Raisins in My Lasagna?!

Each day here brings something new and unpredictable. 99% of the time the novelty is what makes life exciting, keeps me on my toes, and continues to leave me guessing at what’s going to happen next. The other 1% of the time it can get frustrating and momentarily, I wish for my sense of ‘normalcy’. Sometimes, I get the feeling that my life here is just upside-down. Dogs hang out on roofs. Woof.

So Friday afternoon, we had a tutoring session with 3 English teachers in Latacunga who were practically begging for our help for the TOEFL exam they have to take in a couple months. I think it went pretty well and we’ll be working with them from now on, at least once a week. Before tutoring, I went into the post office in the city for what felt like the 100^th time and my care package was finally there! I got so excited! Then the unenthused postal lady tells me she needs a copy of my ID. Okay, sounds good. No, she says, you need to go make a copy. So, yet again, I laugh at how little I am able to predict, I head out of the post office in search of an internet café and copy it myself. After tutoring, we went to get dinner. I decided I wanted Italian and my volunteer friend heard of a good lasagna place. I order the house special which had chicken and a creamy béchamel sauce. A couple bites in, I find large ‘pasas’ in my lasagna. Raisins! What the funky?! I stopped and thought, “I can’t even predict what I will find in my mouth”. 

The next day, we were invited to attend our Ministry coordinator’s birthday party. She is a very sweet lady and does a lot of hard work for us so the other volunteer and I were pretty excited about celebrating her special day. On the invitation was the agenda of the party. First, we would be going to church for a mass to honor the memory of her parents and then the cemetery to put flowers on their graves. Soooo we didn’t expect this of course, but we showed up to both and couldn’t find the family. We ran into them on the way out of the cemetery and they gave us a ride to the party venue which is an event space called “UgshaWasi” in the campo of our town. It was a gorgeous area in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by beautiful, green mountains. We started with Chugchucaras for lunch, which is a large plate of chanchofritado (fried pork), mote and tostado (steamed and roasted corn), bacon bits, canguil (popcorn), chicharron (fried pork skin), and fried empanadas. Yeah, heart attack on a plate, but so very delicioso. 

We also had espumilla, which is whipped egg whites with fruit and sugar on a cone. But! No one eats cones here! They’ll buy ice cream or espumilla en cono (on a cone) and then toss the cone! Didn’t expect that either.

So after lunch, we headed out to the fields in the back to play games. We did a sack race, a tomato dance, and a 3 legged race. Anything involving couples meant I was forced to participate with the other volunteer because he is obviously my boyfriend. In this culture, platonic relationships between members of the opposite sex do not exist. So because I spend time with a male volunteer and we look alike and are close in age, everyone insists that we are in a relationship. Even though we are coworkers and we have to work together for teacher trainings, it’s impossible to convince them otherwise. Sigh. 

After the games, we head over to the Plaza de Toros (bullfighting ring) which is tiny and has been converted into a volleyball court. They announce that all the women need to get together in order to do a lap around the Plaza. I have no idea why we’re doing this, but I play along. As we’re leaving the ring, the women start to scream and run! I’m still baffled because I realize that what they’re scared of is a small sheep being led into the ring by a rope. Turns out, the next game was bullfighting a sheep! Sheepfighting! Talk about unpredictable- never woulda guessed that one. So the women sit in chairs on the side and cheer on the men who even have the little cloths to egg on the sheep. Then they stop and bring in a larger, angrier sheep! And this one actually did scare me a little. He would back up slowly and then charge and grunt. The whole ordeal was hilarious and I watched as the party host, the principal of my school, passed out shots of tasty chocolate liqueur to the women and whiskey to the men. 

Then we danced for hours and chatted with the family. We listened to some live music and had coffee and humitas (similar to cornbread). We met the birthday girl’s brother and his family, who live in Cumbaya (the richest city in Ecuador) and they invited us over to swim in their pool next weekend! I think we’re going to take them up on it and then stop by Tumbaco to visit Sonia and family. I’m so excited! 

Today, Sunday, was a more relaxed day. We met up with our Peer Support Network representative, who is like a volunteer advocate, and had lunch in the mall in Latacunga, walked the Sinchaguasin steps, and shopped at the market. Today would have been predictable, until I got home and found out that the water never came back to town. So I took a bucket shower for the 2^nd time in my life. (My host grandmother keeps buckets of water filled up for just such occasions.)

Although it was a fun and exciting weekend, I can’t help but wish I was in SD, heading home from Disneyland with Momma, Carly, Chris, and Colton. Happy Birthday, C-Baby! I love and miss you so much! I’m just going to drown my homesickness in peanut butter M&M’s from my care package.

Goodnight. And wish me good luck with this never-ending guessing game.

(pictures to come later. apparently I found the slowest internet connection in the country)