Week 47, Project 365

There was a period of panic when we thought the camera ate the photos. I was so sad that this close to the finish I wasn't going to be able to participate in Project 365 so you can imagine my relief when, after having to re-boot, the missing photos "magically" reappeared. No sé que pasó pero no importa. ¡Me alegra que reaparecieron!

This first photo is rather disturbing. We noticed this dead bird in the tree next to Centro Esperanza a couple of weeks ago but I didn't remember to take the camera until this week. In order for you to see what it was I had to really zoom in, which means you can't tell that this is about 20-25 feet up in a really, really tall pine.

We first saw it on Halloween and initially thought it was some kid's idea of decorating for the holiday. But when it was still there the next time we realized it was an honest-to-goodness dead bird and not a prop.

Progress on the house next door continues faster than we expected; maybe because the property owner's brother owns the local dry construction company (although they're doing traditional block construction for the first floor)

They have a small portable cement mixer, shoveling the sand in by hand, adding the cement mix and water, and only making as much as they can use quickly.

I thought you'd enjoy seeing a page out of the flier from my grocery store. Now when I say I've gone to the Disco, you'll know my reputation is intact and I've not been out clubbing.

This auto-parts-version of Don Quixote graces the lawn at the municipality. There are odd bits of sculpture scattered throughout the city and I've decided to photographically document as many as possible.

Friday we attended a FREE concert downtown. The city hosts these periodically but few take advantage; there were less than a hundred there for this one. The Ensamble del Sur performed a spectrum of pieces "From Mozart to the Beatles".  In one word: FANTASTIC! Here they are playing the Beatles.

Our friends Julio and Magdalena were also there. Julio is the one who had a close encounter with a propeller a while back. It's amazing how quickly he's healing. You can hardly tell it sliced his chin open. The sweater hides the scars on his arm.

One of the things they did to speed healing was put slices of fresh aloe leaves directly onto the wounds and loosely wrap them into place. (An inexpensive process since aloe grows like weeds around here.)

The Hand & Foot tournament I mentioned in yesterday's post ended in stunning defeat for me and my partner and Ivan continues his winning streak (much to my consternation). We decided it wasn't important who won or lost since we were all getting ice cream anyway, so took a break midway through the game and went to Venezia's. I had sherbert: one scoop of lemon and one of green apple -- my new favorite flavor combination. Normally I'm a chocoholic but when it's this hot I want something light and refreshing and fruity.

Rolling black clouds once again tantalized us with the possibility of rain only to float on by with nary a raindrop released. No rain means the heat continues unabated. It felt so nice inside Venezia's we wanted to take our sleeping bags over and spend the night inside the air conditioned building. (While eating copious amounts of sherbert.)

The one good rainfall earlier this week served to water the grass and weeds currently covering the lake bed by our house, turning it a verdant green. A few weeks ago I jokingly called it the "park-formerly-known-as-a-lake" but it really does look like a lovely field, doesn't it? This was taken from in front of Venezia's on the costanera.

We'd much rather see the softly rippling BLUE waves of water.

This week is Thanksgiving in the U.S. While we're VERY thankful for the many blessings from the Lord, we won't be sitting down to turkey with all the trimmings. Aside from the fact that turkey is nigh unto impossible to find (and ridiculously expensive when you can), we won't be home much that day. I'm helping with exams at the English Institute all week and on Thursday Ivan plans to attend a Suzuki concert in Cordoba with our co-workers, whose daughters will be playing piano. I'm counting on my fellow Project 365 buddies to provide photos of food-laden tables next Sunday -- if I can't have any myself, I'd like to enjoy it vicariously.