Fish, sin, and peeing my pants

The funny thing about the Spanish language is the similarity between words. At times it gets rather humerous. Especially for me, someone who likes to try and speak even when I have no idea what I'm saying. Examples: the Spanish word for eye, ojo, is extremely similar to the words for cooking pot, oya, and leaf, oja. So, it's pretty much a recipie for disaster for me. I remember going next door to Shirley's house to ask her if I could borrow a pot. "Hey, Shirley," I started, "¿Puedes prestarme tu ojo?" Roughly translated, Hey Shirley, can I borrow your eye? Good one, genius. I had only been rehursing that one line over and over in my head the whole way over to her house. She just laughed at me, handed me a pot, and then I was on my way.
One good thing about making mistakes is that you usually can remember not to make the same ones. Besides just knowing the difference now between ojo and oya, I also know from another equally embarrassing situation that pescado means fish and pecado means sin. It's all good. If you can't laugh at yourself and your own misfortunes, then what can you laugh at? We all know it's fun to laugh at others, but if you can't laugh at yourself? Well, that's just not really fair.
I can think of a number of times when the only thing I could do was laugh. This year I have found myself in quite a number of pickle situations. And it's been great. I have to be honest, I used to be pretty uptight about stuff like messing up. I liked to do things right. Mistakes equaled failure. Now? Mistakes equal a laugh. I don't know what happened or rather what snapped inside of me. But something did. And I think it was for the better.
A few weeks back I was staying at Km 8 at the clinic. I had only brought 1 change of clothes seeing as I was only going to be staying for 1 day. I fell asleep while reading and was woken up by the sound of rain, Chris and Jonathan banging on the front gate to be let in, and the urge to pee. Ignoring nature's call, I jumped up to try and find the keys to unlock the gate. Couldn't find them. At this point the boys were shouting and my bladder was doing the same. I decided that the boys could wait while I ran to the outhouse to take care of more important business. About half way there, trying to carefully dodge the puddles, I realized the unevitible truth that I wasn't going to make it. In a completely frazzled state I just decided to go right then and there. I just want to let you now that here in Peru it is not a rare sight to see someone peeing on the street, in the grass, anywhere really. And then I didn't make it again. Yep, pee everywhere. The worst part was having to walk back to the house with wet shorts. I felt like a toddler again. 
After changing into my only remaining pants and getting thoroughly laughed at by everyone, I  went outside to brush my teeth. It was still raining. Km 8 is full of puddles and dark. I was just setting myself up for another disaster. The ground was super slippery, and pretty soon I found myself looking up at the stars and soaking wet and muddy. Strike 2. After another round of laughs and one bucket shower later I was in bed. Thinking about the series of events that had just taken place, all I could do was laugh. This is how things are supposed to be, even if there is a little pee and mud involved.