Yesterday was an interesting day, filled with all sorts of crazy things. At 11 am David, Gladys, Pastor Nestor and I went to pick up the flowers for our garden that the government had donated. We got 45 plants, including a bunch of ficus trees, palmetto trees, some gloriosa double daisies, blanket flowers and vinca flowers. Pastor Nestor was talking to the garden centre guy and it ended up that the garden centre donated a bunch of plants for us as well. They donated some geranium cuttings, dusty miller cuttings and the piece de resistance a Christmas Tree!! Well, it is an evergreen tree that the village can decorate and use as a Christmas tree each year. I was really excited about that.
The second crazy thing that happened was something you would NEVER see in Canada. We needed grass for our garden, and so we stopped on the side of the road and picked up grass cuttings that the city maintenance had just finished cutting. We are going to use it to plant the grass blade by blade. I’m not joking. We started sorting it out and planting it yesterday. Blade by blade.
Afterwards we went and bought some mulch for the garden, and it was here that Yexie, the pastor’s daughter fell asleep in my arms (she is 2). I really liked that because she isn’t one of the children who just want to be played with, she is rather shy. Then when we got to Los Jardines with our plants Pastor Nestor invited us in for lunch. We spent the afternoon tilling ground, planting trees and mixing mulch. Some people from other teams came to help us as well.
The area for the garden. We moved all of the adobe bricks on the right hand side. The building on the left is the church.
The next crazy thing came after dinner. Our team was going back to Los Jardines for Pastor Nestor’s church service. On the way our taxi that had Mark, Gladys, Rachel and I got lost. It was dark and we didn’t know the directions really well. It was quite an adventure. We took forever to find Los Jardines, going down alley after alley asking everyone for directions. Every other person pointed a different direction. One lady went so far as to point in two directions at once. The car was scraping along the bottom of the road, and we could feel the surface of the road exactly under our feet as we went over the bumps. We came across a ditch and the driver thought he could make it over, so he said everyone out and then tried to make it over. Which of course he couldn’t, and then required Mark, Rachel and himself to pick up the front of the car and push it out. Next thing you know we could smell gas. The driver didn’t seem to see this as a problem, however, he shortly thereafter got out and reattached the hose. Eventually we made it to the service, which was quite nice, especially with Gladys translating for us. I really like having her around.
After we got back my legs were so bitten up. They were so itchy and gross. My ankles were swollen and I couldn’t sleep without putting a couple of different creams on them.
My feet last night.
Well that’s pretty much it for the entertaining crazy day. Although nothing really surprises me much anymore, because things like this aren’t all that unusual.
For a look at our typical day, check out Tammy’s blog.
