Childhood arrested
Flows free, properly prompted,
From those such as we.
We finally got to work today! It's exciting to feel like we're no longer freeloading off these nice people. Their food is delicioustastic, and we've felt bad for all the time we've just been hanging out and enjoying their hospitality without holding up our end of the deal.
As I mentioned, we're stuck with gardening for the week. Today we cleared a lot of brush (which we added to their burn pile; it now towers higher than some of their trees) and softened the ground in their unplanted garden patch. It sounds like not that much, but they were delighted to have it done. It wasn't easy work, either; it's hot all the time, and the sun here at midday chases everyone inside. Fortunately, these people are well-stocked with reading material. The titles on their bookshelf range from 5 Great Novels: Philip K. Dick to Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream to Capoeira 100 to Fast Food Nation, and going through them during our electricity-free downtime is going to be a lot of fun.
In the evening, after a delicious dinner, we headed out on our bicycles with Joseph towards Pedralba, the town nearby where he goes to school and the family takes care of much of their shopping and socialising. Casinos, the other town, is a bit larger, but not as homey. Anyway, we headed out with him, and he showed us around the library (where we can find internet!) and the church, and eventually led us down to the river.
We tossed our bikes together at the base of a bridge, and Joseph informed us that we'd be jumping off of it. There's a video that should be going up sometime of him and Evan jumping off the first time. :) It's a really nice little place to swim, actually, and there were a lot of townfolk out at dusk there. Then he decided to lead us upriver for the "rapids ride," which was basically a mad rush where we had to work our tails off to keep afloat high enough to stay off the sharp rocks underwater. JOYOUS FUN, I CAN TELL YOU.
Anyway, that was our day: hoeing and river-jumping. Life is slower out here. It'll be a nice break.