Day 676: Lips Like Fingers

Let´s start backwards. I´ve just been baaaaed at by a totally straight-faced woman behind a restaurant till. I asked her what meat chivo was and she gave herself horns (not even the slightest hint of a smile). I pulled a face that meant 'a cow with horns?', to which she responded with a respectable sheep noise. Still no smile. I ordered by responding in kind. Only after I´d paid her, when I was laughing, did she smile a bit. That, as much as the noise itself, made my day. Just part of the job, people. Just part of the job. Making animal noises for foreigners. Now go and sit down. 

Uma (Thurman)

More animals. Staying at Community Rhiannon in Ecuador, a beautifully organised place with lots of funky buildings, a proper population of dogs and a 7-week old baby (like, not always 7 weeks old... just while I was there), I got to do the donkeys. On the first day, all that entailed was taking the shouty buggers out to graze, then brining them back in to eat. It also involved doing a little wee on some donkey droppings, but that's part of a totally different tale. 

Miriam and Chica Linda having a moment

The second day involved gathering all the donkey poo there was (a lot), mixing it with a lot of human wee, water plants, not water plants, and gross grease drained from the sink. That's not the point, though. Have you seen donkeys eat? They have lips like fingers! I swear if you put out a pen and one of those puzzles where you join the dots, you would come back and find them done. Or if you left tweazers, you would find one of them missing an eyebrow and the other laughing, with the tweazers in its lips. They are incredible! Always carry a pocketful of carrots in case you come across a donkey. Then you'll know. 

Just in case you weren't sure what's in the bag

In Quito, I got ill. It was horrible. I went from having a headache and a tap nose and my skin on inside out to shaking and groaning, shivering and fretting to feeling like an old sports bag that reeks of feet, left in a middle school changing room for a year, creaky with stink, only to then become totally voiceless for a day and a half. Since then, at least 10 days, my voice is coming back centimetre by centimetre. It has ranged from ancient crone to adolescent boy to sultry Spanish smoker to almost my voice, only not. I can just about sing again, but not for long. I appreciate so much more the joys of being well so much of the time and the wonderfulness of this being the first flu thing I remember having in the whole of my life... I still think I got off lightly and I was so beautifully looked after by people in the hostel. Woodie brought me a little sack of tablets; a man with handsome eyes brought me remedies; lovely Sorayda from Venezuela took me to eat chicken soup when I hadn't eaten in days and sat over me saying 'two more spoonfuls' very sweetly until I could eat no more and the hostel people all checked up on me and offered me as many different remedy suggestions as there are toes on people. I felt very loved, albeit by beautiful strangers. Thank you. 

Three goofballs

God, I have had some good people to play with recently. Thanks, Aude. Thanks, Nicky and Helen with your tiny baby and sweet daughter. Thanks Miriam, you have made me laugh like a drain, and thank you Chica Linda, Palo and that other dog, the sweet white one not getting kissed. We ate cuy (guinea pig) and laughed. We at ice cream and laughed. We walked around town and up into the beautiful hills and laughed. Now we are in Bogota, laughing. And talking and doing things and being... really a lot of laughing, though. 

A questionable lunch

Thanks Wolf, for being a peach and for having the best name ever to bark. Thanks, Karen and Julian (please say these in a Spanish accent - they are both Colombian) and your Tea (Teya) baby, all your songs, all your laughter. I am also loving the dogs RinTin and Luna and the cat Uma (like Uma Thurman - I may call her that instead) and the pretty tortoiseshell who doesn't let you touch her, not even for cheese. 

Thanks, Woodie, who I hung out with in Quito and then in Otovalo. A brilliant person, that one, with a very pleasing face that has laughed a lot, and still does. It was time for me to got to Colombia, but I was sorry to leave. 

Chica Linda is a very pretty girl dog indeed

I have been surrounded by beauty and loveliness and am still. I have painted used cooking fat onto posts and brandished a machete as much as possible, swept and cleared, collected and shifted. I have cooked and sewed and talked and internetted. I have grumped and happied (much more of the latter) and learnt and appreciated and felt beautifully appreciated as I turned 45, which feels kind of huge and nothing at the same - just another delicious day and more laughing. It's really quite good, this, isn't it.