7.18.11
This past week was pretty laid back. Not much happened during the week. I just worked and that’s about it. “Work” is still considered going to the organization and sit on my computer all morning and most afternoons. Nothing is really poppin yet.
Friday I went to Loja, Ecuador with 3 coworkers for a conference. Doc had to speak at it so he took some of us with him. The drive is a little over 3 hours. We left at 6am in the morning. 6am is super early for me considering I sleep in until about 8 most mornings. Doc was the first one to speak at the conference. We got there a little late because there was some rain on the way down. To my surprise they were tapping their feet waiting for him. The conference actually started on time! Couldn’t believe it! The conference ended up being the same Organic Economic Law conference I went to a couple weeks ago in Cuenca, but on a smaller scale. It was only in the morning this time around. My coworkers talked and giggled through the whole thing. The conference ended with a perfomance by a mentally handicapped youth band. It was so amazing to see these kids sing, dance, and play instruments. Absolutely indredible!!
When the conference was over lunch was provided. It was delicious! Then everyone wanted to buy bocadillas, which is a traditional candy from Loja, so we walked to the market and bought some. On the way there Angie pointed out a sign hanging at a tienda that said chocobananas. Of course I couldn’t pass it up so we got all one! This time around they were 25₵ instead of 10₵, but were bigger AND had sprinkles on them, definitely worth it! As I was about halfway through my frozen chocolate covered banana I felt what was something similar to a hair on my tongue… I take a look at my chocobanana and there it was, a hair stuck in it under the frozen chocolate. G-R-O-S-S! But what did I do? Eat around it until I could pull the hair out and continue eating it. There was no way I was going to let a long, random, nasty, black hair get in the way of me and my chocolate covered frozen banana, folks. Not a chance. The ride back was fun; I snuck a quick 15 minute snoozer in and then chatted and laughed with everyone the whole way back.
Showing off my delicious (and hairy) chocobanana with sprinkles :)
One of the women with us brought her 10 month old son. He was the cutest thing ever! He loved blowing little bubbles. And for a while every time he did it, I did it back at him… With 95% less spit than him. Haha. He thought it was really funny. And then every time I would hold him as soon as he got in my arms he would blow bubbles. Or if he was in someone else’s arms and we made eye contact he would start to blow bubbles. It was so cute! And everyone got a charge out of it… and so did he. Oh, and his name is Tupac.
Tupac and I
Isn't he adorable????
Here's the little munchkin with slobber all over his face
after blowing bubbles at me! Don't worry, I was
way less slobbery than he was! :)
Beautiful view on the way to Loja
Doc talking at the conference
Me at the conference. My coworkers love taking pics of me.
Angie and I
Youth band. The girl that is kinda blurry was dancing her butt
off. She was having herself a grand ol time on stage. The other
2 girl dancers kept looking at her and following what
she was doing. It was so cute!
This was the commentator (sp?). His job was to
get the crowd pumped up. He was really funny. At one
point he said, "We are going to play ______ song. If you
don't like it, well, that sucks for you!" It was really funny!
Buying some bocadillas. They are delicious by the way!
Oh, and they snuck a pic of me while I was sleeping on the ride back.
Actually,more like 3 or 4, but I'm only going to share 1 with you.
When we got back to Cuenca some friends and I went to Angie’s house to make dinner and watch movies. We made grilled ham and cheese sandwichs, popcorn, and hot chocolate. Then we watched the movie/documentary called Earthlings… very appalling movie. Makes me never want to eat meat again.
Saturday was a big day. Some PCV friends and I were planning on having a Beer Olympics party. Cuenca vs. Santo Domingo cluster. To start it off we had a jaba (case) race. Here in Ecuador “cases” of beer are 12 beers in a crate so it wasn’t too bad considering there were 6 people to a team. After that we played team beer pong and then some flip cup. It was an all-around fun night full of delicious food and speaking English and meeting new PCVs from other omnibuses. At 1am I was ready to go home so I called a cab. In the cab I was dreaming of how comfy my bed was going to be and how excited I was to lay down and get a good night’s rest before the big game the next day. But when I got home there was a party at my house. WHAT??? Not once since I’ve been here has anyone in my family had people over. And the one night I’m exhausted and ready for bed there is a party at my house?? Of course I didn’t get to go to bed. Even if I wanted to my room is 2 steps away from the kitchen and it would have been impossible. So I stayed up chatting with my host brothers and their cousins that are in town. The party was a birthday party for a guy friend of my host mother. I finally got to bed around 4:15am.
Team Cuenca!
The enemies... grrr! ha
Sunday I got out of bed at Noon and met my PCV friends at a bar called Inca, which is owned by an American, to watch the Women’s World Cup finals. It was a good time, the whole bar was filled with nothing but Americans chatting and rooting on the good ol US of A!
At one point these two women and their dog sat behind the couch my friend and I were sitting on and started talking to us. The owner of the dog even found a seat for her tiny dog to sit on. It was really funny. We got to talking and this woman was completely in love with her dog. So much so that it was the only thing we talked about. Towards the end of our conversation she asked my friend and I if we liked dogs and then handed her dog over to sit with us. The dog ended up falling asleep on my lap and the woman thought it was the cutest thing. The dog’s name was ‘Khaki, like khaki pants.’ <-- that is what the woman said every time someone asked her the name of the dog. It got old really fast.
Anyhoo, after the depressing loss we went over to this guy’s house for a BBQ. We ate grilled veggies and some hamburgers. It was sooooo good!
And that was my weekend.
Finally, a little bit about work. Today at work Angie and David were telling me that in a couple minutes these two women were going to come to the office for a meeting and that we were going to start a program teaching English to the members of the 32 communities we work with. Basically, what Angie meant when she was telling me about it, was that I was going to be the one setting it all up and working with this woman from the States who teaches English here in Cuenca.
First of all, nothing like springing this on me 5 minutes before it happens. Second of all, I really do not have a desire to teach English, but whatever, it will give me something else to do besides sit on the computer all day. Nothing is planned yet, this all just came up today. We have to talk to community members and form classes first. Then figure out if we will be traveling to their communities to teach classes or if they will be coming to Cuenca. It will be a long process. There are lots of people from the communities that are interested, so hopefully this turns out to be successful J
Until next week,
Heather
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