Anecdotes from the weekend.

The last couple of days have been pretty eventful. I spent Thursday at a meeting where we were given lunch and at least one of us (myself) was given food poisoning. Such a lovely way to pass the night/morning/next day. The brains didn´t even give me indigestion but chicken made me roll on the ground in agony. I didn´t get the courage to eat again until Saturday night but I seem to be doing OK since then.

A couple months ago I put the word out that I really wanted a pet bunny. I told EVERYONE I knew and they sent me all over the place following suspected leads. One man told me to give up the search because all of the bunnies in Nicaragua had been wiped out with hurricane Mitch in 1998. In recent weeks I had all but given up hope on my bunny quest. Knowing that, try to imagine my surprise when Wednesday night a girl I´m friends with called and asked me to come over because she had a surprise for me. I arrive and there are TWO rabbits waiting for me. This girl went out and bought me two rabbits. Keep in mind, the original message I conveyed to her is that I wanted one, baby rabbit. I could not have been more shocked than when she presented me with TWO, ADULT rabbits. Nevertheless, a gift is a gift and I accepted them both graciously.

(The following statement my call in to doubt how gracious I was...)

I gave one of the bunnies away the very next day.

Im convinced my friend will never find out because of two things: 1) she is terrified of rabbits and will never come over and ask to see them 2) I swore my other friend (the one now with bunny) to secrecy.I kept the male bunny. He is small and black with bluish-grey eyes. His name is Sandino. Pictures to come soon.

Today I went to visit a volunteer in a town about 1.5 hrs away. The distance is only 30k but a bus packed full of people, heading up-hill on a dirt road can only go so fast. On the way back the bus was crowded, hot and dusty. A woman with three children who had no where to sit asked me hold her child. I didn´t have any desire whatsoever to do this but she didn´t wait for a response. She without warning tossed the three-year-old over the head of the woman seated next to me where it landed with a thud on my lap. The complicated part of this scenario is that we are going through a construction zone and hit a bump at the exact same time she throws this child at me. We all go flying in the air and the little girl hits her head on the window but THANKFULLY didn´t even wake up.

The men sitting behind me start joking that I need to practice holding babies since I will be having a bunch of my own soon. My typical response is that Im not married and I don´t want children. Usually people gasp in both horror and fascination and try to convince me that marriage is the best thing in life. What does this guy do? He asks in an incredulous voice if I have read the Bible. He then cautions me to remember that I will not be let into heaven if I don´t marry and reproduce. I didn´t respond and to be honest I still can´t think of anything to say.

Hasta la proxima.