#i wish we could have seen the other tantas

[claudiaeparvier]

I have so many forspoken thoughts idek where to begin honestly

[ask-casino-cups-swap-au]

“Where are we going?” Lucifer asked as Elder Kettle led him by the arm.

It was a starry night, and they had arrived in the town, where everyone seemed to be setting up their stalls, and several people were carrying blankets and baskets.

“It’s... a surprise, Luci. It’s going to be an incredible surprise, trust me,” Elder Kettle replied. But Lucifer couldn’t focus much on his words; his mind was occupied with the other people in the town, the food stalls, and the lights decorating every place.

“What’s happening? Why are there so many people?” Lucifer asked, still confused.

“It’s a festival, the people here are excited about an event happening tonight,” Elder Kettle squeezed Lucifer’s hand a little and lowered his gaze to look at him. “It’ll be fun.”

But Lucifer didn’t respond, too focused on the looks of the other people.

“Luci... are you okay?” Elder Kettle asked, still walking and now looking ahead, gently rubbing Lucifer’s hand.

“There are just so many people,” Lucifer replied in a quieter voice, moving closer to Elder Kettle.

“Don’t worry,” Elder Kettle nudged him a bit to place the little one by his side. “Don’t think too much about the people in the town, we’ll have plenty of time for you to adjust, but for now, it’s just you and me, okay?” Elder Kettle rubbed Lucifer’s head, and he twitched his ears a little in response, pulling his head away slightly.

“You know... after this, we can eat anything you want,” Lucifer’s eyes lit up a bit as he heard these words, and his ears perked up at the news.

After that, they headed out of the city; as they walked, more people joined them, and when they reached their destination, everyone spread out their blankets in different spots. Some people also had baskets with food and chatted while looking at the sky.

Even though they didn’t bring a blanket, they sat on the grass. As they sat down, Lucifer hugged his legs.

“Can I know what’s happening now?” the little one asked while anxiously swinging his legs up and down.

“Patience, Luci,” the old man chuckled a bit as he settled on the grass. “All good things are worth waiting for.”

Resigned, Lucifer gazed up at the sky until he noticed a small streak of light. He tilted his head in confusion until he could see that it was a shooting star, surrounded by a very bright glow. It was the first time he had seen a shooting star, and soon many more started crossing the sky, lighting it up with a white glow. Excited, Lucifer crawled forward on his knees to get a better view of the spectacle, completely mesmerized.

“Ah! Look at that!” Lucifer exclaimed excitedly, pointing at the sky. “It’s beautiful, all those stars!” He couldn’t contain his excitement, his tail wagging a bit.

“Ha ha... you won’t have many nights like this. Was the wait worth it?” Elder Kettle asked, smiling as he watched Lucifer’s change in attitude.

Lucifer turned to look at him and nodded before returning his gaze to the sky. “I wish every night could be like this.”

“It’s a shame they’re not, but you can always make the most of them, live in the moment, feel it, and make it yours. And it will live on forever in your memory, even when everything else seems like it won’t,” Elder Kettle’s words resonated in Lucifer’s mind for a moment before he refocused on the stars.

Elder Kettle moved closer to Lucifer and stayed by his side, holding him as they both watched the meteor shower.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

—¿Dónde vamos?—preguntó Lucifer mientras Elder Kettle lo llevaba del brazo.

Era una noche estrellada, y habían llegado al pueblo, donde todos parecían estar alistando sus puestos y varias personas llevaban mantas y canastas.

—Es... una sorpresa, Luci. Será una sorpresa increíble, créeme.—Contestó Elder Kettle. Sin embargo, Lucifer no podía concentrarse mucho en sus palabras, su mente estaba enfocada en las demás personas del pueblo, en los puestos de comida y las luces que decoraban cada lugar.

—¿Qué está pasando? ¿Por qué hay tanta gente?—preguntó, aún confundido, Lucifer.

—Es un festival, la gente de aquí está emocionada por un evento que pasará esta noche—Elder Kettle apretó un poco la mano de Lucifer y bajó la mirada para verlo—. Será divertido.

Pero no hubo respuesta de Lucifer, quien estaba demasiado enfocado en las miradas de las demás personas.

—Luci... ¿estás bien?—Elder Kettle preguntó, aún caminando y enfocando su mirada hacia adelante ahora, mientras sobaba un poco la mano de Lucifer.

—Es que hay mucha gente—Lucifer respondió con una voz más baja, acercándose más a Elder Kettle.

—Tranquilo—Elder Kettle lo empujó un poco para colocar al pequeño a su lado—. No pienses mucho en la gente del pueblo, ya tendremos mucho tiempo para que te adaptes, pero por ahora solo somos tú y yo, ¿okay?—Elder Kettle sobó la cabeza de Lucifer y este movió un poco sus orejas en respuesta, alejando su cabeza un poco.

—Sabes... luego de esto podemos comer cualquier cosa que tú me pidas—. Apenas escuchó estas palabras, los ojos de Lucifer se iluminaron un poco, y sus orejas también se levantaron tras la noticia.

Después, ambos se dirigieron a las afueras de la ciudad; en su caminata, más gente los acompañaba, y al llegar a su destino, cada uno en diferentes lugares colocaba sus mantas; algunas personas llevaban también canastas con comida y charlaban mientras miraban al cielo.

A pesar de que ellos no llevaron una manta, se sentaron en el césped. Al sentarse en el césped, Lucifer abrazó sus piernas.

—¿Ya puedo saber qué está pasando?—preguntó el pequeño mientras balanceaba sus piernas ansiosamente.

—Paciencia, Luci—rio un poco el viejo acomodándose en el césped—. Todo lo bueno se hace esperar.

Lucifer, resignado, miró el cielo hasta que notó una pequeña estela en el cielo. Él inclinó su cabeza confundido hasta que pudo ver por completo que se trataba de una estrella fugaz, con un brillo bastante grande que la rodeaba. Era la primera vez que veía una estrella fugaz, y con eso empezaron a pasar muchas más por el cielo, iluminando todo el cielo de color blanco. Lucifer, emocionado, se arrastró con sus rodillas para estar más adelante y poder ver aquel espectáculo, quedó totalmente maravillado.

—¡Ah! ¡Mira eso!—Lucifer exclamó con emoción mientras apuntaba al cielo—. ¡Es hermoso, todas esas estrellas!—No pudo contener su emoción, haciendo que su cola se moviera un poco.

—Ja, ja... no tendrás muchas noches como esta, ¿valió la pena la espera?—preguntó Elder Kettle mientras observaba con una sonrisa el cambio de actitud de Lucifer.

Lucifer volteó a verlo y asintió con la cabeza para regresar su mirada al cielo—. Me gustaría que cada noche fuera igual.

—Es una pena que no lo sean, pero siempre puedes sacar lo mejor de ellas, vivir el momento, sentirlo, y hacerlo tuyo. Y vivirá por siempre en tu memoria, así será permanente, incluso aunque todo lo demás parezca que no—. Lucifer escuchó atentamente las palabras de Elder Kettle, resonaron en su cabeza por un momento antes de volver a enfocar su mirada en las estrellas.

Elder Kettle se acercó a Lucifer y se quedó a su lado, abrazándolo mientras ambos veían la lluvia de estrellas.

[awacatin]

15 questions

15 mutuals

I was tagged by @bright-elen :3c

1. Are you named after anyone?

No? Maybe from an x-files character but idk if it´s legit or a joke my dad likes to tell me

2. When was the last time you cried?

Last week. Family gathering conversations had not been kind to me

3. Do you have kids?

No, I´m too young. I don´t think I want tho. It´s such an enormous responsibility to care for a child. I can´t even handle myself.

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

I do in person but I try not to online w other ppl, I get anxious that I´m being rude

5. What sports do you play/have you played?

Volleyball back when I had my Haikyuu fever in highschool. I was terrible at it lmao, only lasted a semester.

When I was even younger I loved doing gimnastics and I was rly good at it!

6. What’s the first thing you notice about other people?

Nervous ticks, clothing, accessories

7. What’s your eye colour?

Brown

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

BOTH. I thrive from scaring myself and happy stuff.

9. Any special talents?

I´m very flexible!

10. Where were you born?

a small hot state where ppl from the capital go to spend their vacations. it´s green, very warm, beautiful and dangerous. there´s nothing to do in there. there´s a long bridge that leads to nowhere and it took ages to build. there´s another bridge that took ages to build and there´s a wall in front of it. My favorite cakes only exist in that state iirc.

I miss it sometimes but I´m glad we left

11. What are your hobbies?

drawing, collecting trash, dead animal photography, trying to get into doll-making, collecting rocks n devil-themed crafts n religious stuff (figurines, crosses, cards)

12. Do you have any pets?

3 cats and 1 puppy!!!! they´re my little babies, I could stare at them for hours

13. How tall are you?

1.55m orz

14. Favorite subject in school?

maths + art

15. Dream job?

None. Genuinely wish I could be some crab existing where light never shines, never to be seen by human eyes, and with a high probability of dying in a brine pool.

15 mutuals:

thats so many mutuals what the fuck. feel free to ignore. sry if I tagged u n we´re not mutuals lmao

this @littlesuns97 @tired-dummy @bloodsbane @ashes-in-a-jar @xenolinn @couldbeglorious @hotdrinks @luxiiien @dundeelemonade @princess-of-purple-prose @saintbleeding (no son 15 pro m da amsiedad taggear tanta gente lmao)

[longitud-de-onda]

piece of your heart

pairing; javier peña x female reader summary; javi takes you out dancing and drunkenly starts saying things in spanish that you can’t understand rating; t warnings; alcohol, drunkenness (and the vomiting that comes after), unrequited feelings (or not?), and angst. word count; 2.4k requested; by two anons. requests under break. a/n; combined these two requests and wrote this on a plane. there’ll be a part two 😉

“javi request where he takes the reader dancing 🥺 something similar to the dance in 3x1 of narcos thank u sm and ur the best !! 💖”

“You are at a bar after work with Steve and Javi. Javi asks you to dance with him. He is drunk & kind of grinding on you and he starts to say some things in Spanish. You don't speak Spanish very well, and assume he is saying lewd things, but when you go home, you remember some of the things he said and you put them in Google Translate and he is actually confessing really sweet things like he loves you, you are the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, an he is so screwed.”

“So, tonight? Wanna go out dancing with some of the others?” Javier has just walked up to your desk and sat on top of your work, staring you down.

“Dancing? No thanks,” you tell Javier.

Going out dancing with Javier Peña? That involved alcohol and lowered inhibitions and you aren’t ready to do that. You’ll admit, having him here, asking you to go dancing with him, it hurts. You can imagine in another life, one where you weren’t living in Colombia and meddling with international politics in a way even the US President would likely disapprove of, you could be brave, step up and tell Javi how you felt. But you were both in a line of work that didn’t allow for relationships, and catching feelings was the worst illness that could befall you.

