Fin de Semana

Fortunately, this town is too small for the cultural peculiarities of the place to be masked by a thin veneer of tourist development. Last night, a truck drove through town while the driver recited on loudspeakers the eulogy of a local woman who had just passed away. It's was a kind of open air memorial service with the entire population in attendance. This afternoon her casket made the trip to the cemetery in the back of a white van, along the main street with at least five hundred people walking behind.

Wherever I go, good food is a priority and the meals here have been simple and tasty, made with love and the freshest ingredients. Each morning pickup trucks full of fruit and vegetables roll in from the countryside, stopping for any housewife who steps out to the roadside. Although a small supermarket has just opened, it presents only a modest threat to the dozens of tiny grocery stores that dot the town, as its selection is underwhelming. When I went over to have a look, the sound system was playing Alvin and the Chipmunks singing in Spanish to a conga beat. It makes me giggle.

My first week of Spanish classes has ended and I am coming to terms with the scale of the challenge I have taken on. How do you achieve reasonable fluency in a language in only four weeks? The first few days gave me an understanding of the teaching method and pace of the programme. As well as reviewing my notes each night, I have begun adding fifty words to my vocabulary and translating a page of the local newspaper each day. I am hoping that, over the month, that should give me at least 1,500 words and a good understanding of the grammar. Guessing where the instruction will go next allows me to prepare in advance for the next day's class. Still, even rapid progress feels painfully slow.

This weekend will be a quiet one. Despite the heat, I have managed to catch a cold and will be giving myself the next two days to get over the worst of it. The volcano climb I had intended is a difficult ascent and the trip to the top and back down takes ten hours of hard effort, so best to wait until I am feeling more able. Maybe surfing deserves another try.