(Saturday, June 4, Day 348)

"The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps."


Phrase of the day: Estas seguro quieres luchar... Are you sure you want to wrestle?

Bad idea.

Mitch, a volunteer who works in the south, came to visit for the weekend. It was interesting to show him the town and what San Isidro has to offer. Thankfully, a decent amount.

We walked around town, ate lots of snacks, and decided to take a trip to the beach with the kids.

We went to the park and hired a car. After an hour or so, we were there. Matal, a nice small beach north of Bahia.
Tourists hadly ever go there, or even know about it, so it's much better for us. It feels safe like being in town.

The kids built mermaids(?)...
Which turned into wrestling somehow!
Jimmy, one of the eldest kids always wants to wrestle me for some reason. We were at the beach, so I said 'yes' for once.
He was strong... but, well, you know how it goes!
We ended with a nap in our hammocks and cold coconut juice.
Not a bad day.

(Wednesday, June 1, Day 345)

"The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps."


Phrase of the day: Bailes o Payasos, cual es peor?... Dances or Clowns, which is worse?

Trick question. Clowns are awesome!

Today there were all sorts of events taking place in town. For some reason, there was some sort of dance program at the elementary school. Rimber's son, Brek, had to perform.
He feels just like I do about dancing; hates it.
At the same time, on the other side of town was the Granito de Arena Foundation's welcome party. (The foundation is were Karen and Jennifer work, and provide assistance for children with disabilities).

There was a clown who was pretty hilarious.
The kids certainly like him and his dance-offs.
The reina's from the town were even there with gifts to show their support.
(Who knew they actually did stuff?).

(Friday, May 29, Day 342)

"The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps."


Phrase of the day: Viajes a la finca, el mejor Domingo aqui... Trips to the farm, the best Sunday here.

Lots of people seemed to be around today, so we took a trip to the family's farm, "Mono". (They call it that because there are monkeys in the trees sometimes).

As usual, the trucks were packed with anyone and everyone. There must have been over 20 of us going.
We walked around in the forest, eating crazy fruits along the way. This one was like pumpkin and mango; odd.
I was really there with the machete just making sure there weren't any snakes.

Mario found some cool little birds in one of the trees. He made sure I didn't tell anyone about them though. He seemed afraid that someone would eat them or something?
The new bridge over Rio Grande. Is that structurally sound actually??
And we finished the afternoon with a meal. I didn't really do much for the meal besides pick/carry fruit. But they were excited about the picture, so why not.
We ate rice with plantains and a peanut/tomato sauce.

(Friday, May 27, Day 340)

"The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps."


Phrase of the day: Usando pintadores grafiti para lo que son buenos... Using grafiti painters for what they're good at.

Painting.

A few weeks ago Javi asked me to come see the bathroom in the high school. I was pretty confused, but I said "sure".

Thankfully when I entered, I knew exactly why he had asked.

There was grafiti all over the walls; something very new for San Isidro. Luckily, Javi already knew exactly who did it.

Lets just say, kids are not the brightest. This group decided to 'tag' "Los Angeles", the name of the neighborhood where they live. Town isn't huge, so only a few kids even live in that neighborhood. Why they didn't write something else, I have no idea?

But nonetheless, Javi wanted them to do something productive with their desire to paint.

And there comes Kasie and her love for painting murals. We called Brent, a volunteer who lives somewhat nearby, and we began. ("somewhat nearby" in Ecuador equals less than 5 hours away).
He, I forget his name, seemed to enjoy helping us.
Everyone did his/her part.
Just mixing the colors was by far my favorite though.
Brent is pretty into art, and he came up with this main image.
The finished product.
Not a bad few hours of work.

(Monday, May 16, Day 329)

"The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps."


Phrase of the day: No hay nada como pintar una pared blanco... There's nothing like painting a wall white.

Thankfully Kasie lives here in town too. Why? Well for a few reasons, but one of them being the fact that it's much easier to get back into the groove of things when someone is here working already.

She and the youth group are always painting something. And today we were working here... a wall in front of one of the main entrances to town.
Apparently this is how you mix paint in San Isidro? I usually just like to use a stick, but that works too!
And good thing this is a brick wall, this can't be even.
We're actually just painting it white because they want to paint murals on the wall in the future. Murals that will hopefully influence the behaviors of the people who see them while they are driving in to town. All jokes aside, it was really great. The kids worked hard and they were volunteering their time to do good, the most important part.
Umm, what happened to your face?
Whoa, what happened to YOUR face?? Rocked!
All of the kids.
I really didn't paint too much, mostly because there were tons of youth there to help. But I did take a good amount of pictures for them.
Afterwards, I went home and made lunch. Simple, but good. Salad, Grilled cheese on multi-grain bread (I buy that in Bahia), and pound cake(which Senora Cecilia gave me) with jam.
Yeah, it was pretty awesome.

(Sunday, May 15, Day 328)

"The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps."


Phrase of the day: Solo una vez cada ano, los fiestas y desfiles de San Isidro... Only one time each year, the parties and parades of San Isidro.

Parade time! If you happen to remember from my time in Cayambe, parades are huge here. Every school, every organization, every little group participates. It's nice. (It's nice that they care to do it).

The new Reina with the president of the local government and the mayor of the regional government.
Kasie and the local youth group.
And as usual, everyone in the entire county comes in to town to particpate/watch!
The high school was by far the best. They had all sorts of things. Javi and the high school professors.
The high school dance team. I have a video, but it's too big to post.
And the high school band was great. For a week straight I heard them practicing the same song over and over and over again. It paid off though. They nailed it. And as usual, the drummers were the cool kids in school.
After the parade we took a spin on the caterpillar train! (Really, Kasie just wanted to, so we went along).
It was fun though because we're in Ecuador. And in Ecuador, there are no rules.
My place is looking more cheery. I put up some card and letter people have given me. And I put up a t-shirt that the kids gave me when I went and spoke at their school.
Happy Birthday Slick!

(Saturday, May 14, Day 327)

"The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps."


Phrase of the day: Yo llegue en un buen tiempo para que? La Reina de San Isidro!... I arrived in time for what? San Isidro's Reina Competition!

If you don't know much about Ecuadorians, at least know that they love their Reinas. Reinas being Queens... Yeah, think Miss Virginia.

I'm back in Ecuador, and not too much has changed in town. The church seems to have a new paint job (at least the front of it).
And there are carnival type activities in the center. Think of a fair that you'd see in a movie out west; it reminds me of that. There is a huge moon bounce type slide, a caterpillar train, and foosball tables.
And don't forget the random street food vendors. There's the usual cotton candy and popcorn, but also the more Ecuadorian meat and plantains. (Yeah, I'm not touching that).
Back to the real story: Reinas. They are a huge deal. So huge in fact, that the entire town comes out. There is a guest emcee, judges, and even entertainment.
The show/pageant began at 10pm with Cotton Eye Joe and the contestants walking out. Really, Cotton Eye Joe. I knew this was going to be a long night. ("Cotton Eye Joe" is a song. A pretty bad one. Especially to be using in Ecuador).
There was the usual swimsuit category.
Some of the entertainment included a boy-band from Bahia. Everyone was pretty excited about them.
And there was intermission with some other performance some time around...
Yes, that late. And we still had to listen to the question/answer round!
I left around 1am, after seeing at least one of the evening gowns. I hear it all went until 2:30am though.
My first meal back was awesome. I really just made pasta as usual, but my dad had given me a black pepper grinder and crushed red pepper, so all my meals are 10 times better now.
And you may be thinking, "Wow, it's been a long time since you've written". But I hope you just read this when you're super bored at work ;) Happy Birthday Mom!