The Ups and Downs of Living in a Third World Country…

I’m writing this on Thursday evening, but I’m writing it in Word. I don’t know when I’ll be able to upload it. Our internet is down and I don’t know when it will be back up. Lately, it seems that the internet has been down more than it’s been up. I usually end up rebooting our firewall 4-8 times a day. Such is living in a Third World country.

Later tonight, people should start working on Las Alfombras, the sawdust carpets that are renowned all over Central America. Starting at about 11:00pm, there is a big procession of Saints from all the Catholic churches, then the fire department hoses down the streets and after that, work can begin. Only, it’s raining right now. Pretty hard. So, I don’t know if the alfombras will actually happen this year. I don’t know if they do any kind of ‘rain delay’.

I just went out to the front gate to let in Jenny, Josue, Paul and Lindsay. As I was walking up front, I saw several people in the school hallway. “¿Quien es?” “Who are you?” I asked one of the guys. He proceeded to tell me that he was here to bring the guard his food. And then I reminded the guard that he was not to allow anyone inside the gate, especially not three people. I tried to call Trify, but he’s out of cell phone range, near the El Salvador border. Even though the call didn’t go through, I faked the call, making sure that the guard heard me. In Spanish. Trify will need to be in touch with the company supervisor to make sure that the new guards know just exactly what is and is not expected of them. Such is living in a Third World country.

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OK, so now it’s Friday afternoon and the alfombras DID happen. Yay! Jenny, Josue, Lindsay, Paul and I all went down to Parque Central at 5:30am. We got to see most of the work still in progress. That was pretty neat. Plus, there are not nearly as many people as later in the morning. We stayed until about 10:30, leaving after the reenactment of the Fourth Station of the Cross. I took over 200 pics!

Here are a couple of pictures. I’ll post more. I promise!!

The first alfombra we came across was about a block or so behind Enlaces. This is one that won't be seen by many people because it's too far off the beaten path. But, the neighborhood sure enjoyed it.

This alfombra is on the main path of the procession and was completely trampled underfoot less than 5 hours after I took this photo.

Yeah, that's me.





Oh, yeah. Obviously, the internet is up right now! I'm doing a Happy Dance! (12 noon, Friday)

Or not. It looks like it went back down again. (12:15pm, Friday)

Such is living in a Third World country...