go buckeyes

Well, this will likely be my last blog entry for a little while, as we´re headed back to the Sierra tomorrow morning...and then going on a 10-day tech trip back to the Oriente later in the week. While we are 0 for 4 on seeing Buckeye tourney basketball games...(although Chris has provided vivid play-by-play recaps of the games for us. Thanks Chris!!!) we did have the pleasure of keeping tabs of their progress via the internet...although it was suuuuuuuuuuper slow (a score update every 3 minutes or so...okay, so maybe it was 30 seconds...but you get the picture: painfully slow).

We´ve had a very productive, yet still relaxing few days in Puyo. I finished my 4 month initial workplan with the Waorani women´s group. It was a little bit of a process...as they seemed very hesitant to sign it. I am assuming that it is because they have been burned on contracts they have signed in the past... don´t know for sure, but can only speculate. I´ll have lots of interesting things to do when I get back to town. Other highlights: ate some p¡zza (twice!)...Bought some Waorani jewelry (3 pairs of earrings, a small purse, a necklace and a bracelet for $10...) yes, I will be marketing this to my friends in the states!. Met some American missionaries (there are a lot of them around these parts)...checked out the ethnographic park...walked around town...learned that one of the pizza joints delivers! Also learned that you can hire taxis to run errands for you....and that Nip/Tuck is aired on one of the cable channels... got an email confirming that Krista and Caleb will be our first visitors... woo hoo!!!...and that Jeremy´s office mates are on two opposite ends of the political spectrum (after a lively debate about world politics and communism while we ate pizza...a winning combo!). Okay, so Jeremy just announced we can get world wrestling matches on TV here, but no NCAA basketball games... the injustice of it all!!! (not to mention the fact that we´re watching cable tv...hardly a PC thing to do). Well, gonna sign off...

Thanks to all who sent emails. Keep the updates coming!!! O-H...

what a buck will buy ya´

Jer just got a $1 haircut. Yes, you read it right, one whole U.S. dollar. And it is a good haircut, to boot. I just thought that was worthy of a separate blog entry.

Our hut in the jungle

Wow, what a difference a day can make. Well, we´re finally in Puyo!!! We made it! And our first impression of our future home has been extremely positive. No, actually, it has been great!!! But, I´m getting ahead of myself. Let me back up. Many of my faithful readers are waiting with baited breath to learn about the fate of our hero, the science king. Well, I´m very happy to report that Jeremy is among the living again. His surgery, well, it went okay I guess. It certainly wasn´t fun for him...and he was in quite a bit of pain, but he´s alive and well.... and totally doped up on painkillers. His face is a little hinchada (swollen) pero, no mucho. Anywho, we were glad to finally get out of Quito. While it offered many of the creature comforts of the States, this fact was accompanied with many of the same annoyances: lots of traffic and pollution and greater threats of crime that comes with just about any large city. Sooo.... we pulled out of Quito yesterday morning about 8:15 and made the long drive to Puyo with Chela, one of the Peace Corps staffers. It was nice for Jer (and me) to have the ´luxury´of riding in a car, versus a bus, so we were able to pull over at the scenic overlooks and take pictures, stop when we had to go to the bathroom, and the ride forced us to speak Spanish (otherwise it is much too easy to talk English when we´re alone). The drive out of Quito was beautiful... the patchwork of verdant mountains...dramatic snow-capped volcanoes .....the more arid almost desert-looking mountains around Ambato...the evidence of lava flows from the past eruptionso fo Volcan Tungurahua... and most impressive of all was the drive from Baños to Puyo (just as the guidebooks say)... it was absolutely spectacular!!! I have to say it was one of the coolest vistas I´ve seen. We must have passed two dozen waterfalls. We drove through (literally...in tunnels) probably 5 or 6 different mountains (behind a pickup truck with 3 super cute little girls in the truckbed) and had spectacular views of this immense river valley (Rio Pastaza). Baños is famous for their hot springs from the volcano. The town looks supercute (one guidebook says it is pretty close to Shangri-La) with a dramatic backdrop of huge-onic, green mountains and spectacular waterfalls. For those planning on visiting us, this will be a must-see place (plus you more or less have to go through it to get to Puyo!). One of the tourist attractions is riding mountainbikes (downhill almost the entire way) from Baños to Puyo. It would take most of a day, but looks totally worth it if you take your time...which there are so many amazing overlooks along the way, you couldn´t possible ride by without stopping to gape at the incredible views. Okay, so we finally roll into Puyo, which, like any city has its grittier aspects, but it also has some incredibly charming aspects as well...based on our 27 hours or so that we´ve been here so far. Like most Ecuadorian towns, the roads aren´t marked very well, so of course we had to ask around to find out where we had to be. We just so happen to see Jeremy´s counterpart, Bolívar, while we are driving around asking for directions to the Waorani women´s group office. He helped us find it and I got a quick tour of the little storefront where the women sell their jewelry and handicrafts and their offices and meeting space. The women were welcoming and gracious...and gorgeous! My counterpart, had to meet with another person for a while, so she let me flip through photos that were on her computer. The organization is evidentally receiving support and funds from USAID and right now they are offering a number of workshops for the communities on the "interior" (in the jungle) to improve their marketing and quality of their handicrafts...and to teach small business skills. All in all, it was a very positive first impression and first meeting, I thought. It is going to be super challenging for me, for sure, but I think it will be a very rewarding and rich experience. For starters, I´ve got to try to learn the language of the Waorani......but before even that, Peace Corps is trying to find an instructor for me...so that I can learn some basic phrases before we return to Puyo exactly one month from today! While Manuela speaks Spanish, it is her second language as well! So, between the two of us, we do a good job of butchering the language at times. Jeremy´s counterpart organization, CODEAMA, seems very well organized and sophisticated---at least from my superbrief first impression. His counterparts seem extremely nice and I am pretty confident it was a good match for Jer.
So, we were supposed to stay with a family this week we are in Puyo, but that fell through, so we are shacking up at this SUPER super super cute little hotel. It is right on the edge of the river...has cute little thatched huts over colorful tables for alfresco dining...superclean and airy rooms and bathrooms. hammocks outside each door. Beautiful tropical flowers all around. It is called El Jardín (as Chris Farley would say, "that´s Spanish for the Jardín.¨ okay, really, it is spanish for "the garden." A beautiful garden tropical paradise indeed. It is WAY over our regular PC budget...but, after the crazy week we had, I´m happy to splurge on this place for the next three nights!