And you had caught the virus.

“Come on, it’s been a hell of a week for everyone. There’s about seven of us, going over to the disco downtown, we can get plastered, forget about work, have a bit of fun?” he smiles at you, and you shake your head.

“Not tonight, Javi,” you say. “Anyway, it’s Friday, and we work tomorrow.”

You’ve said yes before. That night sucked. You watched him flirt with every woman in the bar, watched him make out with a young woman in a booth. You cried the entire drive home, and on your way up to your apartment, you passed his first-floor apartment and could hear the moans coming from inside. There was nothing crueler than wanting someone you couldn’t have, someone who would sleep with anyone, except you.

The feeling had weighed heavy on your heart for a long time now, and while it was easy to avoid the man, given that you worked in different departments, he managed to find a reason to visit you. Sneaking him classified documents. Helping him with a wiretap. Doing background checks. And every time he asked you’d comply if only to get a few extra minutes of his presence. A bit more time where that smile was directed at you and not one of the many other women in the building. A few moments where you could pretend that he cared.

“You sure? It’s not really a night without my favorite CIA agent,” he says, putting on the sly grin he uses to bend anyone’s will. The one he uses to get informants to reveal a bit more than they intended.

You want, so badly, to say no. To not force yourself to survive another night of suffering. But you’re weak and probably a masochist. And there’s the fact that he’s asking you, begging you, to come with him. To spend time with him. Even if it means you’ll end the night in tears, historically you’ve never been one to turn down time with Javier, no matter how much it hurt, and you weren’t going to stop tonight.

“Fine, but you’re buying the first round,” you agree.

“Good!” He jumps off of your desk. “It’s gonna be great. See you at eight.”

“Eight, okay...”

He leaves the room, a bit more bounce in his gait, and you smile to yourself, knowing that you were the reason for his excitement.

The day passed slowly, you had too many reports to read through and not enough coffee could keep you going. When you finished for the day, you were one of the last ones still in the office, and you headed home, looking forward to a shower and some warmed up leftovers for dinner.

You don’t have plans to drink too much. You don’t want to be hungover at work, and you had a tendency to spill secrets when wasted. With Javier around, that wasn’t something you wanted to get involved with. Still, you make sure you’ve got enough food in your stomach and drink some water so that the inevitable multitudes of shots you’ll be coerced into drinking don’t go straight to your head.

At eight, you’re waiting in the foyer of the complex, along with Steve, Connie, Marta, the current ambassador’s secretary, and Anthony, one of the other DEA agents that lived in the complex. You were going to be meeting another 5, apparently, at the disco. It was turning into quite the evening, especially considering that you had work the next day. You were told the plan was to take two cars over, so two groups could head back whenever, and if you were too drunk, it was close enough you could probably walk or just take a taxi if things went south.

Javi is obviously rushing as he bursts out of his apartment, still buttoning up his shirt. You let your eyes roam over him from the back of the group. He had put some effort into the look for the evening, a nice pair of slacks than he usually wore, and he had done something with his hair.

It makes you feel more than a bit self-conscious of how unimpressive you look before you mentally slap yourself. You’re not here to impress Javier. You don’t need to put in an effort, even if you did he still wouldn’t go for you.

“Ready?” Javier asks, and you all exit the building.

Two hours into the evening, you’re sufficiently tipsy after a couple beers. You had resisted Connie’s multiple offers of shots, but you didn’t stop her from dragging you onto the dance floor for a solid hour. You’re sweaty and a bit tired already, back at the bar where some of the guys in your group are gathered.

You watch as Javier starts knocking back shots of tequila with Anthony, something you weren’t expecting. He was always the one to slowly sip at a glass of whiskey over the night, or drink beer. He must really want to get drunk tonight.

You slip onto a barstool and order a bottle of beer. Javier is a couple feet away, and he’s already acting like he’s lost all control, and you worry about his fate in the morning. He wasn’t usually this careless with his alcohol.

He sidles up next to you, “Y/N! We should go dance.”

He wraps an arm around your shoulders, trying to pull you up off your seat.

“Javi, no,” you say. You should be jumping for joy. Happy that he actually wants to spend time with you. But you know that it’s only because he’s so incredibly drunk.

“Please, darling? I didn’t invite you out so that you could sit here.” he drawls out, his Texas accent appears in moments like this, and you wish it didn’t make you feel things.

He drags his hand down your bare arm, wrapping his fingers around your hand and pulling you up.

“Okay.” You must hate yourself.

He pulls you through the crowds into the center of the dance floor. Arms wrap around your waist, pulling you flush against him, and you yelp in surprise.

“¿Todo bien, compañera?” he laughs in your ear, something light and fluttery.

“Javi you know I don’t speak Spanish,” you say, bowing your head.

“You should, it would sound so beautiful coming from you,” he says and you close your eyes, reminding yourself that he’s so far gone he doesn’t know what he’s saying.

He starts to sway to the music, and his hands on your waist radiate heat straight through your dress. The whole disco is hot, but you feel even warmer wrapped up in Javier. The music thrums through your body, and you look up at his eyes, glittering with the almost-goofy smile he wears.

You want to imagine that this is real. That he’s here, hands all over you, because he wants to. You wish you could move your hands down from around his neck, or pull him in tighter, and not regret it tomorrow morning. You know you’re going to wake up tomorrow alone in bed, remembering how much could have happened if Javier cared, and that he will wake up, probably with someone else, someone who’s in this very room right now.

That thought almost makes you let go of Javier and run away, but he pulls your hips into his, rolling up against you. He lets out a moan that shoots straight to your core, and you close your eyes tight, hoping you’ll open them again for this to be just a dream.

Instead, you open them at the feeling of his breath, hot near your ear.

“Eres tan hermosa, Y/N,” he says.

You don’t know a word he’s saying but you’re pretty sure you have an idea of what he means. He’s grinding up against you, drunk and probably horny, like he is most nights, the words likely meaning something about how he’d like to take you here on the dance floor. Something disgusting and quick and meaningless.

“Me vuelves loco.”

But you’re too tipsy to get caught up on that. You want to pretend he’s saying anything but what you know he’s going on about. Want to pretend his arms aren’t slinking lower down your back until they brush over your ass. You want to believe he’s doing it because he wants to.

You decide it’s better to let go for the night. Maybe you can pretend. Just for an hour.

The music washes over you, and you move your hips along with his, and while he takes the lead, you follow, dancing as if you knew what you were doing.

“Cuando bailas así, no quiero que todos estén aquí,” he groans, “Quiero estar a solas contigo.”

If only you knew what he was saying. If you knew exactly what sort of lewd things he is saying, maybe it would be enough to knock some sense into your head and leave him on the dance floor. But you don’t.

Thank god you don’t.

It means you get to dance in his arms for a little bit more.

“No sabes, porque tu español es una mierda, pero estoy con tantas mujeres para que pueda intentar olvidarte,” he says, “Es tortura, tener alguién tan perfecta como tú, tan cerca, pero tan inalcanzable.”

When he speaks Spanish, he sounds so different. Sometimes, like now, it’s like he’s reciting a love poem. Other times, like when you hear him talking to the police, he becomes someone commanding and aggressive. Not like the Javier who spoke English to you, smiled, and sheepishly asked for favors.

“Nunca ha funcionado, no puedo olvidarte,” he says.

“Javi, you know I don’t understand you, right?” you say and he responds by thrusting his hips into you again. You bite your lip, and it only becomes more painful as you feel his bulge against your body. You’re just another body for him. And that is a sobering realization. You’re about to cry and you’re glad he’s looking over your shoulder and can’t see your face.

“Deseo poder besarte,” he whispers in your ear, “Te quiero.”

You were so stupid to fall for such a man. It’s killing you.

With one hand still on your ass, he brings the other one up, palming your breast. The moan you involuntarily release shocks you enough to push him away.

“Javier,” you say, panicking, “I can’t—“

Before you say anything more you see the twisted look on his face, somewhere between completely ravaged and utterly lost. You turn and, pushing through people, go back to the bar, where you order a shot which you quickly down before sitting down and letting the tears fall.

After fifteen minutes of looking like the saddest person in the disco, the bartender takes pity on you and gives you a glass of water and some tissues. You thank her.

The night had so quickly turned to shit. It was so much worse than previous ones. It was a torture you couldn’t handle anymore.

“Y/N!” screams a voice in your ear, someone drunk and loud.

You turn. It’s Marta.

“What?”

“It’s Javier, he’s outside puking. You’re the soberest of us you need to take him home.”

Shit. Of course this would happen.

“Fine, but take care, Marta, I don’t want you not making it home tonight.”

She thanks you and disappears into the throngs of people.

You settle your tab and Javier’s and go outside. Javier is sitting on the curb, keeled over and emptying his guts onto the stone streets.

If your heart didn’t hurt so much, you’d laugh. You hadn’t known anyone over the age of 30 drunk themselves to this point.

“Javier?” you say.

He looks up and starts to say something, but you can see the regret on his face flash upon opening his mouth as it only brings on another wave of nausea. You look away.

When he finishes, you say, “Come on, Javi, let's get you home.”

He tries to stand and you have to dive into his side to stabilize him. When you’re in a position where you can support his weight, you guide him towards his car.

You strap him into the passenger seat and reach your hand into his pocket, finding the car keys.

The ride home he stays silent. He hasn’t said a word to you since he was whispering in your ear on the dance floor. You suppose he has a fair reason to not open his mouth now though. Probably doesn’t want to soil his own vehicle.

You get him into his apartment just fine, set him up with a glass of water and make him take some pain meds.

“Don’t die on me Javi, no choking on your vomit overnight, okay?” you say and he nods.

Back in your apartment, you sit down on your couch. You should go to sleep. You need to be at work in 7 hours.

But some vicious part of your mind reminds you of the words Javier had said. You curse your curiosity and pull out your Spanish dictionary.

You only remember three phrases, “quiero estar a solas contigo,” “deseo poder besarte,” and “te quiero.”

As you look up the words, your eyes widen. Quiero: I want. Estar: To be. Solas: alone. Contigo: with you.

Shit.

Deseo: I wish. Poder: to be able to. Besarte: to kiss you.

Fuck.

The last one requires you to look it up in the phrasebook. ‘I want you’ didn’t feel right. When you find it you almost drop the book on the floor.

Te quiero: I love you.

next part

translations;

¿Todo bien, compañera?

Everything okay, partner/colleague/girlfriend?

Eres tan hermosa

You are so beautiful

Me vuelves loco.

You drive me crazy

Cuando bailas así, no quiero que todos estén aquí. Quiero estar a solas contigo.

