Mastatal

until about 5 minutes ago the weather had substantially cleared up and the once-definite 2:00 rain storms had petered out. however now it seems im going to get very wet on my walk home. bloopers in communication: i was walking into town one recent afternoon and passed an elderly woman coming the other way carrying a box. we smiled at each other but rather than an hola or a buenos dias, she said caminando! which translates to "walking." i was very confused by this greeting and thus responded with my emergency-i-don´t-know-what-to-say answer of "si!" i can usually figure out what was being said in retrospect but this one is still iffy. maybe she was just commenting that we were both walking. in other news my teacher told me today that i learn fast but should talk more. its a little hard cuz i can´t follow a normal conversation since they talk so fast so i can´t contribute anything to whats being said. and because of this i feel like i haven´t actually learned so much, but he probably knows better. i cooked my first fried plantains! turns out there is no secret ingredient, its simply lots of oil and the plantains. i didn´t put enough oil on mine and they were a little dry, but im planning on redeeming myself. picture-wise i got a moth with enormous eyes that looked like some weird clown or something, and a nice big spider. bird-wise i got a few close-ups with toucans and wood peckers. in talking to my homestay mom i found out she doesn´t like cooking and loves to clean which pretty much blew my mind. i understand the need for cleaning, but i didn´t know it could really be an enjoyable thing. i have another ten or so days here and am working on where im going to go next. so far my sources here haven´t been much help. i have the next four days off from class so im thinking about taking another crack at the national park. not really sure what else i could do. much to my disappointment they only really play soccer here in the dry season. not sure how much im really gonna get to use my cleats...well thats the update for now, hope everyones doin well.

till next time,
gus