gaze across the yard (well, more of a dirt pit than a yard) and pretend to watch the chickens and pigs roam around in search of scraps in my backyard... while actually, and more importantly, i await the culprit who stole my cheddar cheese and mustard sandwich off my kitchen counter yesterday morning to return for round two... and i don't think it was the pig (although the thing's literally the size of a small cow)...

i owe an explanation. steph came to visit for the weekend (hitchiked on an ambulance...which in iteslf is one of the miracles of this trip so far) and we spent friday night having dinner at my boss' house (scrambled eggs, gallo pinto, and games of peek-a-boo which i've found to induce universal belly laughter in the toddler sector), watching 'school of rock', and eating a bar of dark chocolate her parents sent to me in their last care package. we woke on saturday to the lovely and incessant pounding of a hammer and what sounded like a weed whacker outside my bedroom window at 7 AM. after lazing around in bed for a while, we ate breakfast and packed a picnic lunch- with plans to hike to the peak of the mountain that cusmapa rests beneath. when the group of donors visited earlier in the week, peter brought me a hunk of cheddar cheese (as i regularly joke that i miss cheese more than my family...which is sometimes the truth...) and i'd been saving the rest of it for making sandwiches saturday for our hike. we got all prepared- with a canteloupe, ritz crackers, peanuts, and our sandwiches sitting out on the counter...and left the back door open (which i rarely, if ever, do)...went to put our shoes on in my bedroom...and came back out two minutes later to find the ritz crackers all over the floor (a thought to myself "that's strange") and i realized with a sinking feeling... that our sandwiches had disappeared. it's a funny thing having an eagerly awaited item of food (such as my cheese sandwich) taken from beneath my nose... it actually made me mad at myself how upset i was over the situation. i don't think it was REALLY just losing the sandwiches that pissed me off- it was more the feeling of 1) being watched, and 2) being watched and someone taking the time to wait for a moment of guard let-down to take full advantage of the gringa and 3) here i am, actually really pissed off about someone taking a sandwich from me in the middle of a freaking third world country, and the person who took it was probably STARVING. the fact that i knew the person who took them was probably starving, honestly, didn't make me feel much better about it in that moment. it just made me sad at the amount of despiration that exists right under my nose. and even more sad that in my own selfishness i couldn't look beyond that 'being taken advantage of' feeling to a greater feeling of 'well i hope they like mustard...' we ended up just having to laugh about the whole thing, and how ridiculous and typical it was... guess you have to laugh at things like that, cause (in the words of the indigo girls) 'you'd cry your eyes out if you didn't'.

the hike to the top of the mountain was eventful, to say the least. i had no idea how to get up there- and there wasn't a trail... so we followed a dirt road (past the school) up along the side of the mountain, past a handful of houses marked with hole-laden clothing hanging listlessly on rusted barbed wire fences, drying in the morning sunshine. we hit a point on the road where it was more of a riverbed than a road (ie: all rocks and boulders), then around the next corner i found myself breathing deeply and suddenly aware that i smelled montana... in the dry lifeless crunch of layers of pine needles beneath my feet on a dusty path, in the filtering warm sunlight through the whispering pine trees, the floating breeze smelled of summertime up the rattlesnake, of folfing up patee canyon, and of adventures.... it was the closest to home i've felt the entire time i've been here. i dragged steph off the "road" onto a horse trodden path that looked promising, and soon we found ourselves crossing over fences and climbing on our hands-and-knees up further and further. i felt the rich, dry, espresso colored soil slip between my fingertips and smiled eagerly while steph kept asking... "do you know where we're going?" and telling me "i can't believe you talked me into this." around one bend i stumbled into the shadow of a pine tree and disturbed a family full of creamy butterflies from their mid-morning siesta- they floated around my head, lifting with the breeze, and i felt light-headed with giddiness. here's what i'd been missing the past 6 weeks- trekking through the mountains and paying homage to the breathtaking miracles of nature. we finally reached the top and were rewarded with a 360 degree view of the surrounding valleys and peaks (all the way to the volcano looming in the distance of honduras), caught our breath, and marvelled at the vista... accompanyed by two beautiful chestnut-colored horses who regarded us with a curiosity mixed with an air of obvious ownership over their mountaintop domain. i laid out a sheet i'd brought with us under the shade of a few magnificent pines, and we laid and chatted for an hour or two, soaking up the quietness (unbroken by reggaeton music or roosters), and enjoying our picnic lunch.

we spent the rest of the afternoon making our way back down the mountain (a much more difficult feat than getting up), napping, showering, playing chess and uno, and watching the sun set. we went to dinner at panchita's house and were treated like queens there (as always) with french fries, pork, gallo pinto, and a tomato salad for dinner. we'd planned on drinking a few beers but neither of us felt up to it after such a lovely dinner, so we ended up watching 'kingdom of god' instead and finishing up our glorious chocolate bar. i was about to drift off when...

i heard that dreaded gnawing noise through my pillow. the sound i know all too well these days, that can only mean one thing. there was a mouse nearby. i was planning on ignoring the creature until WHOOSH i felt it rush across my feet and i jumped up and screamed bloody murder... ran to turn the lights on, rifled through my bedsheets... and silently waged war on the little suckers. it was all fun and games until one of them had the nerve to climb into bed with me. normally i'm pretty pro-life when it comes to the little creatures of the world, but these bastards had gone too far. i got out the mousetraps my mom sent in her last carepackage and read the impossible to understand instructions, then promptly put a little bit of salmonella-induced peanut butter on the bait stand (which i'd saved simply in case i needed to do any real war-waging on the mouse population in my house) and set up the trap in the bathroom... turned off the lights... and waited. about ten minutes later i heard a lound SNAP, and reluctantly turned on lights to find... not one, but TWO dead mice, heads snapped in the trap... never to run across my bare feet again. lord knows now i probably just pissed off their mouse family members and they're going to get me right back by gnawing through my thick tupperware food container and pooping on my toothbrush... but until then the scorecard remains, CALIZ: 2... RATONES: 0.

i've had a nice relaxing day today, reading and writing... and listening to the constant conversations taking place outside my bedroom window by the handfuls of guys who seem to have deemed my houses' corner to be 'the place to hang' in town. anyelka and her little sister visited for a bit and i gave them a frisbee and some crackers... talked about going to the local laguna with them next weekend, and tried to calm myself about their hands being constantly all over everything... they brought me some more of the cool little seed/beads found in the river here which i'll try to make some jewelry out of if i can find some good string down here. suppose that's about it for now... just wanted to write about un-necessary food, the stolen sandwich mystery, finding my home in the mountains, and my first real experience with mice. now back to making dinner in the toaster oven... toast? ramen? or more toast? the possibilities are endless........ love, caliz