When you dance like that, I don’t want everyone to be here. I want to be alone with you. 

No sabes, porque tu español es una mierda, pero estoy con tantas mujeres para que pueda intentar olvidarte

You don’t know because your Spanish sucks, but I’m with so many women so I can try to forget you

Es tortura, tener alguién tan perfecta como tú, tan cerca, pero tan inalcanzable.

It’s torture, having someone as perfect as you, so close, yet so unreachable. 

Nunca ha funcionado, no puedo olvidarte 

It’s never worked, I can’t forget you

Deseo poder besarte 

I wish I could kiss you

Te quiero. 

I love you

taglist; @pascalisthepunkest​ @turquiosenights @el-lizzie​

[smolfangirl]

Cómo te pido

Based on the song and mv for “Cristina” by Sebastián Yatra, and some of my own experiences. I hope you enjoy this ♥

Word count: 5.8k

///

Entre tanta gente yo te vi llegar

Algo en el destino me hizo saludar

///

One day off. One single day of getting lost in the city, not found by anyone except himself. That’s all he wants, craves, after weeks and weeks of being praised as someone who exists solely in the minds of the media and his fans.

One day, and he couldn’t even get that.

It starts with some teenagers chilling on the staircase to the metro, asking for pics, and soon they’ll be all over Instagram and a group of paparazzi and reporters will follow him – Matteo knows the deal. The business.

And frankly, he’s tired of it.

///

The moment he steps into the bar, he wonders if this was the right decision. The air feels hot in his lungs, the smell of cigarettes and cheap beer burns in his nose, while his eyes struggle to find the barkeeper in the crowd blocking the counter. He pulls the hood of his sweatshirt deeper into his face before he slowly makes his way to the bar.

No one looks at him for more than just a second.

///

She’s looking at him.

The stage light creates the illusion of a halo around her, and she’s looking at him with a smile so bright and honest, he can’t tear his gaze away from her. At first, he feared she recognized him, saw through his terrible disguise, but the longer he watches her, the more he relaxes. During his career, he’s seen hundred versions of people spotting him and freaking out. That girl is not one of them.

So, he winks back at her.

///

Her voice sounds as sweet and golden as on the stage, like honey that’s sticking to his soul instead of his fingers. She appears next to him out of nowhere, asking if the seat is taken as she already casually jumps on it. With a chuckle, he replies that he won’t ask her to leave, and the moment she directs another smile at him, the burden of being a superstar whirls off his shoulders.

“Do you usually arrive only to see the last performance of the night?” she asks, head tilted. Her hair falls freely over her shoulder, a tangled mess that somehow frames her face perfectly.

Grimacing, he reaches for his drink. The wine still tastes like a grape took a piss in his glass, although that detail is forgotten the instant he figures out what to answer. “No, but usually, the last performance isn’t worth paying attention to.”

“You’ve never been here before.”

“And you’ve never had a drink with someone as cool as me.”

That makes her laugh. He feels pride rushing through his veins, like when his music makes someone happy or when his mom looks at him with tears in her eyes after watching a performance from him.

She leans closer. “Technically, I’m not having a drink right now.”

The smile on his face never leaves, only deepens. “Then it’s about time we change that.”

///

At some point after midnight, long after his phone ran out of battery, the barkeeper releases a heavy sigh and asks them to leave. They’re the only ones left in the entire room.

At the exit, he stops. Glances over his shoulder, at this place he’d never expect to find (or look for). For a few hours, he had a safe haven, away from fans, flashing cameras and obnoxious voices chanting his name. It was worth the stifling air, the hint of vomit out of the toilets, the headache the cheap wine will give him in the morning. Whatever happened tonight will end too soon, even when he’s not ready to give it up just yet.

“You okay?” Luna’s hand lingers on his arm, gently guides him back to reality, where her last laugh still echoes through the bar.

Upon facing her, he discovers a frown on her face. “Yeah, sure. Just wanted to make sure I left nothing behind.”

“Okay.”

The air leaking inside from the entrance hits him with all its coldness, reminding him of what kind of world he’s returning to.

Silencing the sigh rooted in his chest, Matteo hides in his hoodie again. “Okay, let’s go.”

She holds him back. Lets her hand hush over his cheeks, carefully tugging the fabric until the hood falls on his back. “You shouldn’t hide such a beautiful face.”

His breath hitches. Eventually, he whispers back, “You can never be too careful in a city like this.”

“I keep wondering if you’re new around here, you know?”

That’s the curse of being a star, he thinks. He’s not new to this city – or any other – yet knows nothing that exists outside of his hotel and the venue. And with Luna, everything feels new altogether.

“I am.”

She smiles, again, and if every camera in the world had only one picture left, that’s what he’d photograph. “I can show you around then, if you’d like.”

///

Y empecé mis planes para vernos otra vez

///

“You want me to put skates on my feet?” Half protesting, half questioning her, his mind already paints vivid pictures of him in an emergency room, sitting in a wheelchair with one leg and two arms broken, as his manager yells at him.

“What did you think the helmets were for?”

“I don’t know, something less dangerous? Cycling, maybe?”

“Are you trying to tell me you never skated before?”

Matteo sighs, rubbing his arm. “I used to. As a kid.” In the street where his grandparents used to live, back in Italy. Some part of his body always carried a scratch or a bruise during those summer days, he remembers ending up on the ground a lot, and the band-aids his mom used to ease the pain. (With funny little fruits on them.)

Luna dangles her boots in front of him with a smile that sends his heart into overdrive. “Then this will be even more fun.”

“Luna…” His heartbeat picks up at the mere idea of falling. When he was younger, he felt invincible enough to risk it, but looking at her, at the skates, he feels like his whole body is made of glass.

“I’ll hold your hand the entire time.”

Maybe he won’t fall.

///

He can’t remember the last time it’s been so dark around him. On the street, cameras blind him even through his sunglasses. At home, his phone never gives him a rest, blinking for every message, every notification that comes in. Even in the bar they met in light leaked behind closed doors, from the stage or as a broken reflection from a cocktail glass. His whole world is bright and open and cruel – there’s no shadow to make one wrong move in.

Here, everything is dark and soft and honest. When he glimpses behind the curtain, he can see the stars sprinkled over the sky. Next to him, Luna is dozing off, the silver moon light dancing on her cheekbone. He can hear the beat of his own heart, calm and steady in a rhythm it hasn’t found in years.

Just as he closes his eyes, Luna shifts on the mattress until he feels her gaze settle on him. “I can’t believe I’m doing this”, she whispers.

“What, camping?”

“Going on a road trip with someone I barely know. You could be an axe murderer.”

Or worse, a popstar who could get you on the front cover of every gossip magazine you ever heard of. Out loud, he chuckles. “Damn, you caught me. How will you fall asleep now that you discovered my darkest secret?”

She tries to slap him on his arm only to hit his blanket, and he keeps her fingers locked and secure in his own hands. “You know what, Luna, you put up too much of a fight. I’m gonna have mercy on you.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“And you’re freezing.”

Her voice grows softer, shy almost. “The blanket’s not very warm.”

For a moment, they fall quiet. The wind creates a melody in the tree tops, plays with the leaves like a five-year old chasing a ball, and Matteo thinks about the bottom drawer in his mom’s kitchen, the one that doesn’t close completely, because of this one pot that’s a millimeter too big. He thinks about the empty jars his mom keeps in there for her strawberry marmalade, and how he wants to store this feeling in them, forever. This moment, this peace, won’t last, but perhaps he could lock it away, remember it, completely: the wind outside, the muffled rustling from his blanket as he robs closer to her. How her body curves against his like she’s a matching puzzle piece.

How he falls asleep, wondering if all these coincidences that lead him here are just his destiny in disguise.

///

He’s been to many beaches. Beaches in Italy during his childhood, where he mostly cared about how good the sand would build up to castles. Beaches on vacations, where he was surrounded with people who didn’t wish to be bothered by anyone, just like him. Once or twice he performed at a beach festival. He got his skin burned, got tanned. Went swimming and snorkeling and hired jet skis to cruise on the ocean.

He never just stood and watched.

“What a view, huh?”

Next to him, Luna stands in the breeze, eyes half closed as she wears this smile again that could replace the sun. Her dress softly flaps around her legs, and the wind plays with her hair. Yeah, what a view.

“I wonder if there’s a way to get down there,” he says out loud.

Grimacing, she glances down the cliff separating them from the ocean. “Unless you wanna jump down there, I don’t think so.”

“That’s a shame.”

“There’ll be other beaches, you know. That we can actually go to.” Her fingers dance over his arms, the silent encouragement only contradicted by the soft laugh that follows. Goosebumps run over his skin, his stomach ties itself into a knot, but Matteo can’t quite fathom a smile. As long as they’re alone, his mind is too full of her and the rush of emotions she brings along like a fresh breath of air after sitting in the studio all day. But she’ll say something like this, reminding him that there’s more out there, people and social media and another life for him, and his chest tenses until he’s almost suffocating.

Luna has no clue, of course. She doesn’t know better, so she lets him discover her, lets him read through her past and thoughts and feelings like it’s nothing more than a sweet novel to get lost in during vacations. And he knows better, so he turns page after page, trying to memorize the lines, the ticking clock a constant noise in the back of his mind.

The more he gets to know her, the more he dreads going back to the spotlight. (The more he falls for her, too.)

“Let me take a picture of you. With this beach, okay?” he begs her. The dimple on her cheek deepens as she carefully places her camera in his hand. Her touch still lingers on his palm when he snaps the first picture, and he can’t hurry enough to capture the softness in her gaze, or the brightness in her smile. He hasn’t grown tired of admiring her, and with the camera in his hands, he finally allows himself to keep more than just a fond memory. If a few pictures are going to be the only thing left when reality catches him in its iron fist again, he’ll hold onto every tiny snippet of them.

///

Luna takes pictures of him, too. On that cliff, in front of the crystal-clear sky which is only outdone by the shimmering blue of the ocean. In a small town when they wander through the streets and follow graffities bursting with color. When they stumble upon the kid bringing the grey walls to life with his spray cans, and he poses with him as if they were best friends. When she invites him for ice cream and a hungry seagull steals his cone directly out of his hand.

Every night after dawn, she cuddles up to him in the campervan to show him her favorite pictures.

Once, she’s fast asleep next to him, he scrolls through his phone to the file with the pictures from photoshoots and magazine covers. The Matteo in there smiles too, but it isn’t real. Luna brings out the smile in his eyes, and in the picture he’s staring at, the curve on his lips is plastered on like the make-up on his forehead. For his work, he acts like a mannequin, nothing more than a prop to polish someone’s Instagram page and give his fans the illusion of knowing him.

