¡¡Buenos Dias!! It´s crazy because I´m listening to Scratchtrack right now off of myspace, and realizing I don´t have a single cd of theirs...I´m a bad fan. Anyway, things are much better since my last blog. I´m really feeling established and connected with some of my girl friends, like we´re really friends...not that it´s forced. It´s a beautiful thing. Also, our Carrera de Cinta went off, but with a few hitches. It was a fundraiser for our softball team for uniforms (which, now we´re soliciting to the mayor for those uniforms...didn´t know I could do that before :}). Well, the way it works is there´s two posts with a lasso in the middle with little rings hanging with numbers. Horses and bicicles come from all over to run and try to stick a pencil\stick in one of those little holes to win a kiss and a gift from a ¨madrina.¨ So, we had 28 madrinas lined up to participate. Well, guess how many showed up?? 4...that´s right...FOUR!! So, this was a test of wit, no? I gathered all of the team members together and we all put our hands in to agree that if no more came, we´d all be madrinas. Well, no more came, so 15 of us ran down to the store and bought little $2 gifts to give, and ran back to start the Carrera an hour 1\2 late. Well, 9 horses competed, so that was good. But, then only 5 bicicles competed, even though there were tons there because they said there weren´t many madrinas and didn´t want to pay. So, I thought, what a disaster!!! But, really, it was fine. All of the food that we´d prepared sold, and also we had a dance afterward that rocked! So, we ended up with ganancia. It was a fun day, all in all. We woke up at 4:00 a.m. to prepare the corn on the cob and the fruits and sandwiches. That part was fun, all of us getting things ready together.

Bueno, also I have to tell of the crazy scary stories they got goin´on down here. Anyone heard of the Siguanaba? Well, for a community that´s super evangelical, it cracks me up how scared they are of mythical figures. The Siguanaba is this girl that supposedly didn´t take care of her son and husband way back when, so her father-in-law turned her into an ugly old woman, with breasts that hang to the floor and teeth like a warewolf and crazy hair. She roams in the bush, enticing young boys (and girls too) with beauty, and then turns into the ugly lady she is, and the person that sees her gets a fever and goes a bit crazy. One of my ¨aunts ¨here says she´s seen her and that she got a fever. Also, they say there´s a crying ghost, the Llorana or something like that, who roams the streets at night, crying and screaming. They´re afraid to walk alone at night for these things. Also, there´s a cart that goes at night without oxen or a person...just a cart by itself. They probably started out being folklore, but the people truly believe these things, and claim to have seen them or heard them. I told them I´m not scared, and they said that because I said that, one day when I´m alone outside or in the ¨monte¨, the Siguanaba´s going to get me. hahahaha Maybe she will!!