Count this Treasure a Bugs Life

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I keep dreaming weird things. Sometimes I can associate a dream with some occurring of the day or with some reoccurring theme in life, but there are also those dreams that just seems like they have nothing to do with anything, and are just plain weird. Lucky for you those can be shared another time. The two of interest here fall into the "reoccurring theme" category. For a few nights in a row I have been dreaming about bugs. I would like to consider myself well adapted to the insectial and arachnoid creatures we share an earth with. And maybe my family would disagree, but I don't tend to worry excessively about bugs in the house or having to shake spiders out of your shoes. I would consider myself to have an "ignore and be ignored" relationship with most multi-legged creatures of infantile size. I don't particularly like to be crawled on, jumped on, bitten, or met with the unmistakable crunch of demolished exoskeleton (but these aren't all distastes unique to just bugs (actually only the exoskeleton crunch would be unique to bugs)). But I dont tend to overreact (purposefully relative) if said occurrences, well, occur. Life here is quite a bit more buggy than most of my daily existence has been, and yet I find that there are really only two bugs I would greatly prefer to do without. Enter Don Roach and Mosquito. Now in my dreams things tend to be much larger than life, I can't run or walk or move without feeling that laden by concrete feeling, and all vocal abilities seem to have escaped me. These dreams have been no different. In the first, I am at this Oaxacan house, alone, when a roach the size of a small dog starts to run across the hall towards our bedroom. In the second, there are giant mosquitos wearing my tennisshoes preventing me from escaping the house. What a relief that these are just dreams - or are they?

Zach is really quite adept at planning fun activities for the groups here. The only problem we seem to have to hurdle are spreading interest to a wider population, and starting things on time. Zach has been wanting to watch "The Count of Monte Cristo" again for quite some time, and thus planned a movie night for the youth and college group. We left the house around 1ish to meet Jose at the church building so that we could make sure the projector would work and still have plenty of time to go in search of the movie. Jose arrived shortly after we did, and we figured out (in a round about way) that Jose's cousin could take us to blockbuster (where he had a membership) so that we could rent the movie (which would be in English with Spanish subtitles (in case you were wondering)). The projector plugged in and turned on fine, so we locked the building back up and headed to meet cousin. Via bus we arrive on the other side of town where Blockbuster is. Movies from the United States are very popular here, but are often given a different, more Spanish name. I found it was easier to try and recognize movie box covers than go by name, and so we started browsing. Thankfully things were somewhat organized, by genre, so we assumed our search wouldn't be to difficult. After a little while with no luck Zach decided to just have the guy at the front desk look up the movie in the computer. Fool proof. And the results, Blockbuster doesn't have the movie. A wave of disappointment was soon washed over by the need (pressed by time) to look for another selection. We browsed a few, weighed our options, tried to remember ratings, and finally settled on National Treasure. Those of you who have seen Nicholas Cage bring American history into a new light are probably nodding your heads in approval. Good choice right? Our only apprehension was the American national history wouldn't be as intriguing to the adolescents from Oaxaca as it was to us. But we decided to go for it anyway. We made a quick stop into the Soriana for some Skittles and Crunch, and then took a taxi back to the building. By this time it was only moments before Miguel would meet us with his computer (which would play the DVD (country disc encryption prevented Zach from using his old faithful). Miguel came, Jose left, Jose came back (with a torta (he was starving)). The movie worked, his computer hooked up nicely with the projector. Speed bump, the speakers weren't working. Jose, having finished his torta, fixes the speaker problem. Now we wait for the kids to start arriving. Only 20 minutes after our proposed start time the first one arrives. followed shortly thereafter by another, and then half an hour later by a few more. This is normal - culturally and everything. Zach and a few of the kids headed down the block for some refresco (Coke, Sprite, Fresca, and Lift (apple flavored soda)) and popcorn. A little while later they arrive back and we divy up the popcorn and pour drinks and start the movie. Before the movie was over there were 13 of us total. Not a bad turn out at all! Everyone said they really liked the movie, the projector worked great, everything tasted good, sounded good, felt good. It really turned out to be a good movie night.
After everyone had left we locked up the gate and headed to Miguel and Jose's grandma's house where Lulu was waiting to take us back to Tule. With the left over drinks in the trunk we made our way back to the house. As we were driving through Tule we noticed quite the affair going on in town. A fair in deed. After dropping off the drinks Zach and I decided to walk back into town knowing we wouldn't be able to sleep anyway. The fair is a Santa Maria of Tule celebration. An annual thing. We happened to come on the second night (of 7) There were all the different carnival rides and games you can think of set up around downtown - much like a fall festival - minus the fall (although it does feel kind of like fall here in the evenings). We walked past a huge scaffolding of fireworks and learned they were to be set off at 11 (only an hour from then). The bumper cars caught and held our attention for a little while. Zach drove, I got whiplash. We also observed a trampoline attraction where you are strapped in with a harness that has tension cables attached to it allowing you to fling way up in the air and do flips and stuff. We watched men dance around with paper mache cows that were shooting off fireworks on their heads, and then saw the huge fireworks. It was a loud and rowdy festival. Much laughter and many smiles, and with ringing ears we fell asleep.