productivity

I think that this past week has been the most productive week I’ve had since I’ve been here. Ha not really, I did nothing but I always managed to be busy. I actually feel pretty comfortable with saying that I handled this past week as well as an Ecuadorian. And I don’t mean that in a negative way. Anyways this week I managed to squeeze in a trip to Riobamba with my counterpart, went to Guayaquil one day with Melita to re-stock her store, washed my clothes (seriously took me more than 4 hours and that's with out drying them), went to my “uncle’s” birthday party, was verbally told how to prepare a chicken over a glass of juice, finished two books and went to a dinner party with friends. I don’t know how Peace Corps feels about it but I feel like I’ve had a pretty accomplished week.

Every Friday night Melita holds some type of worship service in the temple below my house. She says that she’s Taoist and so I would assume the service is as well but well I’m not going to lie, I don’t understand any of it but yet its still mildly interesting. After the service, Melita read all of us (there’s 6 of us every week) our zodiac signs and our horoscopes for the month. Mine was interesting but I got really bored by the last one. The services are always interesting, sometimes Melita will read from a special book that is only about the life of Jesus for 20 minutes to 2 hours so you never really know what to expect.

This morning, I had the intentions of going to Guayaquil to meet up with my friend Mitch for the day but it was uncertain of whether or no he was going to go on some bike ride with kids from the school that he teaches at. While I was waiting to hear back from Mitch, I received a text from someone that asked if wanted to go out and see more of Cumanda this morning and I ignored it because I had no idea who it was. 10 minutes later the same number calls me so I answer and I thought it was my friend from two weeks ago who is my age and studies in Guayaquil during the week and that she wanted to show me around. So I say yes, and leave to go meet up with her. Turns out wasn’t the girl I thought it was, instead it was a girl that is doing surveys for the local government going around house to house asking about the conditions of living and utilities and what not. I had given my number to her boss because I need to gather similar information and I guess he had passed it along. The survey is really interesting and even though she was supposed to work from 8-11 this morning, we surveyed TWO houses and then walked around Bucay, visited her friend and did a little bit of shopping until it was finally 11. She did invite me to come over next weekend to see where she lives so I guess its safe to say that I now have 2 friends in Cumanda. Whoo Whoo!

After surveying, I walked to the bakery with my 3 year old neighbor where the baker first, asked if the Gabby (the 3 year old) was my baby and second, literally came around from behind the counter, grabbed my shoulders and pulled me into his face (me on the verge of freaking out) and just stares into my eyes claiming “What beautiful eyes you have!!” Thanks. You could’ve asked to look at them closely, but really what’s personal space anyways?

Next weekend in Riobamba there is a 21k race that starts at the base of the Mt. Chimborazo and goes into the city of Riobamba. I really want to do it because I think it would be a beautiful, beautiful run but well I really don’t know what kind of shape I am to do 21km at about 4800m of elevation (basically the same as Mt. Hood) when I live at maybe 300m elevation. Yesterday in attempt to start training I went on a run for a little over an hour and I can’t barely walk today. I told myself that if I can run for an hour and half tomorrow then I could do the run next weekend. So we’ll see how that goes…

Tomorrow is Father’s Day, Happy Father’s day Dad!! My counterpart invited me to come eat lunch with him and his family, which I though was very kind of him and am grateful for his invitation. Yesterday evening I was talking with one of my counterpart’s friends and he told me that him and my counterpart are buying a pig and basically having a giant feast for their families. We bought one pig to feed all of the families that hosted us in Cayambe (fed about 200 people) and they want to get a pig for two families, probably about 50 people. So, if anybody doesn’t have any plans for tomorrow, feel free on coming down to Cumanda for some pig and cooked corn. J

This coming weekend, my neighbors have invited me to come to Quito with them. I really want to go and my neighbor really wants me to come with her. But the following weekend is the 4th of July and there’s a BBQ in Quito where I get to meet my “little brother”. Peace Corps started a big brother/sister program where I have been emailing back and forth with a kid that is in the group following us and they just arrived in Quito on this Thursday and I get to meet him at the BBQ. He’s from Portland and it has been nice to obsess about Portland with someone that understands its glory. So anyways, my problem is that I don’t want to go to travel to Quito two weekends in a row. Plus I’m not really sure I’ll be able to afford it. I only have $38 left for the week and for just the bus its $6 each way. Oh the decisions I face…

Anyways, Gabby just came clomping into my house (once again, she’s 3 and only wears shows that have heels) to inform me that its time to go watch the volleyball games. We’ll go and watch volleyball for about 3 hours every Saturday that I am here…even my neighbor (Gabby’s mom) says that Cumanda is boring on the weekends.

And good story to end on for the day: Today I went out to lunch with Gabby, Fernanda (my 13 yr old best friend) and Gloria (their mom) and on the way to lunch we crossed a street and this bus driver thought it would be hilarious to swerve and act like he was going to hit me. All four of us screamed, and Gloria yelled and cursed at the driver for being an idiot. But apparently he’s more than an idiot because he then proceeded to slowly drive down the street next to me harassing me. “Gringita, come home with me, Gringita lets go to the beach, Gringita…” on and on until I finally ducked into a store. All this while he has a bus load full of people!! I was annoyed and a little embarrassed because by that point everyone in the street was watching, but Gloria was furious which I found hilarious. I think she was more upset that the driver would say such things in front of her daughters but also she was upset for me J

I love the unexpected, hence why I am here. Love love!