Day 10 – Santa Fe Epiphanies
We had panqueque again today! This time we asked for the recipe and though it was quite simple, I am extremely excited to bring that back to the states with me. I also told Elda that I am going to cook her some Chinese food, maybe some time next week; hopefully she’ll like it.
We started the day off quite excited to see Celso and again we were stood up. This time around we decided to make more use of our time and decided to take the morning off to go to Santa Fe, a small little town nearby. Little did we know the extent of ‘small’. We literally were able to walk through all the streets in less than an hour. During this spontaneous morning stroll, we ran into a couple of New Yorkers who had family who still lives in this tiny town by the beach. They reminded me of my parents who got away from their hometown and risked everything to make it big in America. It was kind of like a suburban place minus the rich suburbia part of it, in the sense that it was completely residential and people had to go in town for their goods. It may sound like an obvious statement but arriving here, the first thing we thought about was what in the world do these people do and wondered how primitive their lives were. We kept thinking that we arrived into some secluded timeless place just because it looked less wealthy. It’s pretty intuitive and yet hard to wrap my mind around how the structural mapping of people and provinces are parallel everywhere despite the differences in wealth.
The morning was random but definitely worth it because for the couple of hours we sat by the beach, we again came up with a bunch of epiphanies for what we should do at the hospital. We decided on making origami lilies for the patients, asking the director about painting up the main lobby wall that looks horrendous, and possibly teaching English or something outside in the waiting area.
After an amazing lunch at Café Vino/Tiki Bar, we bought colored paper for the flowers and headed by to the workshop to await for Celso. Unfortunately, he never showed up again (we hope he’s not sick). We decided to work a bit on our own and dug around in the bodega, found a few more nebulizers, and got the work. Sadly, without Celso, we were stuck with half-broken pieces and not quite sure what the exact problems were. As much as we didn’t like relying on anyone, we decided to let them be for the day before we ended up breaking something or blowing something up.
We then set off to Casa Alemania so I could try out the $13/.5hr massage. I have been waiting for one since Monteverde, our second weekend out, in Costa Rica. It was very relaxing and I might come back for the second .5 hr for some leg massages; these hilly walks can get quite strenuous.
On our way back home, we ran into our hostmom while she was running some grocery errands and so we tagged along and it was quite cute how much like a family we were. We ended the day with folding flowers to some horrendous singing from the outdoors church literally a few feet away. I will never forget (unfortunately) the drunken howls of one particular lady that will forever send shivers down my spine.
