no pics, kinda boring

But that's pretty much how the past couple of days have gone.

Of note:

1. The rain continued on and off, often very hard. Halfway through yesterday the water was turned off, so this morning I took my first bucket bath.

2. Also because of the rain, yesterday's fieldtrip to Mamiku Gardens was cancelled. So that turned into two days off in a row, meaning a four-day weekend. If I had projects to work on, it might be different, but I've done a lot of lazing around the house.

3. To get me out of the house, I went with Manman to the preschool yesterday for the folk dance class she holds for primary school kids every week. I learned a few dances, and caught on to about a third of a song sung in Kwéyòl.

4. I hung out with fwe mwen and his friend Fay last night. Nothing exciting or expensive, just watching youtube videos of Dane Cook and a walk down to the grocery store for some drinks (I finally tried a Malta, which tastes like an oatmeal raisin cookie soaked in prune juice). So, pretty much what we do in Austin. No Whole Foods or Central Market, though.

5. This morning we went to the market, as on all Saturday mornings, followed by a meeting that started an hour late and turned out to be a different group with some of the same members, followed by a meeting that was supposed to have been first. Three and a half hours I sat in the little Town Hall. The first two hours were very boring for me, since I didn't have any interest at all in the group, but the second meeting I even contributed to, and volunteered to help serve drinks at the BBQ fundraiser next weekend.

6. New foods. I had "farin and pear" for the first time for lunch. Farin is the flour-like ground cassava root/fruit/whatever it is, and pear is what they call avocado here. Add a little oil, a pinch of salt, and you have an avocado-y paste that you eat with fish. I had potfish with it, pieces of little fishes that are very tasty.
Manman also baked cake yesterday, a delicious cinnamon coffee cake. I unfortunately didn't have time for tea this morning to go with it before we left for the market.
With dinner I'll have some cassava, and I'm not sure exactly how it works, but it the same thing that the farin is made from, but rolled out flat and fried. I'm interested to see how it is.
After the meeting we were treated to drinks because of the length of the meeting, and there was only one Malta left at the little snack stand nearby, so Manman and I had LLB: Lime, Lemon & Bitters, a bottled drink that isn't as sweet as Sprite and similar sodas, but is in fact tastier. The bitters give it just a little more depth, but it's still a nice sweet refreshing drink.

I'm thinking it might be time for dinner. Or maybe crunches.