Okay... so for those of you dying to know about our housing in Puyo..... Well, all of you with visions of us living on a hut in the middle of the jungle...squatting in a pit toilet...drawing water from a well... and fill in the blank_______ with whatever stereotypical third-world living conditions you might envision.... yeah, well, nothing couldn´t be further from the truth. This is not your parent´s Peace Corps experience, my friends. Here´s the skinny: nothing is set in stone yet, but Peace Corps has tentatively approved an apartment outside the downtown area of Puyo...that is brand new. Two bedrooms. Nice bathroom and new ceramic tile floors. Huge sitting room kitchen area. All new!!!! I really afraid I´m going to jinx oursleves by typing this, but I´m hoping that all the pieces fall into place and that it gets finalized (there are a lot of hoops to jump through with the landlord I guess...and the only other alternatives for housing available next month are pretty icky I guess). Soooo...we´re crossing our fingers that it all works out. Of course, we have absolutely nothing to furnish it--or any other house---with, but Puyo seems to have just about anything we could possibly need or want to furnish our ´hut´and spend our moving-in allowance on!!! woo hoo!

Sweet tooth

Well, the tooth fairy has been most unkind to my hubby. It turns out he has an absess tooth and has to have oral surgery tomorrow. I can almost hear the collective gasp clear down here! Yes, he is going to a good dentist. No, he doesn't have to be med-evac-ed out of here. Yes, the dentist is American educated (born there, too, I guess). No, he doesn't have to be put under...they're doing a local anaesthetic. Peace Corps has been very accomodating and really wonderful about everything. I am going to stick around Quito with Jeremy through Wednesday morning and then, we're headed out to Puyo. It is the same problem tooth that has been filled, root canalled, crowned...and now semi-canalled again (because the first dentist did a poor job...but that's another story for another time) and over a thousand bucks later, it has to be fixed yet again...this time on uncle sam's dime. A most unpleasant experience for all involved.

