Cleaning the Pila (by Laura)

First let me start off with the experience of washing clothes. The pila is about 4 feet deep, 4 feet wide and 5 feet long. It's a concrete basin full of water. Set above it is a little washbasin with a separate drain and a washboard surface on the bottom. I feel like it's a blast from the past when I do my laundry because you have to scoop water out of the pila into the washbasin area to wet your clothes, sprinkle detergent, and scrub away. Then it takes quite a bit of water to rinse each garment. The clothes are line-dried and have the texture of cardboard when done. It's not that bad, but bad enough that I iron every single thing I wash after it dries down to my underwear. It takes quite a while to wash the clothes and you know they're pretty clean when you're sweating profusely and soaked down the front of yourself from the vigourous scrubbing and rinsing. It's actually a lot of fun, I never thought of doing laundry as a form of exercise!

It's the cleaning of the pila when it empties that's not so much fun...it collects algae and dust and forms a nice, brown mud (spa treatment, anyone?) at the bottom. Our neighbor was going to teach us how, but we were completely without water and I knew that the water was going to run yesterday so I decided to take matters into my own hands. There's a plug in the bottom that Todd pulled out and then I had to sweep the nasty mudwater out of a hole that's about the size of a 50-cent piece (the drain is not in the low spot, go figure). This was all while standing inside the pila. Then I had to bleach the walls and sides and sweep THAT water out. Afterwards I put the baggies of crystals that keep mosquitos from making the pila their home on the bottom and plugged it up and prayed that the water would come soon. Thank heavens it did, within half an hour of when I finished! And not while I was standing inside the pila, though on hot days I'm often tempted to jump in to cool off...except that we need to keep the water clean.

Other than that we're staying busy and starting to visit the aldeas and caserios (outlying communities) with Padre Daniel for masses and to get to know the areas. They're very rural but the people are very nice and hospitable and the kids don't know what to make of us. Mostly they just stare but some of them are okay with talking to us if we start a conversation. And they're all so dang cute!

The country is also beautiful. When we went to Valle de Angeles and climbed in elevation on the way, the valleys were so green and the hills in the distance were such a great backdrop. And it reminds me a lot of Washington with all of the pine trees. So amazing and green and still rather natural! I can't describe it! This really is a beautiful country.