Nearing the Big Day

A varied day today. After breakfast at Pop's, where the locals go and the tourists don't, we roamed about the market to buy fruit for tomorrow's celebration. There were many fewer pineapples than I had expected. Other times we have seen them by the hundreds. We bought a few pineapples, at $1.25 US each, and a couple of watermelons. The local watermelons have
small golden-brown rather than large dark brown seeds.

Anne and I didn't start work at Yalbac until 1 PM, when the future operators arrived for training, accompanied by a gaggle of children. By then Dave, Aki, and Dan had the system assembled and ready to go.

When the kids came, we sang the "Use This Water" song a few times, made paper chains, and made paint handprints on a white cloth. To a large extent, we were doing child care for the operator class. I was getting used to the cadences of Spanish (which most of the kids speak in preference to English) when I was blindsided by a burst of Creole. It was a bit disorienting, although I didn't understand the Spanish either. It just sounded strange, whereas Spanish didn't.
Eventually we sent the kids home and cleaned up for tomorrow's celebration. It was a bitter-sweet moment when I realized that in 24 hours my task in Yalbac would be essentially finished. We have worked for two years to get to this point, and sometimes it seemed that we wouldn't get there. Thanks to all of you for your support along the way.

I don't have a clear picture of what will happen tomorrow. We may have a couple of government people, several San Ignacio Rotary folks, Victor Tut (a world-class character and resort operator), us, and an unknown number of Yalbacistas. Mirna said she would make "pudding of bread", and I told her that if there were too many people for me to get some, I would beat them up. She laughed and promised to save me some.

Tonight we had Italian food again, Ray's treat. He had left the restaurant owner some lira which were worthless to him but could be exchanged by an Italian who had had a bank account in Italy before Euros replaced lira. The food was delicious, apparently from some region of Italy other than the origin of other Italian food I have had.

Essentially it seems that the pressure is almost off. The job at Yalbac has almost been accomplished. But we have plenty of other opportunities in other villages, so the project will go on.

Peace,
Chuck