Anyway, hello! Life in Ecuador is moving along just fine, with a few road bumps mixed in here and there, of course. After all, this is Latin America. Ecuador loves its fiesta days, and very frecuently, school is cancelled with no notice, and for seemingly no reason. For example, I once arrived to teach, only to discover that it was ¨flag day.¨ This means exactly what it sounds like...the children drew pictures of the Ecuadorian flag, then went home. Productive. (It is very interesting to compare the culture of education that we have at home, in the western world, versus how education is viewed around the world).
So two weeks ago (i think?) there was no class on Friday, Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. It is rare to get so much time off for teaching, so a bunch of us decided to use the time to travel a bit and see more of Ecuador. We wanted to go to the coast to relax and take it easy on the beach.
FAIL.
Thursday night we took an overnight bus to Guayaquil (city, big, nothing special). Had a few hours to kill so we napped in a park and walked and walked and walked around the city. Then we took a bus to Monañita, a small beach town. It was a bit trashy and loud (think reggae and techno music blasting from, I am not kidding, about 9am until 7am). The first night we had fun walking on the beach, dancing, eating a yummy dinner, and relaxing. The next day we had an amazing breakfast and then hung out on the beach. Let me add that it was grey and rainy and chilly the entire time, but we tried to make the best of it. We started to take a walk over some rocks far down on the beach, and about halfway to the end point I started feeling a bit nauseous. My friend Shira also stopped walking at about that same time and said she felt the same. We decided to walk back to the hostel and take a quick nap, feel better, and head out for dinner and drinks. Instead, we got back to the hostel just in time for us both to be sick, and then proceeded to be violently ill for the next 14 hours or so. I did not leave my little room for over 20 hours, and only got out of bed to be sick. I will not go into any more detail than that, but lets just say that the term ¨horrendous food poisoning¨ sort of covers how I felt. Remember, this was all after an amazing dinner and breakfast, and all 5 of us on the trip ate the same thing. So we dont really know what happened, but it was not fun. On the upside, I ate white rice and bread only for the next 4 days, and definitely lost a few pounds. Silver lining, I guess.
The next day, halloween, we felt well enough to get on a 30 minute bus ride and went to a much quieter, prettier, relaxed hostel in a different town. I spent most of the time lying down in bed and playing cards, but it was beautiful and calm and a good place to recover. It took a while, but I am finally feeling back to 100%.
and that was my vacation.
These next few weeks are lots of teaching and preparing for the end of year exams for the children. There is a TON of work to be done, but things are good and i´m very happy and busy. Also, as of December 1st I should be promoted to the Teaching Coordinator of the Program. This will add a bunch more responsibilities...and a pàycheck...so overall I am quite pleased with this change. Lots of people are leaving in the next few weeks, which is really upsetting and will change the dynamics of the house a lot...but hopefully cool new people will be coming in soon, and things will keep running smoothly.
We have lots of fun in the house...for example, the other night we had the Puro Puyo Olympics (puro puyo is a type of alcohol that I can only relate to moonshine. It is probably about 101% alcohol). There are currently 4 boys and 4 girls in the house, so we paired up in teams and held various events, such as an egg toss, sumo wrestling, wheelbarrow racing, ping pong ball relay races, trivia questions, etc. We also did this in costume...Adam and I, my teammate, were pirates, and there were also superheros and Greek Trojans. The puro puyo came into play between each activity, when we had to take a drink.
This is what happens when you get bored in the jungle...you make your own fun!!
As promised, some pictures:
This is our beast of a car that I drive. Thats me in the backround working on a leaking radiator under the hood, and the little girl is one of my students.
Our house, outside and part of the inside.
me and some volunteers working on an art project for the schools, in the office of our house.
The coordinators! Thats Jessie, me, Jeremy, and a creepy picture of Adam.
If you want to read a bit more, Jess and I wrote a blog post for the October Newsletter for Great Aves, our organization. Go to www.youvolunteer.org to check it out, its pretty short.
Love and kisses!
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