Okay, so the optimist in me, must now move on to the positive parts of this story. Let's see. I had a super yummy dinner last night at Sports Planet---a knockoff of --fill in the blank--American sports bar. I had a FAB veggie wrap, fries, and a brownie a la mode with warm caramel, whipped cream and hot fudge drizzled on the plate. It was awesome. I keep thinking about it! Sadly, Jer's tooth prevented him from enjoying a burger...so he had tomato soup and sprite (which is pronounced the same way in Spanish, as in English, as we found out.) Okay, wait, I'm supposed to stay positive. So, in addition to enjoying a great dinner last night, I had a nice long, hot shower (with great water pressure) this morning and a warm, freshly baked croissant for breakfast. YUM! Also, on the positive side, we just so happened to run into the only other Peace Corps volunteer who served in Puyo...at the dentists office of all places! I had a great conversation with him...and he had nothing but good things to say about the town. He gave us lots of tips for living in Puyo and cool places to go. He is staying at the same Hostel as us, so we're planning on having dinner with him tonight and get an in depth briefing on Puyo and Peace Corps life. Which, ironically enough, is what we were supposed to be doing these last few days: staying with a fellow Peace Corps volunteer south of Puyo. So, we'll still be accomplishing something...and the delay will only put us one day behind in meeting with our counterpart organizations. Here's a link to some new photos. Until later, comrades. share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AbOHLhy0cNGep

Detour

Well, I am supposed to be on a bus to Puyo right now...but instead I´m in what is probably one of the fanciest malls in South America getting ripped off for internet access.... So why am I here, you ask...the question mark doesn´t even work on this machine.... Well, Mr. King seems to have come down with a tooth problem. He was up all night and is in quite a bit of pain, despite the meds. He has an appointment with the Dentist tomorrow here in Quito. Meanwhile, in the TMI department, I seem to have come down with a mild UTI. The nurse suggested I go ahead to Puyo sola, but Jer and I weren´t too hip on that idea. Hummm...a UTI and a 5 hour bus ride........ The training staff ok´d me to stay with him, so we can eventually catch a bus to Puyo once he gets cleared....hopefully tomorrow. Plus, I can´t imagine him having to try to navigate or speak spanish after a good shot of novocane! We caught a ride into the city with the director of our training, checked into a little hostel...that is supposed to have NCAA games....but I don´t want to get my hopes up again, as the last place that was supposed to have basketball let us down. Although we still had a blast last Sunday. Anyway, I digress. I went to the pharmacy and picked up some Cipro. Yes, the same Cipro that half of DC was on after the anthrax scare. Yes, it is an antibiotic that is available over the counter here...and suggested by the nurse. I´m hoping that will cure what ails me. I´m more worried about Jer´s tooth, as the last thing we want is for him to be medivac éd out to get in depth dental work. He has threatened to just pull the tooth out a la Tom Hanks in that one movie... plus he read the ¨Where there is no doctor¨ book cover to cover...

So...the part of Quito we´re in is pretty swanky and has lots of names you would recognize and stores with high fashions from Spain. This 3 story mall rivals CitiCenter in its heydey...and possibly even Polaris Mall, although I refused to shop there so I don´t really know what it is like....but imagine it is not that unlike this place. We walked around what I can only assume is the Quito equivalent of central park. Very cool. Lots of people walking, playing basketball, fútbol, vollyball and even tennis. Tons of kids eating ice cream. And dogs on leashes! That reminds me that I need to add a post about the dogs of Ecuador. Probably not today, as we´re going to have to shove off soon.

This week was pretty good overall. I feel like my Spanish improved quite a bit. I tested two levels higher than when I got here. Jer jumped three levels!!! Our language facilitator brought me the El Comercio newspaper a few days this week, so I enjoyed keeping up with the news. I read that Laura Bush and one of the twins were in the Galapagos this week. There was also a big photo of theChavez and Barbara Walters interview...but didn´t say much about the substance of their conversation, though.

We had a freak hailstorm on Thursday. We were in a building with a tin...although Jer says it is plastic...roof. Whatever it was, it was deafening. We had to halt our class until it stopped because it was just sooooo loud! We introduced our family to speed scrabble and it was a big hit. Everyone was into it. It was really hard for me and Jer, as we kept seeing words to spell in English, but couldn´t use. We also realized that we need more tiles of some letters...and we need the n tilde tile letter... as Spanish words use more of some letters than we use in english. It was a lot of fun! We went to the Toys R Us equivalent to try to find Spanish Scrabble...but it was a little out of our price range...plus we don´t want to haul it right now. We took a hit yesterday when we had to pay to try get a package out of customs. P.S. THANK YOU TO ALL WHO HAVE SENT CARE PACKAGES. YOU ROCK OUR WORLD!!! But, a reminder to all of you, please DO NOT DECLARE A VALUE on the packages you send. If, for whatever reason the post office requires you to put a value, put $1 or something...for a used book...or whatever. One of the other volunteers had to pay $20 ...which is a load of dough down... here to get a package of tampons that she got from the U.S. I miss my O.B. and Reece´s Cups as much as the next gal, but I don´t want to have to pay close to a weeks ¨wages¨ to get them out of customs! Plus, it takes forever to get them out. We don´t know when we´ll actually get the package that is stuck there now... So, not to sound ungrateful, because I am SOOOOOOO excited to get packages.... but just want to make sure everyone knows the drill...