In Luna’s pictures, he’s happy. Silly even, if he wants to. When she focuses her camera on him, there’s no expectation in the little click of the lens, so he lets go and smiles because one look from her pulls the corners of his mouth up. Sometimes she pulls a grimace at him that he copies, and sometimes, he leans down to kiss her cheek right before she takes a selfie.

He hopes that when this is over, she’ll look at these little moments, knowing she unlocked a side of him no one else saw before.

///

Recuerdo todo lo que te gustaba

Y tu camisa que llega a los pies

Esa carita cuando te cantaba por primera vez

///

Her phone died. In the middle of the song, two seconds away from her favorite part, and he expects the pout on her face before he tears his gaze away from the street. Before he met her, he never even heard of the band, too busy with his own music. Now, his fingers tap the melody on the steering wheel with ease, and he finishes the song so naturally like the words were tattooed into his veins. It’s not until he falls silent again that he glimpses over to her.

Tears glisten in her eyes.

“You have a beautiful voice,” she whispers.

“Thanks,” he replies, smiling to himself. (After signing his first contract, he never thought these words could mean so much again.)

“I mean it. I can totally see you becoming a singer or something. Hey, maybe I could ask Simón if he’d be up for a collaboration, or…” Her enthusiasm intensifies with every word she rambles, but it’s not contagious this time, not when his mind already paints a new picture of the worst case. She probably knows her best friend’s phone number by heart, and she’ll sneak his phone out of his pocket to call him, and he’ll know more about a certain Matteo Balsano than she imagines, so she’ll find out who he is (or who everyone else knows him as) and hate him and he’ll have to let her go, and he’s not ready for that.

“Matteo?” Her voice snaps him back to reality. “Are you okay?”

Is he? His knuckles turned white as he’s driving, and he clenches his teeth so hard that his jaw hurts. “Um, sure, yeah. I’m fine. I just don’t think I’m the type for a boy band.”

The frown on her forehead tells him he seriously needs to work on his white lies. But before she gets to needle him with more questions, Matteo gives her his most charming smile and asks, “Are you in for a duet though? Like, right now?”

A few minutes later he thinks that no professionally recorded and produced duet could ever live up to the harmony that is her voice melting into his.

///

Y si pudiera mostrarte

Que estando juntos ya no hay nada que falte

///

She asked him to pull over, again. The coastal view tempted her too much, and she’s sorry and hiding behind her open hair, even when he’s coming to a stop without as much as raising an eyebrow. Leaning against the van, Matteo watches her standing in the breeze, arms wide open, a huge smile on her face. One glance over her shoulder, and he’s by her side. She raises an eyebrow at him, more a challenge than a question, so he smirks and twirls her around until a laugh pearls over her lips. Bumping into his chest, Luna is still giggling, still making his heart feel like a race car that’s cruising his ribcage. With her arms around his neck, she pulls him into a dance along to the rhythm of their heartbeats. (A scene just like a music video, he thinks, except that it’s real.)

She takes the lead. Whirls him around just like he did, fuels him with every look out of her dazzling green eyes. There’s the thought of kissing her, again. A part of him already suspects that he’ll never stop writing songs about her once his lips get to know hers, but this urge never burned him so fast from the inside.

This time, he won’t fight it.

Matteo allows himself to give in, every move is now aimed to get him closer to her, every breath he takes hopes to be shared with her, and he’s falling, falling, falling.

They’re slow dancing now. Her face is hidden in his chest, both arms wrapped around him as if he’s her favorite stuffed animal. The sun creates the illusion of diamonds on her hair, and he feels endlessly torn between soaking up this pure moment, and finally pressing his mouth on hers. Her fingers sneak over his shirt, caress him light as a feather. Matteo is done, defeated, desperate, as her name slips out in nothing more than a whisper.

Their eyes meet.

He leans in.

Thunder growls above them.

Her, ducking away. Pulling him along, towards the van. The moment he blinks up at the sky to the dark clouds sneaking in, she hastily explains, “I think we need to leave now.” He stumbles behind her, speechless. (Because all he feels is her hand intertwined with his fingers.)

///

They don’t talk while Matteo is driving. He’s focused on the road, and the rain clatters on the windscreen too loudly anyway, killing any hope for a conversation. Luna tried to ask him if driving in this weather was a good idea, but the noise swallowed her voice, so she gave up. Now she’s staring into the angry sky outside, pretending she’s not tempted to sneak another glimpse at him, and then another.

Her mind is overflowing with things left unsaid, with confessions and too many questions. He wanted to kiss her, she’s pretty sure about that. And he might still want to kiss her.

Everything else, though, remains a mystery.

How can she be sure she knows him at all, anyway? A book in a foreign language wouldn’t be as hard to decipher as he is. He never mentions his everyday life, or his job. The one time she asked, he said he worked in the entertainment industry, and then he changed the topic. He talks about his childhood, but never his presence. She still doesn’t know why he refused to leave the back of the van three days ago, when she refueled the van and got some snacks in a small city by the coast. Maybe he’s just weird, maybe he’s hiding something, an ex who he’s not keen on running into, or something worse. Maybe she doesn’t want to know.

But these doubts never linger in her mind long enough. Because their eyes meet or he gets her without a single look, or they laugh for ten minutes straight about the same dumb joke, or he smiles at her so gently it takes her breath away. Like right now, as he catches her glare and in an instant, her mouth runs dry.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.” A bold lie. She’s thinking about a lot of things, like how soft his lips look, or how her stomach feels like it might burst and how she wants to be close to him for the rest of her life.

And how he better kiss her soon, because otherwise she definitely will.

///

They end up stranded in the middle of nowhere.

The storm rages on, too harsh for them to keep going, and now they’re in bed, listening to the wind howling. Lightning crushes down somewhere close to the van, for a moment, everything is silver and bright and scary. Then, darkness returns. With a shaky breath, Luna pulls her blanket closer.

“Are you okay?” Matteo whispers. The mattress gives in to his weight as he shifts around, before his hand finds her clenched fist underneath the thin fabric. “You’re cold.”

“You’re hot.”

“May I?”

Her reply, “Sure”, already dies on her tongue. He must have heard it anyway, because he robs closer until she’s in his arms, surrounded by his warmth and his scent and the daydream of his lips on hers. “Thank you,” she says, turning to what she hopes is the outline of his face in the dark.

Lightning, again.

He’s close, closer than she expected. His breath hovers over her face. The memory of this afternoon flickers through her mind, the anticipation that built up ever since they sat in that little bar, the tension in the air when they glimpse at each other at the same time and –

Finally, Matteo kisses her.

///

Solo tienes que saber

Que yo quisiera quedarme

///

Sunlight caresses her cheek. Matteo is feeding her grapes, piece after piece, as he snuggles up to her left side until her blanket becomes kind of redundant. The morning is nothing like last night, quiet and soft, the early sky a canvas of pastels.

“Do you think we can go to the beach today?”

“If we find one, sure.” He nips on his coffee cup, the grapes now out of her reach, then pats over the blanket, probably in search for his phone.

“How come you keep looking for the same things every morning?”

“I don’t know, I swear it was just right here… ah, got it!” A frown finds its way on his forehead while he begins to type. Then, a soft groan, followed by more typing.

She nudges him with her shoulder. “Let me guess, you’re still trying to find a beach where it’s just us?”

“There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“There’s nothing wrong with any beach either.”

“Why don’t you just…” He falls silent, gaze suddenly stuck on the screen. The wrinkle above his eyes deepens. His thumb lingers in the air, frozen.

“Why don’t I just what?” Luna asks, her hand finally getting a hold on the grapes, so she at least has something to do.

The sigh he replies with doesn’t exactly promise good news. “I got a text message from work and… seems like they need me back soon.”

Her eyes flutter shut. She thinks of last night, of the dawn, when the first thing she felt upon waking up was his arm loosely wrapped around her, and the second thing his lips greeting her. She thinks of sitting on the beach, a golden sunset in front of them as she steals a kiss from him, safe in his arms. She thinks of the deadlines and unwritten reports and papers waiting for her at home. “How soon?”

“A few days. A week, if I really push it.”

“We’d have to drop off the van early.”

“I don’t want to. I’d rather stay here. With you.” With one hand, Matteo pushes a strand that escaped her ponytail overnight behind her ear. His words hit her straight in her chest, from where a thousand butterflies escape into her bloodstream. “And why can’t you?” she whispers.

“I can’t just… quit. I’m too important there.”

Chuckling, Luna hides her face in his shoulder. When he asks her what’s wrong, she glances up at him, grinning only harder. “You are such a chico fresa, Matteo,” she explains, and the confusion sticks on his face even after she tucks a grape behind his sweet lips.

///

The ocean underneath her feet. The smell of sunscreen lingering in her nose. His smile around her, more constant than the sun in the sky. Her, trailing after him like she’s indeed a silver rocket in the universe and he’s her earth.

For an instant, Luna ponders about this moment, certain she’ll miss it at some point later. But then, he makes her laugh again and all that matters is now.

///

No sé cómo te pido que te enamores

Cuando al final no voy a estar cuando tu llores

(Cuando de ti me enamoré)

///

“Oh my god, guys, that’s Matteo Balsano!” Half a scream, half a whisper. It’s too soon for him to be pulled back into his superstar life, but too late to escape it – that life, his fans, and the realization dawning upon Luna.

“Matteo! Can we take a picture?” Louder. Flashlights. A forced smile on his lips.

“Can you sign this? For Kaylee?”

“Can I have a photo too?” Three phones all up in his face. Four. “I can’t believe we’re running into the Matteo Balsano, just like that!”

Hands, trying to touch whatever is closest to them, trying to nudge him away from where he wants to be. “Why did you disappear for two weeks?”

Luna, gone from his side.

///

Time moves too slowly. She needs answers, explanations. Now. He’s still standing at the other side of the street, those girls stuck to him like fruit flies trapped in honey. She wants them gone, and she wants to be home already, in the silent comfort of her room.

Time moves too quickly. She needs space, something familiar. Her brain is still catching up on what happened, and she’s only halfway through his Wikipedia page. She wants to wake up in bed so this can just be a dream, and she wants yesterday back, with the soft embrace of his arms.

Time moves on. He’s walking towards the van. His face disappears under the hood of his sweater, and she feels like a paparazzi watching him, his every move.

All at once, he’s a stranger to her.

///

“Why?”

“I’m so sorry, Luna.”

She huffs. The sun hits her directly through the windscreen, yet her cheeks heat up for a whole other reason.

“This wasn’t how I wanted you to find out.”

Her gaze fixates on the view outside, the house fronts and parked cars. It’s motionless, not even a breeze softly ruffling through the palm trees. Inside her, everything seems to be moving and stirring. “And how was I supposed to find out? Never?”

