This is long, I know, I'm sorry. You can skip it. I won't know!

This blog is as much for my own memory as it is to let people know I'm alive and well and enjoying my travel shenanigans. What follows is long. Rambling. Stuff about trees. etc. Just so you know.

We returned this evening from our three night stay in Laguna Kana and are now 18/20 finished with what we were assigned to do here in the southern Yucatan. I would like to tell you mostly about two things: the kindness of the people we've worked and stayed with, and what you do in a town that doesn't have running water.

Pretty much everywhere we've gone, we've been met with kindness. Karen, Irene and I all agreed that even if some ejidotarios have made jokes about marrying us (especially when Alex isn't working with us), no one has ever been outright creepy. Pretty much everyone has worked really hard for us. Cutting a straight line through dense secondary growth with a machete in the Mexico heat is not easy! I was particularly surprised with our trip to Laguna Kana though. When we visited on Sunday to get permission, we asked a man if we could stay in his house while we worked in the three northernmost ejidos. He agreed-- he housed a team from Ecosur last year, too. His wife was away in Cancun visiting their daughter, who I understand may be handicapped in some way. When we arrived kind of late on Tuesday night, it turned out his wife was home, but they cleared out of the two room house and slept in hammocks next door so we could stay. I just thought that was really nice of them.

I like to think I'm pretty flexible and open to new life experiences, but I was not particularly prepared for the whole no- indoor- plumbing/ running water at all scenario. I'll spare you the details of how these things work (though I had to tell someone and my mom was kind enough to pick up the phone tonight!). I clearly survived and now have a better idea of how I'll survive living in a village in Africa for a while someday (I mean, what? We'll cross that bridge when we get there.). However, I thought I'd share what a town without running water does have: pretty forests, pretty night skies, and very little else to do, so also good night's sleep. I slept in a hammock all three nights, and did so much like a baby. It helps that I went to bed earlier than I do when I'm in Chetumal uploading photos and sharing my shenanigans with you all.

But back to that thing about the clear, gorgeous, billions-of-stars sky... it was awesome. Breathtaking, even. I told my mom about this on the phone too (I don't just tell her about how people sponge bathe over toilets when we talk), and she said I was pretty awed when I first noticed stars as a toddler. I imagine this was pretty much the same. I've been in rural places, I've seen bright starry nights. One of the nights in Laguna Kana, the power went out (yes, they have electricity but not water), and it was even more pronounced loveliness. Oh man. Words just can't describe, so I'll stop trying.

But now that this is nice and long anyway, some snippets of my starlit ponderings these past few nights whilst hanging out in the village without running water or anything else to do besides ponder things under a gorgeous starry sky:

• Apples. Think about the produce section at your local grocery store. What's exotic to you? Ok, probably nothing, because we get whatever we want in the US. Well, here, apples are exotic. They are shipped from places like Washington State. People here are crazy about their apples! We have apple flavored crackers, apple granola bars, apple soda...
• Toilet seats. Why don't most toilets in this country have them? We don't need to debate actually utilizing them or not, but it just looks strange.
• Chickens. It's so obvious why people (not me) eat them. They're really dumb, and rarely adorable. However, why is it that some have feathers and some in the same flock look ready to jump in a deep fryer? Do chickens get mange?
  
• Bugambilias. They are probably my favorite flowers I've seen here, and I figured out why. The flowers look more like extremely colorful little leaves than actual flowers, so it's like they're extremely beautiful little trees. And we know how I feel about trees.

Speaking of which, trees of the last few days, and then I'm really going to bed!:

• Tuesday: jabin. We see these everywhere. On Tuesday, in Bacalar, Karen explained to me very specifically how we so easily identify them all the time. I won't bore you. I recognize jabin now.
  
• Wednesday: in Laguna Kana, pucte, a huge tree down by the Laguna that I half climbed
  
• Thursday: in Yoactun, DEFINITELY the amapola
• today in Santa Maria Ponientte: I know the Pich was already mentioned, but come on, who can resist a bunch of grad students measuring the DBH of a giant, beautiful tree in the town square for fun first thing in the morning?

In conclusion, I'm still alive and well and loving trees. Did you notice my invasive bracken fern wasn't mentioned? That's because it barely exists up north!