fin de la semana

I began the month of September digging a drainage ditch around my cabina. I found a shovel blade in the woods and used that. It is an impressive work-out without a shovel handle! The ground is wet and the heavy clay stuck to the shovel blade. I worked until nearly noon, feeling a connection to my great-grandfather who was proud of the ditches on his farm and to his daughter, Frankie, who converted a weedy hill behind my parents´ house to a terrace garden. I took a coffee and cookie break around noon. (Yes, I have succumbed to the wonderful, local, cloud forest coffee.)
While enjoying the flavors of peanut butter cookies and cafe con leche, I stretched and decided to wash some windows. I returned to el canal de mi cabina and dug under the roots that were too large to chop. By three o´clock, I was able to savor the gratification of diverting rain water away from my porch. The rain thundered down the hill and the roof, filling my new ditch and flooding northward into the woods.

With the rain pouring, I went inside and used the vacuum cleaner that I was borrowing. I was glad to have my leather workgloves and thankful that the electricity did not go out while I showered and shampooed. After supper, I carried the shopvac and the attachments back to my friends´house and continued walking in the rain up to the meetinghouse for the squaredance.

About half of the dancers were children and I enjoyed dancing with my own students. The dance caller led us in easy circles, squares, and reels. By the time the dance was over, the rain had quit too.

My howler monkey moved away with other howlers who visited for awhile. I am not sorry for his departure. Instead, I now have monos carablancas (the white-faced capuchins) Without the howler monkey and without the pounding rain, my cabin can be very quiet, muy tranquillo.

The first Sunday of the month is the community dinner, or the pot-luck after meeting. People other than Quakers come to the meetinghouse at noon on the first Sunday of the month and share food and conversation. Later, I returned to my cabina for some more digging. One of my students who specializes in water-diversion came by with a whole shovel. He and his brother helped a little and left me their shovel to borrow. I plan to do some more landscaping this weekend.