adventures of the clumsy muchacha

I don’t think I come off as a klutz when you first meet me but if you hang out with me for a decent amount of time, you’ll begin to see that I can definitely be klutzy. This past week was a slow one because school is having its summer vacation week and the health center doesn’t have work for me at the end of the month, so I was in my house watching DVDs, reading and trying not to look at the clock too much. With little to do, I decided to clean, which really means just gathering all my trash to burn and mopping the floor, but factor in my klutzy ways and well, you’ve got a sitcom in the making.

After sweeping my floors and putting all my trash in a pile, I lit some newspapers and threw them into the pile; something that I’ve done for about a year and a half now and have developed my own method for it that I felt was effective. Or so I thought.

My host family came over to my house about 2 weeks ago to cut my grass and clean out my back yard; they also told me that I should start burning my trash under a banana tree so that the ashes could serve as fertilizer (?). I didn’t question it because I was grateful that they came over in the first place to do that work for me without me even asking for it.

Anyhow, I was back in my house, filling the pila up with water so I could mop the floors. I turned around to grab the mop from outside and saw that half the tree was in flames! (Note to self, moron: dried banana leaves burn really, REALLY well). I grabbed some dishes that I use to scoop up water, filled them up and threw water at the tree. The fire went out quickly but not fast enough because my neighbor was looking over the fence and laughing at me. “Were you planning on burning the whole back yard or just the one tree?”, he asked. I looked at him and couldn’t think of anything witty to say in Spanish so I just shrugged and laughed.

Later I mopped the floors in the house and was watching some audio commentary of the Simpsons (yes, I’ve reached that point in my DVDs; I’ve watched them all various times and now will watch all the commentaries). I got out of bed, put on my sandals to get some water from the kitchen, and not thinking clearly, took a step, slipped on the wet floor, grabbed onto my mosquito net for balance and managed to pull the net off the wall. With no leverage, I fell and slid a little forward. I stayed on the floor for another minute just thinking about what a clumsy girl I can be and laughed it off, because really, what else could I do?