Here´s a public shout out of gratitute to Bryan and Kelly, Paul and Jane, Rick and Melinda and Auntie and Dad who have sent letters and packages that we received. You rock!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Finally, some thoughts about working with the Waorani. Yes, as some of you have found out through a little googling, the Waorani are a very isolated culture...one that some would describe to be aggressive against outside influences. I want to assure those of you who are worried, that everything is cool and this women´s group has specifically asked for Peace Corps´assistance with expanding their ecotourism and artisan marketing efforts. I can only assume that I will be working primarily in the city of Puyo ...and will take infrequent trips into the interior...although I´m super excited to learn more about their communities. P.S. Wikipidia has a cool description of Puyo. I can´t wait to check it out..Hopefully my next post will have more of the details we all are anxious for. ..but first I must get past this little dental detour.

To the rainforest!

Well, this is going to be quick...as I don´t have time to write much, as I need to get back to our community. We finally know our site: PUYO!!! It is in the Oriente region of the country : think rainforests of the Amazon Basin. I´ll be working with an indigenous women´s organization. It is a HUGE honor and privilege to be chosen to work with the Waorani...especially because they have been so isolated in the past...and because it was one of the more coveted sites among our group of trainees. We´ll be living in the city of Puyo at least at the beginning and doing extension work into indigenous communities. It sounds like I´ll be helping with some organizational development challenges (they are a new organization) and working on some aspect of their ecotourism business and maybe help market their beautiful jewelry and other artisania...all issues I am incredibly interested in. Gotta run...but wanted to spread the good news. Ciao!

foul shots

For those of you counting, I received my 10th (and final, I hope) shot (yes, as in, vaccination) today. Ten, count em´10. I believe today´s was of the Hep B variety....so I´m all drugged up and ready to rumble with the best of the pests in the jungle.

So, my photo upload took the good part of an afternoon, the other day, as I had to select the photos individually and upload them in small batches...a very time intensive process. I hope you enjoyed them. I´m hoping to figure out a faster way to upload future photos...or at least until we get our reboot CD´s and fix our freakin´laptop. Right now we´re on the slowest connection south of the Equator I think...so this is going to be short.

This week was mostly learning about all the different volunteer sites...which was moderately interesting, but since we don´t have much of a choice it didn´t have as great importance to us. The process has been stressful to a lot of people...myself included on Wednesday... Thankfully the wait will be over on Tuesday and everyone can have that mental security in knowing where we´re going to be spending the next 2 years.

Any other news from up North? We´re feeling quite out of the loop, I must admit. Although, we´re hoping to have a mini March madness on Sunday and take in some serious basketball and beers. Go Bucks! Those are the kind of shots I´m talking about! Woohoo!

Photos! Finally!

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AbOHLhy0cNGea&notag=1

Where is the @ at???

A short entry today... First and foremost, a big THANKS to everyone who sent me emails today! Awesome! Keep em´coming!!!

This whole week is dedicated to learning about all the potential volunteer sites available in Ecuador. The counterparts from the sponsoring local organizations come (many from great distances) to briefly talk about the jobs and the communities. Since there are only a few open to couples, we basically are scouting out places we might want to visit at some point in the future with people who are visiting us...or on our own later down the line. Right now, we´re most interested in the sites and the jobs in the Oriente... which is the rainforest of the Amazon basin (I mean, when am I ever going to have a chance to live in the freakin´rainforest again???). We´ll find out for sure next Tuesday. Stay tuned!

Here are some interesting factoids about Ecuador that might be of interest to blog fans:

-- pedestrians do NOT have the right of way in Ecuador. Look out for them buses! They´re everywhere!
--buses are dirt cheap. The bus we from our meeting site into Cayambe costs 16 cents...and they leave every 10 minutes or so (this ain´t no COTA!) and you often get free entertainment in the form of loud music or cute kids.
--Computer keyboards are different here. Not only do they have the groovy ñ key, but also the ever so cool ¿¡ to let you know that the sentence is a question or a shout out right from the start. The most confounding difference, however, is the darn @ symbol...essential for blogging and emailing. Despite the fact it is pictured on the 2 key, it does not in fact work. So where is the @ at, you ask? (p.s. the ? is not in the same place as on English-northamerican keyboards either, hence the misplaced _ ) The secret @ formula: hold the ALT and then 4 and then 6.
--oh, and no I wasn´t joking when we said that the delicacy here is cuy (guinea pig). Our family has a whole pen of them for special occasions.

