Spring Break - Finally!

Poor Will. We went to the movies last night. It’s Semana Santa right now and I wanted the kids to have a fun Spring Break. So everyone got to invite a friend, and off we went. Mags went to see "300," James and I saw "Little Miss Sunshine" and Will went to see the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." But I forgot the BASIC movie rule - cartoons are always in Spanish. I could hope it was educational for him, but I think that would be a little too naive on my part. So I guess I still owe him a fun outing.

All three major networks are down on cable right now. If you hit tv at the wrong time of day, you are only left with infomercials. There’s some funny stuff that pops up now and then. "Little House on the Prairie" in Spanish can amuse me for a minute or two. Kevin Costner’s disaster, "Waterworld," was on this morning. TV is not a real temptation down here.

We do have some short trips planned for vacation, including Suchitoto and Bahia de Jiquilisco. Suchitoto is a colonial town. Two of the teachers here go almost every weekend. They made reservations for us in their favorite hotel that’s supposed to have a beautiful view of the lake. The bay is a much further drive and involves a ferry ride. We’ll be staying on an island. The house is full of people, so I think we’re sleeping on the front porch. I don’t think we’ll last long there, but I have been dying to see it.

It has finally rained once. The cicadas are making lots of noise. That means the rainy season will be here soon. The locals don’t pay a lot of attention to the cicadas. To us, the noise is like a piercing dog whistle. There are times when you can’t talk over them. They’ll stop singing when the rain starts. I think it’s been six months since it has really rained. I can’t wait.

We’ve been staying in the complejo more often because of the road construction. James got rear-ended (he backed up into the side of our car) by a pick-up truck recently. That slowed us down just a bit. But it turned out the driver’s boss was the CEO for one of the big insurance companies in town. Our car was fixed in no time. Now we still have paint pealing on the car, and one shiny new passenger door.

I’m sure there are more stories about our inane adventures, and our completely inept attempts to speak Spanish, but I think we need to hit the road. I feel the need to just sit and enjoy the view for awhile. I promise to post some nice photos when we get back. The ones here are from an attempted climb up the Santa Ana volcano (it's now active again, there won't be another attempt anytime soon. And I'm ashamed to say I didn't take the picture; I was back in the mountain cabin.) That's Will in the bushes; you have to look carefully. The other photo was our last Habitat build this year. We managed to go on four trips. I thought that was pretty good! We love the kids and always have a good time. The last photo is from a birthday party we went to for one of our favorite students. I can't believe the seniors will be out of here soon. James and I will really miss them.

OK, OK. We're going now! Susan