Beisbol - Who let the dogsout?

Friday I went to the doctor's office. It was in Chitre, so Grace and I packed our stuff to stay over another volunteer's house and ventured to Chitre to find the dr. Prior to Chitre - I went to the primary school with Grace. SO MUCH FUN. The teacher there killed it. She taught heaps in English and had excellent songs and games to play with the "Kinder" class. Those kids are animals. It's like Lord of the Flies whenever the teacher even slightly turned her back.

They were hilarious. When seated at desks they kept playing this game that I forget what you call but one person has their hand flat on the desk and the other hits it with their fist. It's not mercy.... Bloody knuckles? Ugh I can't remember, but I know it's a game people played at school back home too. Obviously, it's hilarious because guess what? sometimes it really hurts! So it was like a sociological experiment watching the kiddos play and be surprised by the result.
And I wish I had on video this one thing I saw because I just can't portray it as well as I could with a video.

Anyway - one little guy was playing that game with another littlun' :) And then one pulled the finger back of the other one. And then kid two starting weeping quietly at his desk. Big ole crocodile tears. And kid one was just ignoring him and acting like nothing happened. So the teacher kept teaching and periodically the little nuggets in the class would come over and cradle boy two's hand in theirs and put their head on his shoulder and kind of caress his shoulder and emulate the motion over and over again, like they're trying to sort out how this could've ever happened. AND THEN - best part - they would look over to boy one together and point and kind of shake their heads, although they didn't actually shake their heads. It was more of a "you monster! how could you?" sort of look. I loved it. Boy one played it cool. But he knew he was in the wrong - you could tell. Definitely pre-face paint "mask" if we go back to the Lord of the Flies analogy. So this happened over and over again. And each one did the same sort of thing. It was sweet, but also horrible? I liked how the teacher kept teaching, since it's Kindergarten - I mean people are going to cry all the time I imagine. One kid cried because he didn't get called on. I really loved being in that classroom. So much energy, but so much fun! And the upside is that since she's essentially a specialty teacher - she travels and doesn't stay with the same class all day, which of course can be a blessing and a curse, but I liked it because you can use the same lesson over and over again.

Then we went to the doctor. It was kind of hilarious how it went down because I was told where to go but I didn't have any other idea of how to do this, and Grace had never been sick! So, I walked up to the front and said - Soy de Cuerpo de Paz. And she sort of stared at me, and then I said because I didn't know what else to say.."Estoy enferma." ahhaha classic. So then she told me where to go. We sort of had the waiting room to ourselves and eventually the nurse came for me and took my blood pressure and asked me if I'd rather wait in waiting room or the exam room, but I had no idea what she said, so I said si. And then she turned the a/c on the in the exam room, so I was like ohhh I get it.
And after like 20 minutes, in walked the telenovela version of a doctor. Now I want to call him Dr. Drake Remore', but he was better looking than Joey from Friends (Matt LeBlanc?) but you get the idea. Too bad I'm not gonna live in Herrera! ha! But that was comical because when you're sick you barely speak your first language, much less a second! I definitely have new empathy for immigrants.Then we went and filled the Rx and it was interesting because they literally tell you what each pill costs before you buy it, and it's way faster than at home. Then after some time we went to a pizza place and then to a baseball game. Baseball game was just like home. Tons of fun. Good food. Good baseball! Maybe only major difference - we're likely to end up on the TV here. hahaha.

Then we stayed over a different girl's house and it was cramped but fun. Not ideal when not feeling well, but it's tricky because buses stop after a certain point, and taxis are surprisingly more expensive than you'd think. Each area has different prices for taxis - it's weird. We visited another volunteer Saturday and I headed back to Santa Rita Sunday. I went to Saturday night mass (7PM) in Los Pozos. Interesante. Lots of praise and worship music. It was different. I wasn't sure it was mass at first since the priest wasn't around, and I was like, ohhh I'm not trying to attend some singing event - but eventually the priest was there and mass started. I'm gonna need to learn some new phrases! That's for sure. But it was nice.