the sand globe of palpa

i was sitting today under a straw awning on a tree trunk bench with several other women in their big hats and dresses and market bags, waiting for a truck with 20 people to come and pick me up. i was heading up the huanchaco in rio grande to do the canal work for this week. it started blowing sand everywhere with the wind, so the book i was reading got covered in a thin film of sand. what's new? i began thinking, it's like i live in one of those snow globes you see with the snowmen in them, only it's filled with sand. one thing i learned early on is that you can't hate the sand. it will always win. so, to succumb to pages that get a film of grimy sand, or the sand in the clothes, or the sand that enters the house and gets all over everything just becomes normal. it just makes washing your face and hair at the end of the nice that much better, because you really appreciate being clean. i also like to think of it as a natural exfoliation.

so, the truck never came to pick me up. i called up agustin, the coordinator in santa cruz for the people, and he said there were only 8 people this week who were going to come. well, that is just a number that is unexceptable. they know that i will not go up there unless there are aroudn 20, because otherwise we will just never get the work done. we will see if they can get 20 people for tomorrow so we can head out and get back to work. it is a little frustraiting when the people can't simply organize themselve to get out there and do work...they even are getting paid for it! the frustraiting part is that this is a project that will help them, we aren't charging, and who doesn't want water!? all they have to do is put the man de obra. we'll see how it develops.

so, i went over to beto's house, my site mate, and chilled. there is a circus in his town right now. it's actually the circus that was in my town for about a month, and was in palpa like 5 months earlier as well. i call it the circo pobre. it's just that. the enterance is tattered, the clothes they wear are old, the music is scratched from years of use, the animals look tired, the actresses are either very young (like 8) or really old, and in total there are like 6 that change roles throughout the show because there just aren't enough people otherwise! the reason the circus is here, is because they didn't make enough money in palpa to support their transportation to another spot, so they moved next door to the even smaller rio grande. i doubt if they will get like 10 people to go from here! i wonder how long i will hear the circus music that starts at 6 when i come to visit beto's house? months...