The weekend...

It was a busy weekend here.  Friday morning a group of us visited an art fair to buy gifts and see some cool crafts.  As I was heading out the door, Alba, my host mom, told me to ask for Lourdes at the fair.  "She's my goddaughter and she'll give you a good price."  So with that in mind I headed out to meet friends at the Shell station up the road.

The best picture I could find... this is the type of van used,
driving down the highway with the door open.

We planned to take a guagua (guagua means bus, but in this case they're more like vans) to this art fair.  It's about 15 minutes of out town and none of us were sure if the conchos (Toyota Corollas used as public transit) went that far.  So we wandered up the road/highway until one came by.  Usually they cruse by every 3 minutes but for some reason on Friday we had to wait.  It didn't help that there were 8 of us and the two we did see were already full.

Finally one pulls up next to us and a guy jumps out the side to help us in/take our fare.  I figured since it was already half full maybe a few would fit and the other half could take the next guagua.  Nope- he assured us we would all fit and of course, after some shuffling, we did.  I think I counted 16 people in a 9-10 passenger van.  It was actually more comfortable than a concho where my hips are usually smashed  between the door and a bulky 60 year old woman.

We got to the art fair, made our selections and headed up to the counter to pay.  There were three women behind the counter and when my turn came, I asked the one ringing up my stuff if she knew Lourdes.  She smiled and pointed to the woman next to her.  So I asked that woman if she knew Doña Alba who lives in Santiago and she was like, "Yeah!  She's my godmother."  And then she not only gave me a discount, she gave everyone in the group a discount.  She even called back one person who had already paid and gave her a refund.  So nice!

Memorial for the sisters and one of their husbands.

On Saturday we finally got to visit the Hermanas Mirabal museum.  We were supposed to go a few weeks ago but the trip got canceled because of rain.  The museum is in the house the sisters lived in their last 10 months and has everything from the clothes they wore and pots in the kitchen, to the hand bags and books they had with them when they were killed.  (For further info on these women I wrote a post a few weeks ago...)

And Sunday I went to another Aguilas game.  This one was with my program so there was a big section of gringos in the crowd.  The stadium was almost full, actually, which was really cool because everyone got really into the spirit of the game and was yelling and cheering and jumping up to look if something exciting was happening.  And we WON!  The whole thing was fun to watch because los Tigres were ahead in the first couple inning but then we took a 5-4 lead and held on to it the rest of the game.  But being that close kept the tension high.  And at one point a runner coming into home completely crashed into our catcher trying to score a run.  But our guy held onto the ball.

This week is busy too: final essay due this afternoon for a class, Thanksgiving lunch tomorrow and final project due for another class, service project on Friday and who knows about the weekend...