small mud house town

In a tiny little town we wandered around aimlessly, not knowing why we were there because our spanish combined wasn´t too hot. Only 20 to 30 families lived here. There are no obvious convienences, five to ten woman walk around slowly and a few children also walk around. The men travel away to work and come back in the evening so there were none around. The women wear the traditional dress of many colourful layers and bowler hats ontop of their plaited hair. If a girl has one plait they are available, if they have two plaits they are married. The guys whipped out their super duper cameras and I whip out my tiny convenience and shoot pictures of these interesting people. They have such curious yet unsure faces and look at cameras in a completely unposed fashion, appearing to not really acknowledge the camera at all - perfect for good photography.

Walking back towards our van a mother looks at me with a tilted head and creased eyebrows, and says aren´t you cold. Having expected Quencha, not Spanish, I was doubly surprised. Wearing soley a tshirt and not a million layers had baffled her. I said I need a tan, to which she responded that she is dark enough already. This makes me sound like I can speak spanish, I really can´t, she spoke very slowly and clearly for me. We must have looked similar to two dogs discovering a bone. We both stared at eachother for a minute with clear curiousity in eachother. My head spins, this is a kodak moment! I ask her if she minds if i take a photo of her. She lets me, still appearing completely baffled and curious as to what planet I came from. Just as I took the photo she seemed to become quite proud that I had asked her noticing her friend behind looking a little jealous. She didn´t seem to know what she was looking at when I showed her the photo on the camera screen. Gracias, adios. Chao gringo. Gringo is foreigner, supposedly it is not meant in a nasty way but rather an affectionate way. In south america it is quite normal to call someone a name by what they look like ie whitey or thin one, or tall one. This is seen as affectionate - not quite the way it would be taken in England.