Arm Wrestling, Churches, and THE CUTEST DOG EVER

Today and yesterday were spent visiting the same community – general health checks for adults on Thursday, vision screenings for the kids at school on Friday. Thursday we had our biggest turn-out yet, I think – over 50 people were screened and Lauren, Jason, and I managed to do it all sans Michael, who was helping out at CASA. Granted, we still had Rafa to help us a lot, but out of us four gringos, Michael’s Spanish is undeniably the best. Thus, the three of us were pretty proud of ourselves for managing to stay afloat without Michael, despite the high demand for our services. When we pulled up to the health building, the whole premises was flooded with hazy brownish-gray smoke… from the trash the town was burning in the yard. That was just how the town disposed of their wastes. Two children were playing in the smoke-filled yard while a few women looked on, like this was no big deal. Meanwhile our eyes were watering and our noses stinging as soon as we stepped out of our car. Rafa explained that there is a trash service that comes through the town so they really don’t need to burn the trash, but he didn’t know how often the trash collectors came. So we performed health screenings amidst rather unhealthy conditions (and with the stereo blasting as the DIF lead another exercise class – an extra challenge for Jason the blood-pressure guru, but he was able to distinguish the lub-dub from the techno electronica dum-dum-dum thumps). When we returned home that afternoon and were exchanging stories with Michael as to how the day went, we mentioned the fires and he said that we all did smell like we had come from a bonfire rather than a health fair, but at least there was a good explanation.

Jason, Lauren, and I returned to Banda today to screen the children (Michael was out helping with Dr. Clark at CASA again). We actually only had a few kids whose parents’ wanted them to be screened, so it was a pretty relaxing Friday out in the community for us. This gave us time to challenge Rafa to a few arm-wrestling matches – all of which he dominated. The combined strength of Lauren and me, using all of our arms, was barely an obstacle to Rafa. We swung by the house to pick up Michael and then we took Rafa out for lunch at (where else?) Media Naranja. We did a bit of Mercado perusing while we were in el centro, and decided to stop in one of the other churches in the area we hadn’t seen yet. I’m glad we did, because this one was my favorite one I’ve visited so far – yes, even better than the inside of the Parroquia, in my opinion. It is named after Saint Francis (San Francisco, of course!) and the floor had a beautiful tiled pattern in shades of blue. Things of interest included:

1)      Giant CFL (compact fluorescent light) bulbs dangling from the bottom of the ornate crystal chandeliers – I mean, they’re not LEDs, but good for the Church for being energy-conscious. While a funny sight, surely there must be a better way to disguise the more modern-looking bulbs – like even just a little bit. We also saw this phenomenon in La Parroquia – so Dad, maybe you could start working on some churches to convert their lighting into LEDs…

2)      While statues and replicas of the Baby Jesus are fairly common in Churches (especially around Christmas), I do not think I have ever seen a statue/replica of Baby Mary – yes Mary, Mother of God, represented when she was a baby. Here we found “Maria Niña” depicted as a blue-eyed, brunette baby – I guess since we celebrate her Immaculate Conception, the baby that followed this event would be special and statue-worthy, but I had no idea that Maria Niña was even a thing. So I thought that was really fascinating.

3)      The statue of St. Anthony of Padua that we had seen in the parade of los locos this past weekend actually resides in this church while not on the parade route, so we said hello to him again.

Giant CFL bulb!







Maria Nina



Kelly cooked one of my favorite dinners tonight – Enchiladas con Salsa Verde – followed by my favorite dessert – Mango Champan. We also got to meet Alex and Kelly’s son and his wife, as they came in to visit from Aguas Calientes. They brought along their little three month old bulldog puppy, “Tanque” (“Tank”) - and it was SO SO SO unbelievably adorable. So chubby, so much excess skin, such sad eyes, and such a funny ungainly wiggle-run.

I think we will try to attend Mass in this church at some point before we leave – as we stepped back outside into the square, Michael and I both immediately commented on how much we liked that Church and its atmosphere.