May 3, 2010
Last night, Gail and I headed to dinner around 6:30. La Piccola was delicious as always. During this dinner of kingfish, rice, and vegetables, I discovered a very striking bit of information. Gail asked me if I had ever heard of okra. I just kind of started at her. “Of course I have heard of okra. It’s a delicious staple of my life. Have I heard of it?! Uh, yeaaa!” She seemed surprised by my response. “You do realize that okra is a southern thing that no one else eats, right?” What a slap in the face. A southern thing?! Okra? Uh…okra is delicious. Thank goodness I am from the South!
I went on a search for Trits after dinner, but couldn’t find any. Very sad. We settled for ice cream sandwiches that melted in about .5 seconds. Luckily I eat my ice cream this fast on a regular basis. Gail wasn’t feeling well, so we headed home around 9. I started a new book, one of the few here to choose from, called Red Dust by Ma Jian. It’s about a man who decides he is not happy with his life so he buys a one way train ticket and leaves it all behind. I figure that this person and I probably have quite a bit in common. This morning at 8 a.m., I went terrestrial patrolling with Chele. Being on a four-wheeler for three straight hours does some damage to one’s butt. By the time we stopped to walk around, I was thinking “thankkkky youuuu.” I actually looked up at the sky and put my hands together in a praying motion and let the good lord above know how I was feeling. It made my thank you so much more… Italianesque. We explored the entire island from tip to tip. When we started getting into the thick of the mangrove forest, we come up on this empty golf cart. The keys are in the ignition, but no one is there. I thought I heard footsteps up the way, but when I went to investigate there was no one. We stood very still and listened for a while. Still nothing. Chele makes a little joke at this point “arranyas de banana o boa.” Arranya, spider, and boa, unfortunately large constricting snake, two words that I quickly recognized, did not sit so well with me. I said “ahora Chele, aqui in Utila, are there boa constrictors and banana spiders?” She laughed. That is not an appropriate time to laugh. She says to me, yes, of course there are and does a hand gesture to signify the size of these spiders. Her hands were positioned in the shape of a Frisbee. A yellow and black spider the size of a Frisbee. How many are there? Oh, they are very common. Again, not a good answer. And the boas, there have been cases where humans have gone missing here and these disappearances are attributed to the boas. Again, another exciting discovery. We started motoring around again. The lizards here are the size of small cats with blue heads and electric green bodies. I only saw three, but they are so fast that I wouldn’t be surprised if we passed dozens without seeing. I saw a Jesus Lizard. I have no idea if that is what they are actually called, but they are the little ones from Jurassic Park with the big palm frond around their neck who stand up straight and run like the wind. A few swampers crossed our path, but nothing too out of the ordinary. During our trip, Chele took me to a few rocky ocean overlooks. Going up on Pumpkin Hill, in Spanish, sounds like “punkeeen il” which I find hysterical, you can see a 360 degree view of the ocean surrounding the island. Quite a sight. After three hours, a visit to the pharmacy for aloe and anti-itch cream for my bug bites, we headed back to BICA. I started working on the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle signs that we are hanging in the front of the building, and then I designed an information flyer to hang around town about global warming. Not too bad for a day’s work. Now I need to spend my night trying, and probably continuing to not succeed, at finding a place to live in DC for the summer. Who knew it would be so hard? While I am searching, I will try my best not to be bothered by the fact that when I cross my legs, they slide around on top of each other. I gave into the Utilan way and am now slathering baby oil all over my legs in the late afternoon and night so that instead of attacking me, the sand flies and mosquitoes just get stuck. It’s quite disgusting, but effective.
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