If making him speechless is an accomplishment, it doesn’t feel like one. After seconds or minutes or whatever excruciating amount of silence it equals on the clock, he sighs. “Do you know how hard it is to find someone who doesn’t treat you like some kind of god? You made me feel… when I’m with you, I’m different. Someone…”

“Normal?” Bitterness leaks out of her tone, and it poisons her heart. “That sounds terrible, Matteo. And I’m not going to pity you.”

“Happy,” he replies. “I wanted to say that you made me feel like someone happy.”

You made me feel happy too. Those words don’t cross her lips, though. Instead, she turns on the engine and starts driving. (Away from the place where her heart broke, but not away from him.) Taking a shaky breath, he opens his mouth but before he says anything else, Luna drowns his voice with the first radio station she finds. After two minutes, the host announces one of his songs.

She almost smashes the radio with her fist.

///

All day, she waits for dawn to come, for the darkness to match her mood. An hour into driving, Matteo quietly asks her to stop by one of the beaches to their left. She follows him in a safe distance as he watches the ocean. There’s no smile on his face, just a wrinkle on his forehead. Her phone weighs heavy in her pocket, tempting her to snap a picture of him like all the days before. But she no longer feels like she has the right to take a photo of him, which shouldn’t add to her misery this much.

So, now she’s aching for the night to hide him from her eyes.

///

His eyes flutter open in the darkness. The blanket is tangled between his legs, and he feels some part of Luna bumping into him. His heart clenches at the memory of her silence today, or the looks she sent him. He doesn’t know what he expected, only that he hoped, with a little luck, that she’d stay in his life.

There’s no such faith anymore.

Her touch startles him. Slowly, her fingertips draw patterns on his arm, and Matteo isn’t sure if he’s dreaming. “Luna?” he whispers into the silence.

Her hand stops moving, but it stays frozen where it was, which is everything he needs to hope again. “What are we gonna do?” she finally says.

His heart skips a beat, only to riot harder than ever before in his chest. “I don’t know,” he admits, unsure. “I can’t escape this, you know? People will recognize me wherever I go, whether I like it or not. That’s just a part of my life.”

“So, after this, I’ll never see you again?”

He closes his eyes. Sighs. “Would that be a good thing for you?”

Luna hesitates, he can feel it in her fingertips leaving his skin, in the breath she’s holding. Every second in which she keeps him hanging on to the last thread of hope hurts. All he wants is to pull her back into his arms, back to a time where it was just him and her, and reality got no hold on them. And he feels stupid for believing any of this could have lasted.

“No. It wouldn’t.”

Luna buries her head in his shoulder. A sob pearls over her lips, and out of words, he presses a kiss on her hair. “But I can’t do this,” she adds before she rolls over to her side of the bed and shatters his heart into pieces, just like he must’ve earlier.

When he finds his words again, he whispers “I’m sorry I can’t stay”, but she seems to already be asleep.

///

Este amor ya no es mío

///

He’s watching the van being driven away by one of the employees. The sun is setting behind the rental office, sealing the end of his little run from real life. Turning around, his eyes land on Luna, wo’s holding on to her bags as if her life depended on it.

“So, this is it,” he concludes.

She returns his gaze, and the tears shimmering in them feel like a knife to his chest. “I guess.”

“Maybe we could…”  

“Matteo, no.” It sounds as if he’s torturing her, as if nothing brought her more pain than the mere chance to see him again. (If only he knew how to make her smile again…) “We can’t. You know this wouldn’t work.”

With that, she leaves him.

///

Sé que la vida se pasa pero no pasa contigo

///

The next months bring her a lot of opportunities to cry. His new single that her roommate plays on repeat for hours, unaware that the Luna in his song is the same one yelling at her to use headphones. The music video for said single, where he replaces her with a girl who looks nothing like her. His new album, titled Chico Fresa out of all things, and every song that speaks to her. Every single time her thumb hovers over his contact in her phone, until she remembers why she refuses to see him again.

But she learns to stop asking herself “What if”, to stop torturing herself with daydream after daydream. She learns to ignore his voice on the radio and the gossip on the internet. She learns to sleep alone again and get mad enough at him for his lies and songs and calls to move on with her life.

And then she walks into the skating rink on her birthday to a package with her name scribbled on it, inside brand-new skates in the colors of a sunset, along with a card signed by him.

After that, she can’t pretend anymore that she hates him.

///

No tengo la certeza de volverte a ver

Recuérdame

///

The beach in Cancún hasn’t changed. The palm trees along the way, offering some shadow in the merciless midday sun, the scent of salt and sunscreen in the air. The pathway along the ocean she led him to, with her hand in his, which often enough was the only reason his ass didn’t kiss the ground.

Matteo, however, has changed. He has grown, as a person, as a songwriter. Even as a skater – he doesn’t need anyone’s hand anymore in order to keep his balance.

Still, he keeps thinking about her.

Especially here in Mexico, where a year ago, he kissed her, and she claimed his heart only to walk away with it. He wonders what she’s up to, which skating competition she’s training for right now, and if her studies are going well. If there’s someone else, someone new in her life. Someone who isn’t followed by ecstatic fans and paparazzi.

His mind always stumbles over this idea, sooner or later. Not that it’s any of his business. He just wants her to be happy, that’s all. (Is it wrong if he wants her to be happy with him?) And who can blame him when sometimes, missing her overwhelms him, and he can’t stop thinking about what ifs – what if he gave up his career? What if he insisted on seeing her again just a little bit more?

It’s a dangerous path to walk on, and never a gleeful one. So, every time it gets too much to bear, he goes skating.

It’s a routine by now. Matteo puts on his helmet and sunglasses, then his boots. He never goes fast, simply cruising up and down the beach while painting pictures in his head, of her by his side. He imagines her whirling around in pirouettes, jumping and showing off all the tricks he doesn’t dare to try. He imagines the sun adding a soft shimmer to her hair, and her laugh ringing in his ears as he recites the lyrics of the last song he wrote for her. About her. He imagines that he’ll never has to write another song about the moon, because he gets to tell her everything in person.

Her laugh, again.

First, he wonders how clear his memory makes it sound in his ears. Then, he realizes it’s not just an imagination anymore, because Luna is here, for real, a mere hundred meters away. Wearing his skates.

In that moment he knows he’ll have to write another song for her.

[aventurasennicaragua]

July 10th-27th: Last two and a half weeks in Nicaragua

So, it’s occurred to me that I write quite a lot in these posts.  I’m not sure if anyone other than myself will actually read through all of these (which is fine) so I’ll keep this last post relatively short.  When I’m done, I’ll put up one last batch of pictures to wrap things up.

(EDIT: This post is not short at all.  I’m an inherently wordy writer.  But, that’s okay, right?)

I mentioned earlier that we had a lunch to celebrate José’s birthday.  José, the electromedicine technician that Seth and I worked with in Juigalpa, has his birthday on July 16th, which was a Sunday this year.  The next day, Seth and I told him we’d take him and the other hospital techs out for lunch at Lespool’s Pizza, the restaurant owned by our Juigalpa family.  In my opinion, the lunch was a really great chance to get to know José and the other techs (Elgin, Jader, and Pedro -- there is also another tech, Hector, but he unfortunately could not make the lunch) better.  At one point, José was telling me about various plans that the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health and Hospital Asunción have for buying and maintaining medical equipment.  According to him, every year brings more positive changes, and there is currently a program called “technological vigilance” being implemented that’s aimed at educating people in the medical field about properly taking care of devices.  He also told me that the only university in Central America with a biomedical engineering program is Don Bosco University in San Salvador, El Salvador.  I looked this up and found an article that talks about how graduates of the program have gone on to work in Central America, the U.S., and Europe (unfortunately, I can’t find the article right now :| ).  I thought this was interesting, and according to José, he knows the program director.

During the weekend before the lunch, Seth and I stayed in Juigalpa rather than traveling with other EWH kids.  Unlike our first weekend there, we really took the time to get out, explore, and learn more about the city.  On Friday night, we went to a casino (don’t worry, we each limited ourselves to spending no more than 200$C -- about $7), and later on we went to a bar called The Safari.  I liked The Safari because it was one of the few places in Juigalpa that played American and European music.  However, what I did not like was that, for some weird reason, there were only men there - no women!  (I have to admit that in some nightlife settings, I actually don’t mind being in a crowd with more men than women -- however, those are called gay bars lol.  And the men in The Safari certainly did not seem gay.)  When I asked Jader, my homestay brother about this, he just said that women don’t really go out on Friday nights.  Hmmm, I’ll have to ask more about that someday.

The next day, Seth and I went to the Juigalpa zoo, which pleasantly surprised me.  Since I knew that the hospital in Juigalpa often lacks pharmaceuticals for patients, I was thinking that the animals in the zoo might be visibly unhealthy, since perhaps they don’t always receive nutritious food and proper medications.  However, most of the animals looked great, and there was quite a variety of species.  Lions, tigers, cougars, monkeys, anteaters, buffalo, birds, wildebeests... there were a lot!  When we left, we walked to the Central Park and climbed the Juigalpa Cathedral.  The view from the top was the first glimpse I had looking over the city.  While it may not look like Granada or León, Juigalpa has its own form of charm that I really grew to appreciate during my stay there.  I’ll be sure to post a picture of that view in my next post.  That night, Seth and I went to a rodeo, where some of the craziest people I’ve ever seen attempted to ride on top of bulls.  Fortunately, nobody got hurt, and it was actually really fun to watch.  When we came home, I was coerced (well, it wasn’t complete coercion because I wanted to do it) into going out with my Juigalpa family (meanwhile, Seth passed out).  And when I say family, I mean everyone -- including the 2 little kids!  We went to a lovely hotel/restaurant/bar called Café Iguana.  Being that it was Karaoke Night, everyone kept begging me to sing.  Unfortunately, I was a little dehydrated and ended up not feeling too great, so I never belted out a tune as my family was hoping I would.  But we still had a fun time enjoying the music and some drinks.  The next day, our family dropped us off at Las Peñitas (this is the same name as the beach in León that I went to), which was a pretty community pool right outside of Juigalpa.  Overall, I think it was a really fun weekend, and I finally felt like Juigalpa was really growing on me.  I was suddenly really sad to think I’d be leaving in a week.

Well, a week passed and Seth and I, along with Alyssa, left Juigalpa for Granada.  Saying goodbye to my family was sad.  Lesbia, Lesja, and the others were really wonderful hosts, and I wish I could have stayed a little bit longer just to know them more and spend more time with them.  However, I’m thankful to have spent so many nights eating their delicious food (I’ll never forget their pizza, especially the crust) and talking to them about my love of Nicaragua.  I’m still in touch with many of them through WhatsApp and Facebook, and we have continued to communicate.  Saying goodbye on that last morning was a little teary, but after we left, I was glad to be heading back to Granada.