Well. That´s all for now. I´ll continue to add Ecuadorian anecdotes as they strike me. Gotta jet for now. More later this week. ¡Ciao!

computer party

Well, after a half hour wait to get on a computer...and then another 20 minute delay in getting any program to work (I hate mozilla, btw) I´ve finally got some time to write and catch up on emails...but I only received one since Friday!!! I´m bummed... especially since it was bad news of the bus accident with the Bluffton baseball team. We saw a short clip on the news here about it but had no idea they were from Bluffton. Very, very sad.

I´m also very frustrated that even though we finally have time to upload some photos, the batteries are just now dead in the camera. VERY frustrating!!! (Especially since our lil´bro just took a funny picture of me washing clothes this morning).

Jeremy has recovered from a brief spell of violent vomiting that hit him suddenly yesterday afternoon. Not sure what made him sick, as we have been eating virtually the same things. I´m hopeful I don´t get the montezuma´s revenge, too. We missed the community dance last night, as a result. It sounded like quite a party...the bass was thumping well into the night... (it sounded more like nightclub music than any type of salsa...) Jer said it lasted until 3! Since Jer was out for the count, I hung out with our host mom in the living room. She was knitting a pretty pink scarf and I was reading a book (I´m almost done with my last book, so I´m hopeful we get our carepacks soon, as I don´t want to have to resort to reading technical manuals to put me to sleep). The t.v. was on and had a hilarious documentary about the science of sexual attraction between men and women.

One of the highlights of this week was the community meeting we went to on Thursday regarding water (and lack thereof). We thought it was going to be about the fact that we didn´t have water that day, as we understand they are replacing some pipes around town. Jeremy and I had taken a walk and saw where they had done extensive excavation work...and one poor soul who was digging part of it by hand. He suggested it would be 15 days until they were done. We were mentally preparing to not have water for a long time...but it turned out the water was back on later that day, thank goodness. Anywhooo....the meeting was very interesting...and touched on a lot of other environmental issues...from littering, climate change, environmental education to the pollution (air and water) from the flower plantations that are all over the place around here. We were expecting a really low key meeting, but instead it was super high tech---with a powerpoint and slick video. The video went into some of the issues the Ecuadorians have with the Free Trade agreements ...there were some pretty powerful images of the protests that went on in Quito. A video showed people carrying a lot of anti-american posters and messages (mostly aimed at U.S. companies like McDonalds and our government). As the local mayor aptly put it to us on Friday, the peasants and the indigenous people who have small herds of cattle simply cannot compete with imported milk produced in Wisconsin that is highly subsidized by the U.S. government. You could fill in the blank with any other type of agricultural product from the U.S. and get the same result. Interesting stuff. Anyhow, at the end of this 3 hour meeting (during which they graciously passed out cheese sandwiches and tea) they handed out a bunch of trees for people to plant. Unfortunately, they didn´t explain how or where they should be planted...or really do a very good job of connecting the dots between water quantity and trees... Some of the big water issues have been caused by people planting potatoes in the paramo, the high grassland areas in the mountains that retain and filter water. That, and the flower plantations are using a ton of water too. Oh, and of course even though it is the rainy season, it has hardly rained at all...thus creating drought-like conditions. They say the weather lately is more like August weather.

