Ni tan tan, ni muy muy

It was Tat Lu's birthday on Saturday, but we celebrated on Friday with a small lunch because Saturday afternoon his sons had to present their work for the year to see if they were going to graduate. Andy and I brought cake to the party. It was a small but fun celebration. He's such a good guy. Tat Lu was born the same year as my dad.

Each saint has it's own day, and the towns named for that saint throw a series of week-long celebrations to honor him/her. Santa Clara's is in August, right on our last week here. On Monday I went with my host brothers, Miguel and Abraham, to San Pedro for the ferria de San Pedro. Their main reason for going was to see a soccer match the town had arranged as part of their celebrations. They got members from national league soccer teams to come and play against a local team they put together. The national team slaughtered them, but it was a really fun game to watch because they got to show off a lot. It was like an NBA team visiting a small town to play against a pickup team of locals. I got a few good action shots. I really wanted to get a shot of two players crashing in mid air fighting for a header, but the timing was always bad and then my batteries started to die. After the games we went and ate lunch down by the lake and walked around the ferria for a bit. Abraham and I took a ride on the Ferris wheel. The rides there are powered by de-wheeled tractors. We also saw part of a parade in honor of San Pedro. And, next to a catholic church, there is a statue of him with the keys in hand standing next to the cock that crowed. An interesting juxtaposition.

We're going to el Salvador in a week for our mid-project trip. We've got a little over a month left. I haven't felt like my days revolved around/were mostly made up of meals since the MTC. We need to be up to eat breakfast, be back at around one to eat lunch and then back at about seven for dinner (Although I'm not used to having this kind of a schedule, so I'm often late for meals and such, which I think kind of frustrates Dona Ramona sometimes). And after dinner it gets dark so families just hang out a bit and then go to bed. Needless to say, the weeks sneak by like mice after the corn sack.