Reuniting with everyone from EWH was really good.  I was happy to see the others, and our hostel was in a really great location within the city.  When we arrived in Granada, I felt like I had entered a large, cosmopolitan city with a diverse mix of people -- well, perhaps it just felt like this in contrast to Juigalpa.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t a ton of time to explore and have fun.  Each group of students had paperwork to complete and a powerpoint presentation to prepare.  Fortunately, Seth and I had already started everything earlier on in the week, so Saturday was really just a chance to put the finishing touches on everything.  

The next morning, we woke up early, dressed up, had breakfast, and walked to our old school to have the conference.  There were five student presentations (Chinandega, Juigalpa, Somoto, Matagalpa, and Jinotega), as well as presentations from our coordinators.  We attempted a skype call with Leslie Calman (the EWH CEO) and Iyad, who were both in the U.S., and the EWH SI group in Uganda.  That way, we would have more of an audience for the conference.  Unfortunately, the Skype called burned through the data we had purchased so quickly that only 2 of the 5 student groups could share their presentations.  Luckily for me, Seth and I were one of those groups!  I was really happy with how our presentation went.  Our powerpoint was fairly balanced with text and photos, and Seth and I went through it quickly enough that we explained everything without boring everyone.  I really liked listening to our coordinators’ presentations, too.  One thing that Jack spoke about was how grateful we should be to have made friendships with one another -- not only did we now have new friends, but we had made connections with other students who are passionate about global health.  Something that Alyssa spoke about was reverse culture shock: an experience that people have when they return to their home countries after being abroad for a long time.  An important part of going through reverse culture shock is staying in touch with the people you went abroad with; they are the only people who can truly relate to the experiences you had, and it can be helpful to talk to them if you have any difficulties readjusting to life back home.

The end of the conference marked the official ending of my journey with Engineering World Health.  However, my time in Nicaragua did not end on Sunday.  I don’t plan on elaborating on this too much, but I made a really great friend from Costa Rica when I visited San Juan del Sur in early June.  We stayed in touch for the remainder of my time in Nicaragua, and we decided to spend a few days together back in San Juan del Sur at the end of July.  Jean Carlo (that’s his name) visited me in Granada that Sunday, and we spent the afternoon having lunch on Calle Calzada and then touring Las Isletas in Lake Nicaragua.  The next day, we traveled from Granada to San Juan del Sur and enjoyed three days there.  Jean Carlo and I are still friends today, and I’m really thankful to know him.  On Wednesday, I traveled back to Granada, and early on Thursday morning, I departed from the Managua airport back home to New Jersey.

My summer with Engineering World Health has been an unforgettable experience that I will forever treasure in my heart.  I posted a photo on Instagram the day I came home, and the caption I wrote is copied below.  I think it adequately concludes this blog post.

“And after two months, I’m back home in New Jersey. How do I begin to describe these past experiences in Nicaragua? This trip has been more than what I ever imagined, and I don’t know how to thank everyone who made it so special. From my EWH companions, my families and friends in Granada and Juigalpa, and everyone else I’ve met along the way — I'm so lucky to have known all of you, and I will always look back on this time with incredible fondness. Thank you simply for everything.

Y después de dos meses, estoy en casa en Nueva Jersey. Como puedo empezar a describir estas experiencias pasadas en Nicaragua? Esto viaje ha sido más de que yo imaginaba, y no sé cómo decir gracias a todos quienes lo hicieron tan especial. De mis compañeros de EWH, mis familias y amigos en Granada y Juigalpa, y todos los otros quienes he conocido por el camino — tengo tanta suerte por haberlos conocido a todos ustedes, y siempre miraré hacia atrás en esto tiempo con increíble cariño. Gracias simplemente por todo.”

[jshoulson]

Today’s Poem

Date Palm Trinity --Khaled Mattawa

Today the date palms were pruned, the branches taken before the fruit ripened, before sweetness littered the sidewalks. The man who sawed them worked alone, a crane lifting him to the yellowed fronds. Beside his truck, he stood tall, American, a pensive pioneer. The top of each palm looked like the back of a man's head after a close-crop haircut, the neck cooled to a stubbly remembrance of hair, or was like a cat after being spayed, startled by a strange newness, pacing familiar rooms, darting, confused, and you (had you wished to console) are greeted with a barren gaze. The rubble of bark and fronds reminded me of Iraq, not the ruined bridges, or the surrendering soldiers' hands begging food, but the 16 million date palms, one per capita, lining the seams of the Tigris and Euphrates, a reminder of my own Libya and its 10 million date palms and the years of easy wealth that brought them neglect except in Huun, a magical city where they stuffed dates with almonds and sent them as far as Tanta and Oum Dourman. From Huun this story: a boy stands by a palm imploring his uncle to toss him a fistful of dates. Flustered by the boy's monotonous cries the uncle loses his feet, and as he falls to his death, cries down "Here nephew, I'm coming down with the dates!" So that's what we got from Huun, almond stuffed wonders and proverbial last words. There was another reminder, a tale of the prophet Muhammad living for months on water and coarse wheat bread, his wives protesting the austere measures of his faith. Muhammad, who praised honey and had a professed love for cantaloupes, and who once declared "the best meat is that which lines the bones," found in dates the solution he required. To his Arab followers, and to his wives, the fruit was "three skies above luxury," and as indispensable as water and air.

I once had this dream of Whitman: I found him under one of the palms on Sherman Way gazing admiring. Though he had seen palms by the Gulf of Mexico, he had never tasted a date. So we drove to a supermarket, and he who had been thoughtful, even dignified, until then, began to sign and moan at the taste of "Araby's sugared dust clouds." When we walked the aisles he insisted on pushing the cart. The frozen foods did not surprise him since his Granny buried potatoes in the cold dirt of her homestead. Still I had to explain tofu, plastic, tacos, and the foods labeled free. He ran his hands caressing the waxed floor; "Smooth as a girl's wrist," he exclaimed. The bright fluorescent lights reminded hirn of the opera, and Walt sang a gravelly tune. The children sitting in carts reached for him, their hands were Lorca's butterflies on his beard. At the cashier he filled pockets with candy, and was shocked by the headlines of our news. Honda, Toyota, Saturn, Oldsmobile— in the parking lot the names waltzed on his tongue. At the fast food stand he ate heartily, the burger's slipperiness amused him, and at his clumsiness we both had a laugh. Then the talk grew quiet, the table stretching like the expanse of time dividing us; I felt he no longer wanted company, having begun to understand our world. Despite his old resentment of Blacks, and now my neighbors, the foreign-born Hispanics and their engines roaring through Balboa and Saticoy, and the Koreans' karoake— the baseline's muffled thuds, voices doused in Canadian Mist, and the off-key pleadings to the lover who never comes—, America remained to him luminous-industrial-fuming- sublime, and as he wished, beyond others' adjectives, beyond what anyone could have conceived. Mumbling a farewell, Whitman stood to leave. And with this my dream ended, Whitman wishing to depart and I holding on to his wrists. All day I wanted to hold his wide wrists.

If you drive west of Alexandria your path will run through Alamain, Barani, and Matrouh. Then Egypt will end with a town on a steep hill called Sallum. If you go through the two checkpoints, Libya will unfold its dry pastures for you. On the Sallum hill there is a hotel where people stay to await relatives crossing the border or to hear word if it is safe to return. Across the road a tired bluegreen tea house sits like a bruise permanently on the verge of fading from the prairies' skin. You will also see the money changers— all teenage boys. With their right hands they will wave thick wads of money at your windshield, and with their left they will jostle to give you the best rate. The last time I stayed in Sallum few cars came from either direction, and among the boys fights flared with curses and stones hurled at brows. When the boys' rabble grew loud a man lazily stepped out of the tea house to call them bastards and sons of whores. This went on for hours until the sun settled in the middle of the sky, the boys taking shelter under a torn canvas shed, and the man to the tea house's dusty cool. Then just when all movement and noise seemed to surrender to the September wind and heat, four of the boys broke for a run racing—money still clutched in their hands— to a young date palm in the distance. Pressing shoulders and backs against it, they shook the palm until the season's first fruit began to rain. The other boys joined them, and soon the tea house emptied of the men slouching inside. Those were my brothers who cowered beneath the date palm to gather handfuls of fruit, rubbing each date clean on their sleeves, chewing softly to savor the taste as though it were a good omen, and rising to resume their lives, on their faces the smiles of those who once were blessed.

[ukdamo]

