i seriously believe

that these kids' defense against stomach bugs and parasites has to be the gastrically drastic amounts of coca-cola that they pour into themselves. i mean, that stuff can clean toilets, right? i bet it's just scouring out their little digestive tracts and killing whatever malicious things live in there. i don't drink coca-cola. i'm considering drinking something a little less intense, like my mosquito repellent, to avoid the parasites that seem to have found purchase in my friends.

there are two sets of gringo kids staying here right now. emma and caleb arrived yesterday with their mom and her friend. they're smart, careful kids who threw themselves into whitewashing and sweeping with the rest of the chavalos. they go to bilingual school and are humble about their significant spanish ability. they've renamed themselves mariposa and tigre for the duration of their stay. nayiba keeps calling the little boy león. they get trounced when they play baseball.

hunter and sophia were left here for seven weeks with their 19-year-old nanny while mom returned to the states. they're supposed to be learning spanish but hunter's learned barely enough to beg for soda and ice cream and sophia insists that her spanish teacher paint her toenails. they're pale and spoiled and spend all their time indoors complaining about the lack of television. it's hard to blame them for being brats. the nanny spends all her time chatting with her boyfriend on the internet and merely looks up to tell them not to eat local fruit. i guess sophia was sick for a long time with some stomach bug. she's so incredibly quiet. better than hunter, i suppose, who spends all his spare time crying about something. it's funny how alien they are to the local kids, who just stare at hunter when he cries. they have no clue what this child could have to cry about.

the kids here have all lived on the street or in the tin-and-cardboard houses out near the school. most have lost relatives, brothers, sisters, parents. many of the older ones (and some of the little ones) were pega (glue) addicts and all of them have survived for a time collecting recyclables and begging on the street to survive. by comparison, getting whacked in the head with an inflatable guitar (the cause of hunter's latest fit) is, well, a non-issue.