The other highlight of the week was planting a garden. Two, actually. We worked with the other guys in our cluster to till up some really hard, dry soil next to the Medical Center which is in the center of town. We got a few people in the community to help, including the town drunk! Although he was clearly trashed at 10 in the morning, he worked pretty hard. We were careful to not give him a rake, rather than a machete or pick ax, just for everyone´s safety. I picked up a bunch of litter around the center and then we cut off the bottoms of the dozens of the plastic coke bottles we found and made little cups to start some seeds---mostly tomato, but also broccoli and zucchini. The women from the community who were there had never tried to grow anything from seed, so it was a learning experience for them. We gave them a bunch of seeds to take home to plant there, too. After lunch we started in on the garden we´re planting at our host mom´s place. She had already did all the hard work of prepping the soil. We just raked it to make it a little more level---which was interesting in and of itself, as they typically plant their vegetables in mounds (which we´re guessing is because it normally rains a lot this time of year and maybe they´re trying to prevent them from being flooded???) Don´t know. Still learning. So, we planted our seeds the gringo way...in a straight line on a super flat patch of dirt. We collected a bunch of popsicle sticks that kids threw on the ground near the little corner store (industrious bunch we are) and used them to mark and label our rows. We planted onion, beet, cabbage, lettuce and zucchini. The big challenge was putting up fencing to keep their chickens out. We had to take the bus to the next town to buy some black mesh fencing material. We pounded some sticks in the ground, then attached the fencing. So far so good. No chickens have got in yet... but they certainly are trying. In the middle of the fence erection process, Jeremy all the sudden got really pale and said he was going to puek. He was out for the count the rest of the day. Thankfully, he´s better today, otherwise our mom was going to take him to a woman who specialized in medicinal plants. Evidentally she cured one of the previous volunteers´ bouts with vomiting. It´s a process that roughly translates to: ¨washing off the bad winds.¨ I guess she literaly washes people with different types of plants and an egg. Our host mom swears by it. I certainly would be willing to try it if I were super sick. Not sure Jeremy would be as open minded about it. I think it is the same thing about all the folk remedies for wart removal. You have to believe it will work.

On a somewhat funny sidenote, this internet cafe is doubling as a party palace for 6 year olds. Yeah, there is a big birthday party for a little girl going on in the back (actually, about 10 feet away). She´s all dressed up; they have a huge cake, balloons, hats, the whole bit. One of the kids just let out an ear peircing scream when one of the balloons broke. Some younger kids are running around seemingly unsupervised. The best part was when, after singing happy birthday to the little girl, someone smooshed her face in the cake and she started bawling. It was really funny...but I felt bad for the little girl. She was pretty ticked. She had a lot of frosting in her eyes. A cybercafe is a funny place for a birthday party indeed.

Feliz Cumpleaños

This is a public happy birthday greeting to my brother, T.J.; my friend, Sarah; my dad, John; and my mom, Kay....all of whom had birthdays in the last week!!!!! I will refrain from stating their ages so publicly, but suffice it to say that my mom is partying it up in Paris in recognition of her BIG birthdayTODAY... Woohoo!!! Have some good wine for me, too, mom!!! (oh, and mom, you were traveling the wrong direction to defy time...just ask Zuber. She tried to fly westward half way around the globe in an failed effort to prevent turning 30!!! Luv ya Zuber!)



This is also a public guilt trip to all who have not sent me any emails or letters or packages (the King clan is 3-for-3 on mail we have received so far... NICE! thanks!!!!!! what´s up with the Studers??? OEC??? Gruver groupies??? Dick´s Den crew??? Give it up! We´re starving for news down here!

Sooo...Jer and I were just in a hardware store buying some supplies for the garden we´re helping to build tomorrow...and I ran into some rolls of wire fencing stuff, and instictively and reflexively tried to catch the roll as it fell...and I shredded the tip of my left middle finger...which then proceeded to bleed all over the place. Luckily Coach King had some bandaids and he basically did triage outside the store. Not a lot of pain...just a lot of blood. Good thing I´m typing with a bloody finger on this keyboard at the internet cafe, eh??? I could really go for a nice glass of wine right about now, though...

Speaking of wine....a week or so ago, I bought a 1 liter box of wine (boxes are the preferred wine packaging here) for $2.59. It a Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile (how bad can it be, right??? My other options were ---seriousy--- boones farm knockoffs...with all our favorite flavors from college!!!) ...and well, the Cab is...well...did I mention that it was less than $3 for a liter? (We´re surviving on a SERIOUSLY small budget right now!)

On to more serious topics, we just had a really interesting meeting with the mayor of Cayambe...fascinating chap who gave us a brief history of the area and of Ecuador... he had studied at Stanford and talked to us in English (I´m guessing because he doesn´t get a lot of practice here?). The Ecuadorians are proud people...and never hesitate to boast about how much cooler it is here than in Columbia or Peru. Funny stuff.

Anywhooo... I passed my little language ¨test¨today...which was basically going through various scenarios to see if you have enough survival spanish to get you out of a pinch. There are days when I feel like my Spanish is improving and other days where I feel like it takes a serious nose dive. Beyond the 20 minute test, I did little speaking in Spanish today, so I feel it is on the downward slope...

Well, enough rambling for now. I hope to get back into town sometime this weekend to type som more individual emails to people. Until then, you all have to keep checking back here...same time same channel...for the boring and bizarre details of my life here. Ciao.