What just happened?

Februrary 4, 2012

I woke up this morning thinking I was going to lesson plan the whole day. My mother made breakfast and then she told me that she and my sister were going into the city for a few hours to do some food shopping. I figured I would go into the city with them and go to an internet café and send emails and do research which was perfect. My sister took her shower first and I decided since I had so much time to kill I would start my laundry, plan my lessons and be ready to go with them. After my sister got out of the shower I heard her conversing with my mother and my mother told her to ask me if I want to go. The question was do you want to go to the river? My mom told me that her cousin was going to take my sister and it would be nice for me to go and get to know the countryside. I thought it would be fun and my sister and I had talked about how close it was, like only five minutes away walking. Naturally, I said yes. I figured we would hang out by the river for a couple of hours and come back to go into town. I asked when they were going and of course the answer was right now. So I showered quickly put on sun block and bug spray and just as I was attempting to do my hair I hear “Kiana we’re leaving.” I had just enough time to grab my camera, cell phone and my water bottle which luckily had water in it. Before I left I asked my mom if we would be coming back to the house before we went into the city and she looked at me strange. She replied with “No, you’re not going into the city.” Apparently we were going to spend the whole day at the river. I told her I was confused and thought we were going for just a little while because I thought I was going to use the internet. She asked if it was something urgent and I said no it can wait till next week. As I headed to the door with my water bottle, I saw my sister carrying this giant bag full of snacks and who knows what else, and I turn to my mom and told her I felt so unprepared. She said, oh no you’re fine; she just has a towel so that she doesn’t get dirty. As I headed to this car filled with four new family members I stopped and thought; “What just happened?” One minute I was enjoying a lazy Saturday and the next I was being shipped off to the river for the day with strangers. After driving about 30 minutes into the countryside where there was no cell service, we got out of the car and headed down the road by foot because it was too difficult for the car to make it down the rest of the way. And as we walked down the dirt road I was grateful that I learned from my hiking experience last month, when I slid up and down the mountain, that I wore the right shoes for the journey. We arrived at a house and a woman greeted us. We sat inside for a while and then ended up going to the back of the house where there was a small river. My sister and the other little jumped right in and began swimming. Luckily one of the other family members was a woman my age and we spent most of the time walking around. The fact that she kept saying I’m so glad you are here because there is nothing to look at made me laugh because I was thinking the exact same thing. Don’t get me wrong the area was gorgeous, but being that I didn’t have a change of clothes and could only watch the girls playing in the river, without actually being enjoy it, made it a lot harder. However, I finally decided that at least my feet would enjoy the experience, and they were grateful because the water felt great. Later on we ate lunch with the family. There were about 10 of us and we had the most delicious food. Chicharones (fried pork morsels), fried plantains, some other type of banana, and of course no meal would ever be complete without the rice and beans. I walked around a little more then sat in the house for a bit. Then we ended up having cafecito (coffee break), where we ate tamal (some type of bread made with cheese), which usually I don’t like but this one was really good. After that we packed up and headed back home. I had so much fun, I am glad that I really just went with the flow. Yes, I probably could’ve been more productive today, but at the same time it was nice to go the river and meet new people. Now I have someone my age to hang out with. It didn’t even seem strange to be around people who I barely knew or who barely knew my sister (they kept asking her name). The best part was when they were all talking about somebody named Mario and she asked me who he was; priceless. These experiences are ones that you really can’t plan for, so for all the planning that I usually do, I am learning that sometimes it’s better to just throw that plan out the window and just see what happens.