Que Bestia

Last Saturday we had a bingo baile to raise money for the week long festivities that will happen in September.  Before the bingo there was a soccer tournament for men and for women.  When I say soccer, I really mean ‘indoor.’  This is the sport played more regularly than soccer here.  It is on a concrete court a little bit smaller than a basketball court, with small goals, and a small, heavy soccer ball.  All of the kids in the community raved about how hard I could kick a regular soccer ball, so I was put on a team.  My team lost to the women’s team from Cumandá 4-0.  One of the goals was definitely my fault and I screwed up a lot of other things as well.  Needless to say, the women on my team were not too happy with me…whoops.  When people asked me later about why I was so bad, I just blamed it on the fact that the court and ball are too small for a giant like me to manage.  Later that night was the bingo baile.  Everybody played a round of bingo and then would dance to a couple songs and then play around round of bingo and then some more dancing, etc.  I got bored around midnight (after only the 2^nd round of bingo) and left, but when I woke up at 6 in the morning I could still hear the music going.  Apparently Leonor was there until 5 in the morning dancing, and she wasn’t the last one to leave.  I guess Buenos Aires knows how to party…I need to get with it.

I will be moving out of my host family’s house soon.  The new house that I am moving into is a MIDUVI house, a government projects house.  It is literally the concrete shell of a house.  There is an open area with a sink against the wall that is supposed to be the kitchen/living room, and then there are two bedrooms.  To get to the bathroom you have to walk outside but it is an enclosed room that backs up to the house with sink, toilet, and shower.  Currently there is no water or electricity hookup, but that should be getting fixed soon.  And there is no septic hookup (but there is a large hole behind the house that they are going to connect to the toilet with some tubes and top with concrete…everything problem here is solved with a layer of concrete).  Currently the only thing in the house is the town drunk.  So after I kick him out I have to think about buying furniture, counters, a stove, a fridge, plates, and countless other things that the concrete shell of my house currently lacks. 

On the project front, things are still pretty slow here.  I did get a promising call from another volunteer though.  She has a woman in her site that is super gung-ho about building septic tanks with leach fields.  Apparently, one community had a communal septic tank that collapsed and everything is now going into either the river or the irrigation canal.  The government said that they will help out financially with the tanks but the lady needs to submit plans and calculations…that is where I come in!  Hopefully within the next month or so I’ll go out to her site (in the Oriente) to figure out how exactly we are going to proceed.

Random Thoughts:

·         We finished planting cacao on Pepito’s land.  He wants to set up an irrigation system so I’ll be helping with that soon.

·         Leonor’s nephew showed up at the house one day with a pack of cigarettes and a fifth of vodka.  I am not really sure why he was at the house, but he just sat at the table chatting, smoking, and drinking.  Later, after he was about two-thirds of the way through the bottle, he professed his undying love for me.

·          It is funny how there are absolutely no regulations here.  No littering laws, no noise regulations, no emission regulations, etc.  The most amazing one though is building permits.  I was walking back in the jungle one day when I saw my neighbor cutting down some caña.  He told me he was building a house and invited me to check it out.  Turns out he needed some extra room for people to stay at the hostel so he decided to build a house, thought about it for a couple hours, and then bought some nails and started building.  The house it actually pretty awesome and quite impressive.

·         I was out exploring one day and found the other river that borders Buenos Aires.  It is super pretty because it is set back in the forest and apparently when it rains a lot there is a really pretty waterfall.

·         My neighbor’s dog got hit by a truck the other day.  The owner’s weren’t home when it happened so Danny just dragged the bloody corpse in front of their house and left it.  Later in the day I saw the older woman who lives across the street dragging the dog by the feet with one hand and using her cane with the other.

