Pancakes and Cowboys

I just received an email from home this evening asking me, among other questions, if I had observed Pancake Tuesday yesterday. El Tejado presents the same breakfast menu every morning, and every morning I choose numero dos - scrambled eggs, hash browned potatoes, a sausage, bread and orange juice. For some unknown reason, yesterday morning I decided to break the routine and have pancakes and syrup. I certainly didn't know it was Shrove Tuesday. My guardian angel grew up Catholic, just like me, and he must have nudged my finger down to the bottom of the menu.

Frank was a bit under the weather today and opted to stick close to the hotel. He surfaced for a bit of fresh air later in the afternoon and managed the walk into town for supper, but he's still in some discomfort. Hopefully a good night's sleep will bring back the buoyant and irrepressible guy we know. Bonding is an overused term. I'm guilty myself. But the three of us, F and E and T, have really become a team here. When one of us is down, the others feel it immediately and profoundly. Just don't let Frank know I care about him so much.

Any Health and Safety Police reading this posting should log off right now. As much as we're trying to instill safe practices and work habits, there is a culture of casual disregard here that is difficult to change. Witness the condition of the welder in the photo. We can't very well insist that all the guys show up for work at the school in steel toed boots. Even if everyone wore full body armour and goalie masks, accidents might still occur. Today one of the fellows took a poke in the eye with the end of a piece of wire. No one's fault. But the problem was his refusal to seek medical attention. Maybe a machismo thing. After a few minutes of fruitless insistence, I phoned Tito, who came immediately and calmly persuaded Mario to go to the hospital. Thankfully, no serious damage had been done and the patient returned to the school with a bag of antibiotics and some pain killers.

The highlight of the day for me occurred a block from the school. We were on our way downtown for lunch and were forced to wait a minute or two while a farmer and his helper prodded a herd of twenty cattle over to the side of the main road into town. A cattle truck costs lots of money, uses gasoline or diesel fuel and, even in Suchitoto, probably requires insurance. God blessed cows with moving legs and hard hooves, so really, the event I watched today at noon made perfect sense.