A surprisingly good week

Alright- so, we’ll take this from Sunday, November 11 - the day my laptop died. As you can imagine, it wasn’t that great of a day. It’s as so the reason I haven’t written in a while – the forlorn hope of getting it fixed quickly.

Anyway, that day was the artisan market – you know, the one we’re trying to get started every weekend. It was also El Salvador’s official ´Dia de la Pupusa´. A pupusa is a type of food – it’s a corn tortilla stuffed with refried beans, cheese and sometimes pork. Long story short – somehow I got stuck watching the town hall as performers used it as a changing area. It was a long afternoon.

I can’t say Monday faired much better. I initially thought someone had stolen my digital camera (turns out someone put it in a ´safe place´) and my laptop still refused to turn on. I have since found out that the power source is fried and am currently awaiting news as to whether it will live or not. I forget what else went down – but none of it was good.

That brings us to Tuesday and the brightening of the week. Tuesday was when I started buying materials for my project. We started later then I had wanted to – but other then that, it went incredibly smoothly. Well…as much as that term can ever really apply to projects in El Salvador….or maybe Peace Corps as a whole.

So, that night, I got home from watching my soap opera with Sonia and started getting ready for bed. As I’m brushing my teeth, I happen to glance over at my birdcage. Now, my birds weren’t in the cage – they were in a different cage that I keep them in overnight. Anyway, chillin in outside cage is a possum. He’s just chillin and eating the leftover food. I decide that this just really isn’t worth it and to go to bed. But, when I get in my house I realized I had left my cell phone over at Sonia’s. So, I headed over there to get it and while I was there told her about the possum in my bird cage. Well, her and her daughter promptly came over to check it out. The possum was still there! Sonia then heads over and closes the bird cage door and sends her daughter to go get her brother. Ricardo, Sonia’s son age 24ish, come over and brings his machete with him…… do I really need to finish the story?

The up side of it is that there is no longer an animal ripping open my trash and using my sink as a bathroom. So, I can’t say I’m that upset at it all.

Wednesday was another smooth delivery day of materials. By this time, I was in a pretty good mood – can’t quite say why.

Thursday was when I actually had time to go into the capital and see about the mostly dead laptop. While I was there, I decided to go to a concert everyone else was in town for - MANA. If you haven’t heard of them, don’t fret – they’re a Spanish rock bad. I found someone to pick me up a ticket and I went to the hostel and laid claim to one of the sofas – they had long since sold out of beds and it only cost me $2! Anyway, that night I went to the concert with a few friends and with those few friends I was able to sneak into the platinum section. How? – I have no idea, but with a $15 ticket I got a $75 view. We even had our photo taken for Blur magazine. It was an amazing concert and I´m pretty thrilled I went.

Friday came around and it was back to my little pueblo. The only other thing that happened was the soccer tournament that started on Sunday.