Earthquakes, tunnels, and bruises.

The river in Unión.

The days are going by so quickly these days, and soo0n enough I will be leaving Zapotal and going on to a new placement. I will really miss Zapotal, the people hbere are great and incredibley hospitible. However, I still have a few weeks left here so I will try and make the most of it!

This week included making cheese, scowering through tunnels, another fiesta, two earthquakes, and a bad bruise. Sufice it to say it's been a busy week!

Betty and Chichi swimming in the river.

This past Sunday I went to Unión once again, this time for a little girls 4th birthday party. The party was in the early afternoon, so after filling up on food and cake Chichi and I went to ¨La Mina¨, which is a gold mine that is currently not in operation. Chichi showed me a few of the tunnels at the mine, and we inside a couple of them- and met a few bats along the way. The tunnels were pretty interesting, although I sort of expecfted to see a lot of exposed gold, which was not the case. Forgot to mention: before we went to the party we stopped at a river nearby, that had a nice little waterfall, and Betty and Chichi went for a swim in the river. I didn't get to swim becayse I didn't get the ¨wear your swim suit¨ note, luckily I was wearing shorts, so I at least got to stand in the water (which actually wasn't that warm).

Stepping inside the entrance of the tunnel.


Chichi pointing out some different formations.

On Monday I worked with Frankie making cheese, which was fun. The best part was actually earting the cheese, which was very tasty! One bad thing about Monday was that I slipped on some slippery stairs, and now I have a pretty ugly bruise, you can take a look at the photos and judge for yourself. I showed Betty my bruise, and she tried to ¨help¨ me by rubbing some strange smelling lotion on my leg, and when I say rub I mean the way you would rub coarse seasing into a piece of meat, roughly. Not that I am complaining or anything, it was very nice of her to try and make it better.

Right after slipping...

A few hours later.

The other day when we were all eating lunch we had a little earthquake, it lasted for about 30 seconds and was not very strong (here in Zapotal anyway). Later on in the afternoon we had another little earthquake, and it was pretty similar to the first one. Apparrently the earthquakes originated in the ocean on the pacific side of the country, but it was not felt very strongly where I am up in the mountains.

The view from the farm.

Yesterday was very nice and sunny, and in the afternoon I went with Chichi and a few another to a farm that Chichi own about 20 mins away. It was very pretty there, with a nice view of Miramar below, and you could even see all the way to the pacific ocean. I spent the few hours we were there enjoying the sun, and taking pictures.

Today as usual we have all come down to Miramar, so once I am finished up here I will head over to Margie's (Betty & Chichi's daughter) and speak english for a little while, which I always look forward to since no one in Zapotal speaks english.

-Til next time!

Amira xo