Stories from the house

I promised earlier some stories told by Alfredo and Cristiana. They are great storytellers and also have tremendous patience with my varying spanish ability. My favorite recent story tells about the orgins of their house.

Cristiana's father was just married to her mother and they were living in a tiny house on the edge of town. While he was sleeping one night, he was awoken by a ghostly woman. This woman told him about some money that was buried beneath the orange tree. She wanted him to dig up the money (that had been buried when there was a war against the Christians) and release her soul. He did this and found a huge stash of money. He used the money to buy their big house near the centro and raised 11 children there. Alfredo and Cristiana later bought the house from him.

Cristiana spent a lot of time making sure I understood how these ghosts are not frightening, because they have no strength of will over a person. They can only hurt you if you give them the power to hurt you. However, she said that they are stuck here until someone can help them finish whatever they were doing before they died. It was a facsinating conversation, not particularly sentimental or emontional but rather matter of fact. She was just describing reality, not something mysterious, or something to really exert much energy on.

Other stories don't translate as well, but I've been learning lots of great words and jokes... in particular, two handy words. A fresa (strawberry) is a person who's kinda stuckup. A mango is a person who is so sexy that you drool.

fun fun!

Crickets...

No, not because I haven't been posting..

In my tacos. Yep, we had cricket tacos. No pics (cuz we were trying to be cool!!). But they were salty and crunchy. Not bad, but a little too salty for my tastes. And small enough so that the legs didn't get stuck in my teeth. Man I hate it when that happens.