Friday 2/13

Since we didn’t have physiology we got to sleep in a little.

After culture class I chilled in the church office to catch some internet time before Spanish.

After Spanish we all went out to pizza and then hung out at Leigh’s house and ate cookies and watched a movie.

Saturday 2/14

Happy Valentine’s Day! I got a card and flowers from my mom and a rose from Maria de Lourdes.

In the morning we did some touristy things and went shopping as a group. My shopping ventures were an utter failure, but I did get to try roasted pork skin, which I found disgusting. It’s only slightly gross in concept, but I was not a fan of the texture. It was like chomping on a salty hard candy.

Back at “hogar dulce hogar” (as Marcela calls it,) we watched some movies and I did some homework before heading over to the other side of the world for a meeting at Maria’s house.

We talked about our experiences so far and how we were doing. Then we ate pizza and watched a movie.

Sunday 2/15

We went to the 11:00 service, which I really liked, then we picked up Chinese, which I loved.

After that immediately we hopped in the car for a 3 ½ hour excursion to visit the relatives. Dios mio. The highlights included:

Meeting a very cute but muddy dog that got me nastified.

Walking through a field while discussing popular music and breaking one of my three pairs of shoes.

Making taffy by pouring boiled sugar on a wet rock and sprinkling it with anise seeds then peeling it off an pulling it. Don’t mind the grass and ants . . .

At night I helped in the nursery at church, which was utter chaos but thoroughly enjoyable. I enraptured them by becoming el oso de cosquillas (the tickle bear).

My mom sent me to bed with a hot water bottle for my back.

Monday 2/16

After a shortened physiology class I went home and chillaxed for a while.

In the afternoon at La Fundaccion I was in optometry, where we worked with public health officials screening for cateracts. One old guy said his vision was so good because he was in the presence of such beautiful young ladies.

In the evening I played computer games with Gabby. Even against a 14-year-old I’m pathetic.

Tuesday 2/17

During physiology I drew a rather life-like depiction of Prof. Toral. Serves him right for letting a computer program teach us for 2 hours.

La Fundaccion: Today the optometrist was in, so he explained the patients’ conditions and the machinery to us. We saw patients with cateracts, which apparently are pretty common here, “tergios”, which are membranous growths, and glaucoma.

After the doc left, we chatted with his assistant for a while, who was very nice and gave us free eye exams upon request.

Attack #2 of water balloons. Luckily, pegging folks from cars is usually unsuccessful. Otherwise I would’ve taken it in the head.

Spanish today was awesome, mostly because she taught what we had questions on (which meant I actually cared about the material). We also translated a dirty love song. During recess we were playing with tiny rocks and some man threw a hissy fit that we were going to hit his car.

I had a nice chat with our bus driver and got to hang with the fam a bit before realizing a personal vendetta against a game of spider solitaire.

The one bar of wireless I pick up here that won’t let me connect to the internet is maddening.

Wedn esday 2/18

Best day in optometry EVER. This poor guy had been in the Foundation for about an hour before the doc arrived, and when he came in he explained that he had been assaulted on Friday and stabbed in the eye. Do some math between when he got stabbed and when he came in. It was really grossie josie. It had gotten infected. There was another sad case with a disabled man whose optic nerve had been damaged in an accident. There was nothing we could do for him. Cateracts, cateracts, and more cateracts.

Thursday 2/19

I love it when profs are late. Only an hour of physiology. Other than that, nothing terribly extraordinary happened. I survived another water balloon attack.

I think I need to be more careful of what I say . . . My parents were telling my sis that she needs to study more. I voiced an opinion to the contrary—she just needs to marry well. To this assertion, my parents posed the question of what I’d do if I didn’t marry well. I said I’d dance in a club. That went over smashingly : )

Friday 2/20

B-day!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I woke up to a huge flower by my breakfast, which set the mood nicely for the day. After a field trip to a cultural museum, I got to get online a bit before Spanish.

Spanish was awesome. We worked for about 1 hour, then took a half hour recess. Then we sort of worked for 15 min, followed by asking random slang questions and playing games.

This little old Spanish teacher, Alba, brought up that I needed 20 spankings with a belt, which were duly delivered in plain view of the street.

Maria de Lourdes, the program director, gave me a gorgeous flower arrangement, and everyone came home with me to par-tay.

We hung out for a bit, piling all the girls on my bed. Then we had sandwiches and this amazing meringue-y-creamy-strawberry-kiwis-y cake. After that we busted out the music and did the Macarena followed by a viewing of the highly hysterical Baby Mamma.

Once all the guests left, my mom came down and I was doing the dishes with her and my sister when all war broke out. It started with Isa chucking a bucket of water at her mom. The water started flying, all inside of course, and by the end the kitchen, dining room, living room, and ourselves were soaked. I think that was my favorite part of the whole day.

Saturday 2/21

Lazy lazy day. Woke up late and after breakfast went to the market with mom and littlest sis. After that we had a family bread-making thing, which was really fun. Then Gabby and I proceeded to rifle through their movie collection until we had amassed a considerable pile that I needed to see. We made a small dent by watching 2. As a family we played the backyard version of Ecuavolley, which is basically volleyball played by partially throwing a ball with the equivalent softness of a soccer ball.

Gabby and I had a spider solitaire-off. I kicked boo-tay.

Sunday 2/22

Family fun day. We spent about 8 hours with relatives, which was mostly pointless chatter, boredom, and kissing a dozen more strangers. The highlight was playing carnival, meaning a giant water/shaving cream fight outside.

We played a little Ecuavolley, (basically throwing a soccer ball at each other,) and I jammed my finger but redeemed myself with my mad soccer skills.

I also got called guapisima, and he was really really cute. I wasn’t sure what the proper protocol was for this sort of event, especially since he was a relative—not to mention four years old.

The festivities were cut a bit short since one of the relative’s house got robbed. They’re now minus one pc and some jewelry.

Monday 2/23

Time to meet the other side of the family, which I found is my favorite. We played carnival some more and had a big lunch of meat chunks and rice. We played a lot of cards and watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The relatives asked me a lot of questions and I got to be the funny gringa.

I introduced them to the concept of peanut butter and banana, which I’m not sure they were ready for.

Tuesday 2/24

Today we recouped from Carnival. I alternately studied, watched movies, and polished my spider solitaire skills. I also explored my new favorite place—a really sweet park. It’s the stuff of movies, with kids at soccer practice, old people stretching on the jungle gym, and a middle aged man running laps in short shorts. It’s absolutely massive, and I love it.

Wednesday 2/25

Day one in General medicine, and overall it was good. We saw lame stuff like ear infections, fever, diabetes, and more interesting things, like a guy who was peeing black. We got a little practice with Bp as well.

At night we went to a birthday party for a kid from Taylor who’s not with our group but will be living with a family here for 3 mon, Luke Owlsley. There was food, silliness, and dancing. It was rather awkward but pretty fun to pretend like we knew how to salsa and meringue. Some of our new Ecuadorian friends tried to help us out.

Thursday 2/26

So, when my mom said she was tired and I cracked a joke about communal napping . . . let’s just say she took it less lightly than I’d anticipated. I was rather dismayed when I woke up half an hour later than I’d intended in bed with my mom and littler sister snoozing beside me.

Is it sad that the highlight of my day was when Jenny swallowed her pen cap in Spanish class? Perhaps.

I am hopelessly addicted to spider solitaire, and thusly I’ve decided to give it up for lent.