Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Election Day and Then Some

Sunday was election day, a day much anticipated across the world.  There was potential to end the political crisis as well as for possible violence amid protests.  I was preparing myself for all possibilities on Saturday evening before going to bed, but when I woke up on Sunday morning, I found that I had not anticipated what actually happened.  It was dead silent.  There was no one on the streets and it was as quiet as Christmas morning when everyone is sleeping in after staying up until 1am the night before with firecrackers exploding everywhere.  I went down to my neighbor’s house and spent several hours there chatting with them and watching the news.
Elections here are normally accompanied with wild celebration, more firecrackers, and a lot of noise.  None of that was present last night, even after they finally announced the winner around 11:00.  People in general just want to move past this situation and are looking forward to the future.  I am hopeful that things will finally get back to normal, as normal as they ever are here, and that everyone can move on.

Since the school year ended early, I have been doing a lot more activities with the girls in my Yo Merezco group.  We made and sold bread to fund an excursion we want to take to the nearby cloud forest to go hiking and we also hiked to hot springs in the mountains a few weeks ago.  It was about an hour hike each way, but the uphill on the way was not so easy as we were all carrying food for lunch and I had a watermelon in my backpack that one of the girls couldn’t carry anymore, which we are eating in the first picture I posted.
We spent a wonderful afternoon swimming at the hot spring in both the hot and cold pools and I have posted some pictures of this activity and of making the bread.  The third picture shows the oven we used to cook the bread, and it is a traditional oven that has to be heated with wood, leña,before the bread could be cooked and in the last picture the girls are greasing the pans before we put in the batter.  Enjoy the pictures!