just another monday

Where to begin…how about with the previous weekend. So last weekend I stayed in Cumand· for the weekend and it was a nice, slow weekend. I’ve found that weekends have a tendency to be the hardest part because you have a lot of time on your hands to do nothing. I passed last weekend by doing a little yard work with my neighbors on Saturday and then after a delicious fish fry for lunch, which I helped cook by roasting bananas in the fire, I went for a walk and ended up in the market. Peace Corps gave us a cookbook that includes recipes from all the other volunteers and I found a recipe for a beet and pineapple salad so I was determined to make it for myself for dinner. Which I did, and then Melita came over while I was preparing it and defiantly did not approve of me eating beets in the evening. Apparently they’re only appropriate to eat for lunch. Nonetheless, I thought the salad was delicious and so did my 13 year old best friend.

On Sunday I treated myself to sleeping in until 9 am after my neighbor had come over twice to wake me up. I love my privacy here. But the best part about Sunday morning was the chocolate chip banana pancakes that I made myself. Soo good. Anyways I later ended up meeting Brooke, the volunteer that lives across the river at the market and we walked around and did a little shopping but by that point I had started to not feel well and was pretty unsure why. I ended up spending the rest of Sunday and all of Monday lying in bed watching movies and reading. I’m still not sure what was wrong but the thought of food and walking around made me overly nauseous. I think it was the fish I ate on Saturday, Melita is certain it was because I ate beets for dinner. But now it’s a week later and I am healthy and feeling fine, well not really because now I have a cold, but I’m not nauseous so that’s great.

This week I’ve spent most of my ‘work’ time working on the computer project and also developing the co-op’s webpage. I thought this computer project was going to be uber simple but the more I research it the bigger and more intimidating it gets. And my counterpart who is a very typical, idealistic Ecuadorian is full of great ideas and dreams but its difficult to bring him down to a realistic level. Like for example, the elementary school in Cumand· has 600 students and he wants an average of 10 kids per computer so naturally he wants to put 60 computers into this school that 1. Doesn’t have extra classrooms or space for the computers 2. Most likely doesn’t have a budget to pay an increased electricity bill 3. Have teachers that know how to use computers let alone extra teachers that can teach computer classes 4. Have appropriate security to keep the computers safe. But when I brought up these points, he looked at me and waved his hand in disgust and changed the topic. Ha guess I’m going to have to learn how to be demanding in Spanish.

This weekend I was planning on just doing a small trip, like maybe Guayaquil for the day but on Friday my boss told me that we were going to Riobamba Saturday morning for a event fair that the company had been invited to. So guess that was a minor change in plans. He told me he’d be at my house at 4 am to pick me up, so being the good American that I am, I was up, showered, packed and ready by 3:45 merely to wait outside on my curb until 4:45 when he finally showed up in a pickup truck with five seats all of which are already full. So I squeezed into the back seat with three other grown men for the 3.5-hour car ride. An hour of which was on back roads full of potholes and turns and with an idiot that doesn’t know how to drive. Needless to say even with only my 3 hours of sleep before, I didn’t sleep for a second in the car ride.

The event fair was really interesting. It was held by the government of Chimborazo, which is the province, I live in and they invited a few representatives of each county to come and represent their local products. So we took oritos, red bananas and a chocolate fountain to dip the fruits in. Also, of course they brought a milk jug of Puro (alcohol made from sugar cane which has a value of about $2 for a gallon) and made some sort of punch with lemons and thus we had the most popular booth in the entire fair. I was thankful to not be riding back to Cumand· with them.

I ended up meeting up with Ana and the other volunteers that live near Riobamba. It was one of the girl’s birthdays so we went out Saturday night to celebrate. On Sunday I took the 12 o’clock bus home (I learned my lesson about taking the later buses last time) and there was a group of American’s that were studying in Guayaquil for the summer and they were just returning from BaÒos (natural springs outside of Riobamba, very popular with tourists, I’m banned from going because its at the base of a mildly active volcano that has been deemed “dangerous” by Peace Corp Headquarters). I sat next to a kid, Ben, and it was fun to chat with him and he just asked me question after question about Ecuador and Peace Corps and it gave me a sense of pride in what I was doing and reminded me how much I used to admire Peace Corps volunteers. So it was a good motivational booster.

Yesterday after I got into town, I went to my neighbor’s bar and sat across the street on the curb and watched the Ecuador-Peru soccer game. Incase you didn’t watch, we won, 2-1, it was a good game. And we play Argentina on Wednesday. It is crazy how big of a deal the games are here. Stores will close down during the games, people move their chairs and TV’s and couches out into the streets and the entire town is just full of this crazy energy, but I am a little nervous if there’s a loss…

Melita gave me permission today to buy a dog and there’s a lady that has two German shepherd pups that are absolutely adorable. Big dogs and somewhat purebred dogs are very rare here but I’m also nervous that if I got a big dog it will eat me out of house and home and I don’t think my $7 a day can feed me and him. But oh what I would give to have a companion to come home to…and to be able to give hugs to! Decisions, decisions.

Well, now its Monday, I went to work for a little this morning and I have to go back again at 4 for a meeting about the computers. Hah this is a postponement from last week because after telling me 5 times to be at the office at 4:00 pronto last Thursday my counterpart some how managed to get stuck in Guayaquil and never made it back until 7 pm. Right….4 o’clock on the dot….i’ll be there.

Quick note to Gretchen and Natalie, Congratulations on graduating!!! And also to miss Stefanie Guerrero, Happy 23rd Birthday (just dance)!!!!

Love Love.