Some Stuff That Happened

8/27/14

It’s been awhile since I wrote anything so I’ll try to cover a few events in this post.

At my host step dads birthday party I had a pretty good time. They fed me and I got a few beers. One thing kind of stuck out in my mind though. They were playing loud music and everyone was having a good time. One girl, 17 or so, was there and her mom, my mom’s sister’s daughter, kept trying to make me dance with her. The girl was very nice, didn’t take it personally when I repeatedly decided I didn’t want to dance with her. Unfortunately I didn’t catch her name so she’ll have to remain girl. But that’s not the interesting part. At one point, toward the end of the party, most people were done dancing. And then this song comes on, “Wind Up On My Button”.

First, some background. The term wind is pronounced like wined and means essentially the same thing as twerking does. And button means penis. So this song plays and this young girl is the only one still dancing. She starts winding by herself out on the space reserved for dancing while all of her family is watching. Also some Cuban doctors huddled in the dark corner getting really drunk. Her family eggs her on telling her she’s doing great while she’s doing this extremely provocative dance. It was strange to see this entire family advocating for this girl’s advertised promiscuity but given the state of women’s sexuality in many other places in the world it was a refreshing take as well.

I went to the beach a few weeks ago. That was a singularly breathtaking experience. It was a beach on a lake, not the ocean but it was very pretty just the same. It was a black water lake which means that the foliage decaying in the water turns it a dark brown. It stained my shorts. We were there with my extended host family and they were very nice. At one point my host mom said, “We’re your family” and I almost broke into tears. They have been really nice to me and have made sure I haven’t wanted for anything. They really are like my family now.

My first week here, I was sitting on the porch with my host mom, just shooting the breeze. Several times, we were interrupted by my host mom’s pet parrot named Rosaline. The Parrot made a horrible screeching noise at an incredible decibel and really stopped the conversation in its tracks. My host mom grew upset with the parrot and threatened, several times, to lash it. Finally, my host mom had had enough. She picked up a stick from the table and approached the parrot. It was disconcerting to say the least. She joked and smiled as she got closer to the parrot stating it was, “a bad, bad bird.” I remember thinking to myself, “Is she really going to hit this bird with a stick?” She gave it a few hard raps and pushed it inside its cage. And that’s why I joined Peace Corps, to broaden my horizons and have new experiences. Never before had I had a reason to think about someone hitting a bird with a stick but finally I was able to have that experience.

Something very awkward just happened. My host cousin’s daughter, so my second host cousin, broke her leg. She’s about 3 or 4, I think, I’m not good with children’s ages. She can’t verbalize herself too well so it was difficult to diagnose her. She had bicycle accident about a month ago. Two weeks after that they took her to the hospital where they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. Her leg hurt, wasn’t swollen and they didn’t know why. My host cousin brought her home for a week then took her back to the hospital last week. They took the time to do an x-ray, which hadn’t been done initially, and saw her leg was obviously broken. I’m not sure how they missed that on the first visit since these are actual doctors with medical degrees, albeit from Cuba, but still. Now my little host second cousin has a cast that basically covers her whole leg, pretty cute.

So my host mom, Pam, and her sister, Patsy, are pretty friendly with some of these same Cuban doctors. They have doctors over every once in a while and they happened to show up just as I was getting home. And it turns out these doctors were the same ones that saw my host second cousin the first time and didn’t take an x-ray or even suspect her leg might be broken. So we’re all standing around just gaffing (talking) and the whole time my host cousin, mother to the little girl with the broken leg, is just staring daggers at these two doctors. Every time someone says something funny she just doesn’t laugh, she just keeps staring down these doctors. So I head to my house at the back of the lot, and everybody parts ways. My host cousin starts walking away then she says, very loudly, “They need a lashing, one time! (quickly)” I turned around and looked and I could see the doctors looking very embarrassed and keep walking towards the house. So that’s the drama in Guyana right meow. Miss you all, shoot me an email sometime. Timdaniel25@gmail.com

Also, I’m going to start trying to post on the 1^st and the 15^th now that I have fairly regular internet access. Please help me hold myself to this.