Date Palm Trinity

Khaled Mattawa

Today the date palms were pruned, the branches taken before the fruit ripened, before sweetness littered the sidewalks. The man who sawed them worked alone, a crane lifting him to the yellowed fronds. Beside his truck, he stood tall, American, a pensive pioneer. The top of each palm looked like the back of a man's head after a close-crop haircut, the neck cooled to a stubbly remembrance of hair, or was like a cat after being spayed, startled by a strange newness, pacing familiar rooms, darting, confused, and you (had you wished to console) are greeted with a barren gaze. The rubble of bark and fronds reminded me of Iraq, not the ruined bridges, or the surrendering soldiers' hands begging food, but the 16 million date palms, one per capita, lining the seams of the Tigris and Euphrates, a reminder of my own Libya and its 10 million date palms and the years of easy wealth that brought them neglect except in Huun, a magical city where they stuffed dates with almonds and sent them as far as Tanta and Oum Dourman. From Huun this story: a boy stands by a palm imploring his uncle to toss him a fistful of dates. Flustered by the boy's monotonous cries the uncle loses his feet, and as he falls to his death, cries down "Here nephew, I'm coming down with the dates!" So that's what we got from Huun, almond stuffed wonders and proverbial last words. There was another reminder, a tale of the prophet Muhammad living for months on water and coarse wheat bread, his wives protesting the austere measures of his faith. Muhammad, who praised honey and had a professed love for cantaloupes, and who once declared "the best meat is that which lines the bones," found in dates the solution he required. To his Arab followers, and to his wives, the fruit was "three skies above luxury," and as indispensable as water and air. I once had this dream of Whitman: I found him under one of the palms on Sherman Way gazing admiring. Though he had seen palms by the Gulf of Mexico, he had never tasted a date. So we drove to a supermarket, and he who had been thoughtful, even dignified, until then, began to sign and moan at the taste of "Araby's sugared dust clouds." When we walked the aisles he insisted on pushing the cart. The frozen foods did not surprise him since his Granny buried potatoes in the cold dirt of her homestead. Still I had to explain tofu, plastic, tacos, and the foods labeled free. He ran his hands caressing the waxed floor; "Smooth as a girl's wrist," he exclaimed. The bright fluorescent lights reminded hirn of the opera, and Walt sang a gravelly tune. The children sitting in carts reached for him, their hands were Lorca's butterflies on his beard. At the cashier he filled pockets with candy, and was shocked by the headlines of our news. Honda, Toyota, Saturn, Oldsmobile— in the parking lot the names waltzed on his tongue. At the fast food stand he ate heartily, the burger's slipperiness amused him, and at his clumsiness we both had a laugh. Then the talk grew quiet, the table stretching like the expanse of time dividing us; I felt he no longer wanted company, having begun to understand our world. Despite his old resentment of Blacks, and now my neighbors, the foreign-born Hispanics and their engines roaring through Balboa and Saticoy, and the Koreans' karoake— the baseline's muffled thuds, voices doused in Canadian Mist, and the off-key pleadings to the lover who never comes—, America remained to him luminous-industrial-fuming- sublime, and as he wished, beyond others' adjectives, beyond what anyone could have conceived. Mumbling a farewell, Whitman stood to leave. And with this my dream ended, Whitman wishing to depart and I holding on to his wrists. All day I wanted to hold his wide wrists. If you drive west of Alexandria your path will run through Alamain, Barani, and Matrouh. Then Egypt will end with a town on a steep hill called Sallum. If you go through the two checkpoints, Libya will unfold its dry pastures for you. On the Sallum hill there is a hotel where people stay to await relatives crossing the border or to hear word if it is safe to return. Across the road a tired bluegreen tea house sits like a bruise permanently on the verge of fading from the prairies' skin. You will also see the money changers— all teenage boys. With their right hands they will wave thick wads of money at your windshield, and with their left they will jostle to give you the best rate. The last time I stayed in Sallum few cars came from either direction, and among the boys fights flared with curses and stones hurled at brows. When the boys' rabble grew loud a man lazily stepped out of the tea house to call them bastards and sons of whores. This went on for hours until the sun settled in the middle of the sky, the boys taking shelter under a torn canvas shed, and the man to the tea house's dusty cool. Then just when all movement and noise seemed to surrender to the September wind and heat, four of the boys broke for a run racing—money still clutched in their hands— to a young date palm in the distance. Pressing shoulders and backs against it, they shook the palm until the season's first fruit began to rain. The other boys joined them, and soon the tea house emptied of the men slouching inside. Those were my brothers who cowered beneath the date palm to gather handfuls of fruit, rubbing each date clean on their sleeves, chewing softly to savor the taste as though it were a good omen, and rising to resume their lives, on their faces the smiles of those who once were blessed.

[betopandiani-mar]

A gotinha azul.

Tenho um diário de bordo da última viagem pelo Oceano Pacífico em 2008, onde escrevo sobre uma noite calma e sem Lua. Havia um céu muito limpo, com mar liso e pouco vento. Navegava naquela noite ouvindo música, e pude ver refletido no mar um imenso céu estrelado. Vi-me cercado de estrelas por todos os lados. Fique emocionado. Parecia que meu barco era uma nave espacial flutuando pela imensidão do espaço sideral.

Percebi que mesmo estando no meio de um vasto oceano, nosso planeta é uma pequena gota azul, que viaja com um profundo propósito, ainda não compreendido pela maioria dos seres humanos.

Sempre que as minhas lembranças me levam de volta ao Pacífico, como hoje à noite, eu me sinto tocado. Nunca mais me esqueci de que estou a bordo da gotinha azul. Percebo o quanto a vida é complexa e maravilhosa. Vocês já se deram conta do que foi construído para termos a oportunidade de estarmos vivos? Quantos milhões de anos esta engenharia cósmica precisou para criar este lugar? Desde a luz do Sol que nutre toda vida aqui na Terra, a relação da natureza com os animais, o que sustenta plantas e florestas e os mares que nos alimentam com uma quantidade e enorme variedade de seres. Sem falar do vento que carrega para longe o pólen das flores. Como amo o vento.

Existe uma natureza em doação para permitir que respiremos, e a nossa respiração não passa de um vento interior, que nos inunda de energia. Se somente prestássemos atenção na nossa respiração, já aprenderíamos muito.

Em uma vida, um ser humano vai comer muitos bichos, vegetais, ingerir água e respirar talvez milhões de vezes. Já se perguntou qual o propósito de tudo isso? Se conseguir deixar os dogmas de lado, melhor, pois eles foram criados outro dia. Diante do tempo, eles não existem.

Por tudo que tenho visto, estou me sentido triste por não encontrar pessoas agradecidas com esta oportunidade. Diante de tanta grandeza, o ser humano tem se mostrado tão pequeno, preso nas suas mazelas, sempre insatisfeito e em uma busca frenética pelo prazer. Vejo muita gente se drogando com antidepressivos, com bebidas e cigarros, não percebendo que estão destruindo seus corpos. Corpo este, que foi construído a semelhança das estrelas, aquelas mesmas que vi no Pacífico.

Outro dia li que metade de tudo que se vende nas nossas farmácias, são remédios para dormir. Porque não dormir? Onde esta escondida a angústia? Será que a angústia não é uma carta que a alma nos escreve quando nos esquecemos de olhar para o céu? Não seria também, quando não olhamos para dentro de nós? Não seria a angustia um aviso de que estamos procurando no lugar errado? Então me pergunto; qual a função do antidepressivo?

A violência tornou-se a nossa diversão, seja nos filmes onde nossas crianças aprendem que matar outro ser humano é algo natural, ou nas lutas, que as emissoras chamam de esporte, onde a meta é abater a outra pessoa. Não sei se é a maioria ou a minoria, mas isso eu não consigo entender. Antidepressivos combinado com a mídia da um belo coquetel, que embala o sono dos “poderosos”.

Quando eu era criança eu achava que eu era medroso por não gostar de brigas, mas hoje eu entendo o meu comportamento. A Roma antiga é aqui. O Coliseu mora dentro dos lares.

Ah Pacífico, um lugar aonde o nome vem da paz, como te queria aqui, nos nossos corações. Mas onde esta a paz? Onde anda a poesia? Raro encontrar alguém que esteja em paz. Deveria estar no coração, mas poucos conseguem escutar o convite que a vida tem feito a todos.

Não perceber a grandeza da vida é o maior pecado de todos, e pedir algo para si, é sinal de ingratidão na minha maneira de ver.

Enquanto isso a gotinha azul segue girando pela imensidão do espaço, nos mostrando todas as faces do céu, na esperança que avistemos algo que nos faça despertar deste sono.

Não vamos acusar o mundo de ser um lugar obscuro, para assim justificarmos as nossas limitações.

A gotinha azul é a nossa casa..., mas só poderá ser reconhecida como tal, àqueles que têm um coração limpo.

Beto Pandiani.

The little blue drop.

I have the logbook of my last voyage across the Pacific Ocean in 2008, where I have written about a quiet night and a moonless sky. The sky was clear, the wind was calm and the sea was flat. I sailed that night listening to music, and I could see reflected in the sea an immense starry sky. I found myself surrounded by stars everywhere. I was thrilled. It seemed that my boat was a spaceship floating through the vastness of outer space. I realized that despite being in the midst of a vast ocean, our planet is a small blue drop, traveling with a deep purpose, not yet understood by most humans.

Whenever my memories take me back to the Pacific, like tonight, I feel touched. I’ve never forgotten that I'm aboard the little blue drop. I realize how complex and wonderful life is. Have you ever thought about all that was built for us to be alive? How many millions of years did this cosmic engineering need to create this place? From the sunlight that nourishes all life on Earth, the relationship of nature with animals, to the energy which supports plants, forests and seas that feed us with a huge amount and variety of beings. Not to mention the wind, that carries away the pollen of flowers. How I love the wind!

The whole nature is giving itself to us, so we can breathe, and our breath is like our interior wind, which floods us with energy. If only we could pay attention to our breathing, we would learn a lot.

In a lifetime, a human being will eat many animals, vegetables, drink water and breathe perhaps millions of times. Have you ever wondered the purpose of all this? The more you can leave the dogmas aside, the better; because they were created a short time ago. Considering time, they do not exist.

For all I have seen, I feel sad for not finding people grateful to have this opportunity. Faced with such grandeur, the human being has been so little stuck in their wounds, always dissatisfied and in a frantic search for pleasure. I see many people doing drugs with antidepressants, with drinks and cigarettes, not realizing that they are destroying their bodies. This body which was built like the stars that I saw in the Pacific.

The other day I read that half of everything sold in our pharmacies are sleeping pills. Why not sleep? Where is the hidden anguish? Isn’t anguish a letter in written by our soul, when we forget to look at the sky? Wouldn’t it be created also, when we do not look inside ourselves? Wouldn’t anguish be a warning that we are looking to the wrong direction? So I wonder, what is the function of the antidepressants?

Violence became our fun, be in movies where our children learn that killing another human being is something natural, or in fights, that broadcasters name the sport where the goal is to kill the other person. I don’t know if it's the majority or the minority, but I cannot understand it. Antidepressants combined with the media make a beautiful cocktail, that “lullabies” the sleep of the "powerful".

When I was a kid I thought I was fearful because I didn’t like fights, but today I understand my behavior. Ancient Rome is here. The Coliseum lives home.

Oh the Pacific! Your name comes from peace as I wish we had in our hearts. But where is peace? Where does poetry walk? It’s rare to find someone who is at peace. It should be in our hearts, but only a few can hear the invitation that life has addressed to all.

Not realizing the grandeur of life is the greatest sin of all, and asking something for ourselves, is a sign of ingratitude, as I see it.

Meanwhile the little blue drop goes on spinning through the immensity of space, showing us all the sides of the sky, hoping that we see something that makes us wake up from this sleep.

Let's not accuse the world of being an obscure place, justifying our limitations.

The little blue drop is our home ... but it can only be recognized as such, by those who have a pure heart.

Beto Pandiani.

[ralphmorgan-blog1]

Egypt facing state of emergency after Palm Sunday church bombings

(CNN)Egypt's President says he will declare a state of emergency after two deadly bombings targeted Coptic Christian churches on Palm Sunday.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks, which were aimed at a vulnerable religious minority on one of the most important days on the Christian calendar.

The death toll rose to at least 49 Monday, state media reported. At least 27 people died in a blast inside a church in the northern city of Tanta, and 78 people were injured, according to Egypt's state-run news agency Al-Ahram. In Alexandria, 18 civilians and four police officers were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a Coptic church, Al-Ahram said.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi declared three days of nationwide mourning following the bombings and said a three-month state of emergency would come into force once legal and constitutional measures have been completed.

In response to the attacks, the country will also form a supreme council to counter terrorism and extremism, Sisi said on state television Sunday after an emergency meeting of the country's National Defense Council.

