And so it was...Easter

It's been awhile since I had a chance to update; however, I had full intentions of doing so Easter weekend. The following is a little gem I decided had to be typed up soon after the event (now almost a month ago). A must read - enjoy. This is my life.

This past Saturday, ready to get back to San Se after a Semana Santa diversion in Xela and another Volunteer’s house, I left early in the morning to catch a bus. Transportation was limited during Holy Week and the country virtually shut down, so leaving early was the only hope of making it back at all.

I set out on the street that I thought led me to the highway, but it made an unnoticeable turn, so before I knew it I was going up a mountain and into a nearby aldea. I stopped to ask for directions and despite my wrong turn, I could still access the highway and could even hear cars driving past somewhere in my general vicinity if I continued walking up.

I checked-in one last time with a woman who was standing on the dirt road, just to make sure my early morning quad workout wasn’t completely worthless. The woman ensured me that I was headed in the right direction, but it became clear that she was standing on the road in search of a passer-by. She asked if I would be able to help her lift something. Seemingly harmless, I said I could help out. I assumed she had to move a table, as many street vendors (before I thought about the fact that this was not the place for a typical street-vendor-setup).

I entered the house compound area and entered the kitchen, including a table, a man standing next to the table and a woman brewing a large pot in the corner, over an open-fire-stove. More family members entered the room and looked surprised of the stranger their mother had picked up along the dirt road. I still thought we were lifting the table until I stepped around the table, where I encountered pig—feet and snout, both tied with a long rope.

I started laughing. I’m not sure if the family thought it was, even in the slightest, a strange proposition to ask a stranger to help lift a pig onto the butcher block in its last moments of life, but all I could do was laugh and say, “Lo siento. Este es muy comico.”

Backup arrived on the scene and two more people entered the room. I’d never lifted a live pig onto a butcher block before. I wanted a tutorial. Do I get gloves? Do I have to bear hug the mid-section, or can I just pull on the rope? Why can’t this just be done from the floor? But there was no time to ask logistics or even logic. I was about to offer all my strength and lift this animal onto the table. This was rather personal…we had just met.

On "tres," we lifted. Uno-dos-tres…and here I am, holding the mid-section of a bound-pig, suspended by a rope. Squirming in the hands of the other helpers and flailing from my rope, I hoped that we didn’t drop it. I wouldn’t have been nice to leave, but I really wasn’t experienced in this area of raising livestock. And on the table it laid.

The woman who recruited me offered me a couple Quetzales. I had to refuse the tip, but instead, asked if I could take a picture.

And there I had evidence to back up my adventure. One wrong turn and I was nearly a butcher. One wrong turn and I made a story, all before 8AM.