First, we’ll start with work. I’m still being “patient” as my boss asks me to do everyday because there’s really not much work for me to do and I am beginning to wonder how I ever even got assigned to work with him. I hate that he thinks of me merely as his secretary and would blow him off to find a new counterpart if it weren’t for the fact that I really want to work with his company to help produce and market their future product. He tells me to be patient and that in a few months things will be better and I believe him, until I remember this is Ecuador, a few months can last up to 5 years and I only have two!! But I guess I will take my time to research dehydrated bananas and better prepare myself…
In my lack of work, I have been finding other projects to work on. Last Friday there was a mini-festival for Ecuador’s independence day (it was 10 days late) and I attended it with Melita. After I received a free manicure from the students of the beauty school, Melita introduced me to a friend of hers who is the director of a high school that has a project helping the youth start small businesses. He invited me to help and I was able to meet with the heads of the program on Sunday. They also asked me to teach English at the high school (which I really don’t want to do but I’m starting to think it would at least give me something to do) and I told them I’d rather teach basic business classes or a geography-political science class. But the unfortunate thing is the high school only has classes on Saturday and Sundays, which are days I don’t really want to give up. So I guess we’ll see where this goes…
Today I finally planted my first seeds in my garden. I planted carrots, lettuce and a seed that I forgot what it was. And tomatoes as well but those are in my kitchen and I don’t really have much hope for them. Keep your fingers crossed. Melita had some flowerbeds made cuz that's really about the only way to grow things here and she very kindly let me have two of them. But as I was planting my seeds I noticed the giant ants crawling about and am worried that they are going to be a future nuisance. I have been searching all over Guayaquil and Riobamba to buy worms to start my worm beds but haven’t had any luck. Yesterday Melita told me there’s a place right outside of town that does worm beds and I can just buy some from them. So I guess my project for tomorrow is to find me some worms.
And enough about work, it bores me. This past Wednesday I went to Riobamba to spend time with my friend Ashley. She had found a spa in a little town outside of Riobamba and we set a mission to go and check it out, hoping to receive a nice massage. Turns out, its closed on Wednesday for cleaning and only offered a warm pool for swimming. Minor let down but instead of the spa, Ashley and I treated ourselves to some homemade, fresh fruit ice cream. Delicioooous. On Thursday Ashley went to work and I met up with some other volunteers who live in Riobamba for breakfast. We ate fish soup. I never would’ve thought that I would like to eat a soup with chunks of potato and albacore at 8 in the morning but it is oddly delectable and something that I am starting to crave. Afterwards we went shopping for worms and seeds and sadly didn’t have much luck. Now I know why no one grows their own gardens, its cuz seeds are expensive and lack in variety. But I ended up buying carrots, my friend lettuce and we swapped half for half so I guess it worked out well.
On Thursday Alice, the new volunteer to replace Brooke, arrived. I am slightly jealous that she has such a better work situation than me but I am not jealous that she is just starting. I’m taking my three months advantage and holding it over her head for as long as I can!
Saturday I went and played basketball with a friend of mine and of course I was the only female. I didn’t think it would be a problem until they started fighting over whose team I would play on. Apparently everybody wanted to be on my team because they were afraid to push or touch me. I was actually pretty offended by it but then I was better than about ¾’s of them (this is even after not playing since forever) so I got over it pretty quickly. That evening I took Fernanda and her two cousins to the circus that was in town for the weekend. And by circus they really mean two hours of clowns doing silly jokes and dancing and about 15 minutes of acrobatics, stunts and a hypnotist. It was really good, except for the clowns. Fernanda and her cousins wanted me to go up and get hypnotized but one, I was a little critical of the quality of the hypnotist, two, I was critical as to whether I could really be hypnotized in Spanish and three, I’m glad I didn’t because the last event that the hypnotist made his victims do was “dance sexy” which lead them to dancing and stripping.
On Sunday the family of Alice invited me to come to the pool with them so we spent the afternoon playing soccer, volleyball, swimming, playing cards and eating bbq-ed pig. Now that is what I like to call a Sunday!
This weekend I am heading up to Quito on Friday to go to the main office and get some stuff figured out and then on Saturday I am running another 10k. This one starts at 10pm and goes through the Old Town of Quito and passes by all of the churches. I am pretty excited about it cuz its going to be an incredible view but I am really worried about whether or not I’ll be able to breathe because its about an 6,000 ft change in elevation. I told my friend that I was doing it and that I was afraid of the elevation change and his response was “don’t worry, there’s always medics around”. Thank you Jorge…
Well that's about it from me, I wish I had more exciting news or projects but I am glad to be able to report that it was another good week in Cumanda!
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