"We have to pay attention because of Egypt and Egypt's future. We know this is a big sacrifice but we are capable of facing it," he said.

"The attack will not undermine the resolve and true will of the Egyptian people to counter the forces of evil, but will only harden their determination to move forward on their trajectory to realize security, stability and comprehensive development," the President said in a statement.

In a statement issued on the Telegram messaging platform and circulated by several ISIS supporters, the militant group identified the bombers as Egyptian nationals. Egyptian authorities have not confirmed the bombers' nationalities.

ISIS warned of more attacks in its statement. "The Crusaders and their apostate followers must be aware that the bill between us and them is very large, and they will be paying it like a river of blood from their sons, if God is willing," the group said in Arabic.

How the attacks unfolded

Police officers who had been posted outside the church stopped a man wearing an explosive belt from entering the church, the Interior Ministry said. Two of those officers, a man and a woman, were killed, along with civilians and other police staff.

Egyptian blogger Maged Butter said he saw five or six ambulances and bloodstains 100 meters away from the site of the explosion, which happened near the church gate.

He said women were crying and looking for their loved ones and were yelling at police for "not protecting" them.

"Every now and then, I see a person crying -- I think they are Christian -- and they keep saying: 'have you seen my family? Have you seen my family?'" Butter said.

Nile and Masriya TV, Egyptian state outlets, aired black banners in the upper left of their newscasts to signify mourning for the victims of both explosions.

'Bodies and body parts everywhere'

Fadi Sami heard about the Tanta bombing as he sat in the Alexandria cathedral on Sunday. The head of Egypt's Coptic Church, Pope Tawadros II, was leading Palm Sunday prayers.

Though no one announced the Tanta news, Sami said he could hear the sadness in the pope's voice. He left as the pope finished the sermon. Twenty minutes later, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the gate of the church.

"I came back and the area was covered in smoke. The stores around the church were all destroyed," he said. "There were bodies and body parts everywhere, outside and inside the gate. I saw a man put together what was left of his son in a bag."

Alexandria sits on the Mediterranean and has a large Christian population. Downtown is usually busy but was relatively quiet on Sunday because of the holiday. "Thank God it is a Sunday, and many shops are closed," Butter said.

David Saeed said he was sitting in the last row in the church when the bomb went off.

"We were just singing and suddenly in a blink of (an) eye, smoke, fire everywhere. I didn't realize what's happening until I saw blood and organs of our friends scattered over the ground," Saeed told CNN.

He said he tried to save some of the dying but couldn't. He helped to carry others to ambulances in front of the church, he said.

Hours later Saeed held a bloody T-shirt that belonged to a friend who was killed in the blast.

"I was shocked. But I'm not angry because ... we're used to it ( this kind of violence) here in Egypt," Saeed said.

"Every church in Egypt just prepares for this," he added. "Everyone knows that some time you will get bombed, you will be killed."

A persecuted minority

Copts in Egypt have faced persecution and discrimination that has spiked since the toppling of Hosni Mubarak's regime in 2011. Dozens have been killed in sectarian violence. In December, an attack at a Coptic church in Cairo killed 25 people.

CNN Map

Coptic churches and homes have been set on fire, members of the Coptic minority have been physically attacked, and their property has been looted, rights group Amnesty International reported in March.

Coptic Christians make up about 10% of Egypt's population of 91 million. They base their theology on the teachings of the apostle Mark, who introduced Christianity to Egypt. Tanta is roughly 60 miles (96 kilometers) north of Cairo, in the Nile delta.

Who are Egypt's Coptic Christians?

International condemnation

United Nations Secretary-General Antnio Guterres condemned the attacks and offered his sympathies to the victims and to the country in a statement through a spokesman.

Guterres "wishes a quick recovery to those injured and hopes that the perpetrators of this horrific terrorist act will be swiftly identified and brought to justice," said the spokesman, Stphane Dujarric.

The US State Department also issued a rebuke, calling the bombings "barbaric attacks on Christian places of worship."

"The United States will continue to support Egypt's security and stability in its efforts to defeat terrorism," said acting spokesperson Mark Toner.

The bombings came days after US President Donald Trump welcomed Sisi to Washington and expressed his support for Egypt. Among the topics of mutual concern were terrorism and ISIS. Trump condemned Sunday's attacks on Twitter and said he has "great confidence Sisi will handle the situation properly."

Sisi met Saturday with a US congressional delegation led by US Rep. Darrell Issa, the Egyptian government said. The meeting addressed Egypt's counterterrorism efforts and a strategy to fight terror while encouraging religious tolerance and acceptance of others.

On Sunday, President Trump called Sisi from Air Force One to offer his condolences, a senior administration official told CNN.

Egyptians mourn, but do they understand?

Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Cairo this month, where he will meet with various religious leaders, including the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church. He expressed his grief after the church attack.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby called the attacks "evil" and urged people to pray for the victims. Russia's President Vladimir Putin condemned the attacks and offered his condolences to Sisi, according to Russia's state-run Tass.

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Egypt facing state of emergency after Palm Sunday church bombings

(CNN)Egypt’s President says he will declare a state of emergency after two deadly bombings targeted Coptic Christian churches on Palm Sunday.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks, which were aimed at a vulnerable religious minority on one of the most important days on the Christian calendar.

The death toll rose to at least 49 Monday, state media reported. At least 27 people died in a blast inside a church in the northern city of Tanta, and 78 people were injured, according to Egypt’s state-run news agency Al-Ahram. In Alexandria, 18 civilians and four police officers were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a Coptic church, Al-Ahram said.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi declared three days of nationwide mourning following the bombings and said a three-month state of emergency would come into force once legal and constitutional measures have been completed.

In response to the attacks, the country will also form a supreme council to counter terrorism and extremism, Sisi said on state television Sunday after an emergency meeting of the country’s National Defense Council.

“We have to pay attention because of Egypt and Egypt’s future. We know this is a big sacrifice but we are capable of facing it,” he said.

“The attack will not undermine the resolve and true will of the Egyptian people to counter the forces of evil, but will only harden their determination to move forward on their trajectory to realize security, stability and comprehensive development,” the President said in a statement.

In a statement issued on the Telegram messaging platform and circulated by several ISIS supporters, the militant group identified the bombers as Egyptian nationals. Egyptian authorities have not confirmed the bombers’ nationalities.

ISIS warned of more attacks in its statement. “The Crusaders and their apostate followers must be aware that the bill between us and them is very large, and they will be paying it like a river of blood from their sons, if God is willing,” the group said in Arabic.

How the attacks unfolded

Police officers who had been posted outside the church stopped a man wearing an explosive belt from entering the church, the Interior Ministry said. Two of those officers, a man and a woman, were killed, along with civilians and other police staff.

Egyptian blogger Maged Butter said he saw five or six ambulances and bloodstains 100 meters away from the site of the explosion, which happened near the church gate.

He said women were crying and looking for their loved ones and were yelling at police for “not protecting” them.

“Every now and then, I see a person crying — I think they are Christian — and they keep saying: ‘have you seen my family? Have you seen my family?'” Butter said.

Nile and Masriya TV, Egyptian state outlets, aired black banners in the upper left of their newscasts to signify mourning for the victims of both explosions.

‘Bodies and body parts everywhere’

Fadi Sami heard about the Tanta bombing as he sat in the Alexandria cathedral on Sunday. The head of Egypt’s Coptic Church, Pope Tawadros II, was leading Palm Sunday prayers.

Though no one announced the Tanta news, Sami said he could hear the sadness in the pope’s voice. He left as the pope finished the sermon. Twenty minutes later, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the gate of the church.

“I came back and the area was covered in smoke. The stores around the church were all destroyed,” he said. “There were bodies and body parts everywhere, outside and inside the gate. I saw a man put together what was left of his son in a bag.”

Alexandria sits on the Mediterranean and has a large Christian population. Downtown is usually busy but was relatively quiet on Sunday because of the holiday. “Thank God it is a Sunday, and many shops are closed,” Butter said.

David Saeed said he was sitting in the last row in the church when the bomb went off.

“We were just singing and suddenly in a blink of (an) eye, smoke, fire everywhere. I didn’t realize what’s happening until I saw blood and organs of our friends scattered over the ground,” Saeed told CNN.

He said he tried to save some of the dying but couldn’t. He helped to carry others to ambulances in front of the church, he said.

Hours later Saeed held a bloody T-shirt that belonged to a friend who was killed in the blast.

“I was shocked. But I’m not angry because … we’re used to it ( this kind of violence) here in Egypt,” Saeed said.

“Every church in Egypt just prepares for this,” he added. “Everyone knows that some time you will get bombed, you will be killed.”

A persecuted minority

Copts in Egypt have faced persecution and discrimination that has spiked since the toppling of Hosni Mubarak’s regime in 2011. Dozens have been killed in sectarian violence. In December, an attack at a Coptic church in Cairo killed 25 people.

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Coptic churches and homes have been set on fire, members of the Coptic minority have been physically attacked, and their property has been looted, rights group Amnesty International reported in March.

Coptic Christians make up about 10% of Egypt’s population of 91 million. They base their theology on the teachings of the apostle Mark, who introduced Christianity to Egypt. Tanta is roughly 60 miles (96 kilometers) north of Cairo, in the Nile delta.

Who are Egypt’s Coptic Christians?

International condemnation

United Nations Secretary-General Antnio Guterres condemned the attacks and offered his sympathies to the victims and to the country in a statement through a spokesman.

Guterres “wishes a quick recovery to those injured and hopes that the perpetrators of this horrific terrorist act will be swiftly identified and brought to justice,” said the spokesman, Stphane Dujarric.

The US State Department also issued a rebuke, calling the bombings “barbaric attacks on Christian places of worship.”

“The United States will continue to support Egypt’s security and stability in its efforts to defeat terrorism,” said acting spokesperson Mark Toner.

The bombings came days after US President Donald Trump welcomed Sisi to Washington and expressed his support for Egypt. Among the topics of mutual concern were terrorism and ISIS. Trump condemned Sunday’s attacks on Twitter and said he has “great confidence Sisi will handle the situation properly.”

Sisi met Saturday with a US congressional delegation led by US Rep. Darrell Issa, the Egyptian government said. The meeting addressed Egypt’s counterterrorism efforts and a strategy to fight terror while encouraging religious tolerance and acceptance of others.

On Sunday, President Trump called Sisi from Air Force One to offer his condolences, a senior administration official told CNN.

Egyptians mourn, but do they understand?

Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Cairo this month, where he will meet with various religious leaders, including the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church. He expressed his grief after the church attack.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby called the attacks “evil” and urged people to pray for the victims. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin condemned the attacks and offered his condolences to Sisi, according to Russia’s state-run Tass.

Read more: http://cnn.it/2oj5nfp

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