·         My cat’s name is officially Milly.  Short for Milagro because it is a miracle that the cat has survived the torment of my host siblings.  (Props to Kate for coming up with the name)

Hasta los Colores

Two weekends ago I went up to Quito to visit my old host family and go to Julian’s baptism.  I stopped in a friend’s site on the way up.  His town is about an hour and a half from Tumbaco/Quito area and is tucked in a valley in the middle of the Andes.  It is absolutely gorgeous.  In the morning we went up the hill/mountain to an indigenous community to help a man plant his potatoes.  The view was awesome, but the altitude was not so nice.  By midmorning I was on my way up to Tumbaco to my old house.  I walked in and was greeted by people I knew and liked and who liked me; it was great.  The baptism party was going to be held at the house so I helped them make some food for the night and chatted.  My family has a new volunteer so I got to meet her as well.  After, we all got ready and headed out to the church.  The baptism was kind of strange because it was just a whole bunch of kids and a few family members for each all there to get baptized.  So basically the priest just walked around from kid to kid and did his little ritual thing and then it was all over.  I was the official Gringa paparazzi for the ceremony because Johana wanted lots of pictures.  The ceremony went fine and we were all getting ready to leave when Julian’s father (who wasn’t invited since he doesn’t financially or emotionally support Julian) walks up to Julian, hugs him, gives him a gift, and walks out.  At this point Julian starts screaming because he saw his dad and then he left.  Johana starts crying.  And Sylvia and Fausto are looking worried and angry.  Everybody trudges out to the car, collects themselves, and by the time we are back at the house everything is back to ‘normal.’  The other relatives started showing up at the house and it was great to see everybody again and show them that I can kind of speak Spanish now.  Everybody enjoyed the fact that I am getting married off and that I have a love kitten.  Fausto and Sylvia both forbid me, saying that I don’t have permission.  The night was great.  There was lots of good food, good music, dancing, and lots of laughs.  The night ended with all the girl relatives dancing in a circle to Lady Gaga…classic.  The next morning I woke up and hung out with the family a bit and then they drove me to the bus stop and I was on my way back to site.  The trip back was quite the adventure.  I was going a different way because I wanted to avoid going into the bus terminal in Quito because it is a hassle.  This meant I had to switch buses a lot and get on in random spots that I had never been before.  Everything went well and I made it on all five different buses ok.  One of the buses was full except for the co-captain seat next to the driver, he insisted that I sit there and get the great view of the drive through the mountains.  Throughout the 2 hour drive the bus driver decided we were going to get married in a week, go on a honeymoon on the coast, he was going to teach me Quecha, and then I was going to teach him English and take him back to the States.  He didn’t show up for the wedding a week later, bummer.  On the next bus, this driver decided to chat me up also.  People here are so forward and within a minute of meeting you, they are asking for your cellphone number (I always claim I don’t have one).  After long hours on the bus, throwing up children in the seat in front of me, and screaming babies I finally made it back to Buenos Aires. 

I had made a point of getting back late Sunday night rather than Monday because I was supposed have a meeting and get the seeds for the community gardens that day.  Well, of course, there were no seeds and no meeting.  People here do not like to stick to schedules and it is really starting to frustrate me.  I broke down to Leonor one day with my frustrations and she was actually understanding.  Since then things have been better with her.

Nothing much else is new.  I am planting cacao with Pepito on his land near the river.  In the Escuela de Campo we got materials to make biol.  The kids had their first English test; it didn’t go too well.  I went out into the campo to pick some breadfruit.  There also have been a lot of papaya and tangerines to pick lately. 

Random Thoughts:

·         I have a ridiculous amount of bug bites on my legs.  My sheets are stained with little drops of blood from when I scratch them in my sleep.  My sheets are also stained with squished bodies of gnats and other bugs that make it through my mosquito net.

·         Both dogs at the house died within a period of two weeks.  The first started having seizures and then completely lost it mentally.  And the second got hit by a car and then got an infection from a worm/slug thing.

·         A taxi driver told me one day that I am being a really good example for the kids in town.  He said that he has seen me running with them and picking up trash with them and that I am teaching them things that their parents won’t ever teach them.  It was encouraging to hear.

·         My cat went missing one night.  I looked around for a while and just decided that she would come back in the morning.  In the morning Lizbeth told me that she knew where the cat was the whole time but didn’t want to tell me because she wanted to see me worried and hoped that I would cry.

·         There have been various occasions where men come to the house and shamelessly take out their cellphones, take a picture of me, and then just walk away.

·         My house is on a fairly busy road.  When I am sitting on the porch reading, people will drive by and gawk at me like I am a zoo animal.

·         Pepito and I were out looking at his corn one day and this groundhog/rodent thing ran by.  Pepito chucked his machete at it hoping to kill it because I guess it eats his corn and it tastes real good.  It got away.