Wednesday the 7th
Today we met again with the local friends and struck out into the territory. We had a few leads from yesterday (you're getting the hang of this now, aren't ya?!) and so we tried to chase them down.
Orange Walk KH
Our first lead was supposed to live near a gas station at the edge of town. Horace & Reymona took one side and Brissett, Nate & I took the other side. We walked the length of the street but couldn't confirm that anyone deaf lived there.
A random house that I thought looked cool
We walked back to the gas station, where I encountered the nicest bathroom experience I have had so far! Brief sidebar: Public bathrooms are more of a thing here than they are in Guyana but still not really a thing. Some places will have them - gas stations, bus station, hold on, I'm thinking where else... At the bus station here in our village, and also at the one in Belmopan, you have to pay $1 to go. Here they also hand you some TP. Belmopan had it in the stall; neither station had a toilet seat. And both places it was probably recommended to throw away your paper into the bin, not to flush it.
All of that to say, this was a wonderful experience at this gas station - there was paper, soap, a seat, floors were clean, the door locked, it was free.... I'm telling you, I would go back! And no, I didn't take a picture...
I took a photo of Nate...
... and he took a photo of us!
So then we noticed that Horace had moved the car from where he had parked it at the gas station. So we struck off on foot towards the street they had taken. We weren't for certain if they had already covered the street or not so we called at a house on each side where there was someone home and asked. Neither householder knew of any deaf on their street. One was an older Spanish lady. We were standing around outside her house since Horace had parked nearby but was nowhere to be seen. She communicated with Bris in Spanish that she was a sister! She just made us come in to her porch and sit down. She had to leave soon but no sense in our standing when we could sit and she could offer chairs! She was a sweetheart, her name was Perla. She is now my unofficial abuela! I have adopted her, she doesn't actually know she's my abuela.... And no, I don't have a picture :-(
Horace & Reymona caught back up with us and they hadn't found anyone deaf either. By now it was close to lunch time.
Sidebar about lunch: From 12 to 1 is lunch. Before 12 is getting ready for lunch. The kids come home from school so if the mom stays at home, then she is cooking. So from about 11:30 to 1, you try not to call because they are either cooking or eating. This seems to be pretty close to holy.
So we decided to head back to the house for lunch. This afternoon was supposed to be a little rainy so we were going to see what actually happened with the weather. There was a coffee shop that we had passed yesterday and Bris is a local coffee girl so she wanted to check it out. So she and I struck out for lunch and a little sister time.
While we were at the coffee shop, we saw two local sisters. It was a nice place! Nice and new and clean! Good coffee - I ordered an iced doppio. And good food - I had the hummus, focaccia and olives plate....yum!
We took our time eating since it had started to rain. Oh and Bris had driven us there. I was offered the keys which I politely declined... driving is on the right but there are other cars and kids and dogs and buses and motorbikes and bicycles and you get the idea...
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