Sunday outing

Today I went by motor scooter to Urbaite to Jose's nephew's house. This involved negotiating a large herd of cows on the way there and stopping to remove a fly from my helmet on the return journey. I decided  to defer to the cows but it was quite unnerving as these rather large creatures blundered towards me headed either side. Most locals just slowly drive through them but I' m not that confident yet. I arrived early, Jordy came to meet me at the main road but it was a different junction to where I  was expecting, so this voice suddenly called out and I had to do my best emergency stop! After a coffee on the veranda we caught the chicken bus to Esperanza and walked up to the coffee finca where Marvin used to work. It is now supervised by Martin, one of Jose's brothers.  Sadly it was raining, so the great views were not visible but it was fun seeing the small house, the chickens and pigs and meeting another family member, who later told me he wants to learn English.

We returned to the main road finding the next bus was an hour to wait so we opted for a taxi which Marvin found. When it arrived it was very old and held together with welding and nuts and bolts. The back window winders were definitely alan keys, but on the back shelf was a sound system that belted out music like it was going out of fashion. So we drove along sounding like a mobile disco. 

We collected Jose and his mum from Altagracia then went back to Jordy's house for lunch.  Mine was served first and I was clearly expected to eat first. After lots of  chatting I decided to leave but not before visiting the loo.  This is constructed of walls of plastic on a wood frame, a roof made of old dried leaves, and the usual little concrete seat, with a fetching fabric door. I would definitely have to have a chamber not for night time. It is fun adjusting to different cultural norms, all perfectly clean and well looked after, but I like my creature comforts at times.

I returned to the hostel for a quiet ponder over the day and the deputy head arrived with another teacher on a scooter. They had been to a funeral of someone who had died the previous day. Some things happen very quickly here without major planning and organisation, it' quite impressive really. So we went to the local hotel for a fruit juice and made some plans for the week.