and then i jumped into quick sand....

So this week I went up to the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve to help out with our biological education program. The lady in charge up there was going to give two all day presentations to 100 kids, all by herself...so of course I offered to go stay up there with her for a week in the mountains :) I felt pretty good about everything at first, I was communicating with the kids, I hadn't spoken English for a whole week, I only had one night of terrible diarrhea. Then, as we were walking out to a river (with 4 teachers and 100 students) we came to a drop off. In front of the drop off was what appeared to be a baked, muddy river bottom. The little kids were hopping down there and running across the cracked, dried mud, and I figured everything was peachy down there in the bottom. So, I jumped from the bank and instantly sank up to my waist. Turns out, in Honduras (and probably everywhere else) mud that looks dried and cracked is probably okay to walk across. Mud that looks smooth and pretty will suck you in up to your waist. So, there I was, stuck in the mud, trying to laugh at myself, when I discovered I couldn't get out. I couldn't move at all. Every time I tried to get one leg out, my other leg sank down farther. So I flung my body at the bank, trying to get some leverage, and after a few minutes of pulling, I was free. At this point those 4 teachers had made it up to the muddy section. They stood up there on the bank saying things like "pero, era illogico, mira el lodo es blando, que estuvo pensando." At which point I realized I had sunk in their estimation from gringa biologist to idiot gringa who can't walk down a path in the campo without almost dying. For the rest of the day I stunk like nasty pond water and was covered in mud. hahaha. yes, the model of the professional image the peace corps keeps telling us we need to maintain.