Riot today in Los Rios. Eric, my closest volunteer, just got back from the States and headed over to have dinner and watch a movie. Shortly after he arrived his girlfriend called and he went outside to talk. I was sitting on the porch, rocking and enjoying the quiet when the cheering began. It was somewhat quiet at first but as the minutes rolled on it got louder and louder. I wondered what was going on but soon forgot about it when Eric came back and we decided to make egg sandwiches for dinner. Now before you scoff at an egg sandwich for dinner being significant enough news to ignore signs of a riot I must warn you that these are no ordinary egg sandwiches, they have layers of sauteed veggies, roasted garlic, hand cut smoked pork, Gouda cheese, fried eggs and fresh tomatoes all pressed between two slices of perfectly crisp garlic toast. It is one of our favorite Peace Corps dinners here. I digress...we needed to get more eggs and orange juice (nothing makes this sandwich like a cold glass of OJ) so we headed out to the local pharmacy to buy what we needed and again I paused to listen to the chanting and loud yells. Now slightly concerned I told Eric that we should go to my project partner's house after our shopping to find out what was going on since the noise was coming from his direction anyway.

After leaving the pharmacy we wound our way through the main square until we came to the main road near Canin's home. We both stopped and stared. Not 50 feet from the house there was a huge bonfire right in the middle of the bridge. About 50-100 people (it was dark) stood shouting or dragging branches toward the fire. A local doctor stood near me watching ,muttering about tigueres and power outages. I asked where the police where and he scoffed. The tinkling of broken glass reached us and we decided to head back home.

As we arrived Eric mentioned that if we went to the river next to my house we could probably see what was going on at a safe distance. We were standing in the river bed when the first shot rang out, then another and another, people screamed and started running. One man grabbed a stick and started pushing burning logs over the side of the bridge. Someone threw two or three bottles at him and again more shots were fired at the retreating crowd. I thought the man was trying to put out the fire but as soon as there was a pathway through he and another man ran across the bridge carrying large rifles. They swung them around in huge circles and worriedly I whispered to Eric that we should go home, more screams began and they started firing off rounds. The shots continued for a few more minutes after which a loud silence descended over my town. A little while later a few colmados (bars/little stores) started blasting music and now it is if the town is having an after riot party! I am still trying to process what just happened.... Unsurprisingly the threat of death made us rave nos and we ate but in silence. No funny stories from home, no questions about Sinley...