Cat´s Cradle

Tomorrow is charla day. “Charla“, as I learned on Tuesday, translates into “workshop”. I will be giving a 20-30 minute workshop, in Spanish, to a group of 5-10 Guatemaltecos plus the trainees from our neighboring town. I’m probably not as nervous as I should be. The topic is not that interesting, but I do have a killer introductory game and I feel I know my materiel pretty well. I don’t feel like writing much about it now because I’ve been writing about it all day. Oh, everybody else has to do this too; it’s not just me.

My family eats dinner at around 8:30. I usually go to sleep around 10:00. I don’t like this, however, I can’t really ask them to move it up for me nor do I want to go without dinner. I think I’ll just end up buying some fruit on my own during the middle of the day and tell them that I don’t have much of an appetite during dinner so I won’t have to eat so much food so late. I’ve been pretty frugal with the Q30/day walk-around money I get, but there’s really no reason to be frugal. It’s more money than I need because, aside from the Q50 I spend on my cell phone minutes every three weeks, I don’t have any expenses. I am going to make my World Famous Guacamole this Sunday for the super bowl, though. I’m gonna use, hmm, probably 10 avocados or more. I’m pretty excited. Everybody in my group gets really excited every time we start talking about food. I’m going to enjoy the guacamole, but it’s not like I’m disappointed in the food I get here. I’ve really only tried about three dishes that I could do without and only one which I will never eat again: banana atol. Bananas in liquid form are just gross. Soon I’m going to make a “the good, the bad and the weird” list of foods that I’ve tried here.

Not much else to report on besides the fact that I just finished Kurt Vonnegute’s Cat’s Cradle and liked it. I wasn’t exactly sure of the point of the book until about ¾ of the way through; now I want to read it again because I think I’ll get more out of the beginning. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in the philosophy of religion and/or human behavior. I can’t say anything more without giving away the plot for anyone who hasn’t had the chance to read it yet. It’s easy, it’s short, it’s odd.