Week 6: The Magic School Bus

    Last weekend (the 5th-6th) was the Carnival holiday which luckily lasted through Tuesday. Carnival marks the beginning of Lent, meaning its an excuse to party for four days and through water balloons, eggs, chocolate syrup and whatever else you can think of at passersby. My Carnival experience was pretty low-key by local standards and I did my best to avoid the carnage.... other volunteers were not so lucky. Saturday I climbed up to the top of Ilalo, the 10,500 foot volcano out my back door, with a friend of mine and we ended on the other side of the volcano for a beer and some roasted pig. Later that day I found myself in an Empenada making contest with the women of my family including my host-mom, aunt and grandmother... needless to say....I lost. The following day I went with my aunt and uncle and the volunteer living with them out to a nearby city called Al Quinche. Al Quinche is known for its cathedral and the massive monument within that is completely covered in gold leaf. Sometime in late November there is a walk from the Cathedral in Al Quinche to Quito some 30 miles away carrying a statue of the Virgin de Al Quinche. Anyways, my host uncle drives a school bus during the week so for normal family activities including more than 4 people they end up driving the school bus. So here we are driving down the road with 6 people in the front of a school bus on a Sunday headed to church. For those of you who have not traveled leisurely by school bus I do recommend it for the space and ability to hold up traffic while you stop at roadside food stands.

   On Tuesday my host family and I wound up once again the "Magic School Bus." We headed into Quito to get some more family members (this trip we had a total of about 14 people in the bus) and drove south to Maracas where they have a natural hot spring and a natural mineral water spring. Right before the entrance to the spring were about 10 locals lined up on the side of the road with buckets of water to throw at unsuspecting passersby. This is where the true advantage of the bus began to pay off when my uncle decided he should slow down and block off the whole road while we had a truck with about 8 people in the back behind us. The hot spring was on par with a normal Ecuadorian spring, i.e. too many people, lukewarm at best and random hairs floating around. The mineral water spring on the other hand was rather cold, completely empty due to Ecuadorians dislike for cold water, and by the way it was mineral water. There is a company here in Ecuador that bottles the same water from the source and sells it for a dollar a bottle.... I swam by myself in an entire pool of it. And by the way for those of you who have not swam in a pool of naturally carbonated water.....it's an experience. On the way home the School Bus was invaluable as we were able to make random coffee stops and ice cream breaks on the side of the road to converse and play cards for 10-15 minutes at a time. 

   The rest of the week was back to class in our normal fashion though we were able to catch up with the other 3 groups from the tech trip and exchange stories. Thursday after class we had a good game of Futbol and Friday I learned an Ecuadorian dance (more to come on that in a bit). Friday was also the bigging of the Tsunami watch which put all us Peace Corps Trainees on "Stand Fast" meaning I had an excuse not to leave Tumbaco for the weekend. Friday was also the start of the Birthday weekend in my host which was started off with a sleepover of about 10 9 year old girls for my host sister's 10th birthday.  On Saturday our normal four hour language class turned into a 2 hour trip to a local outdoor market to become familiar with local foods and products. Later that afternoon we commenced round two of the Birthday weekend with my host brother's 13th birthday and the arrival of some 25 family members for lasagna and cake. I learned a number of Ecuadorian party games and was able to teach a few from the states as well. During one game I had a chance to pull out some of the few Quechua words I had learned the previous week which put the entire room almost to tears laughing. Sunday we had a bbq at another volunteer's house where his host mom had made an amazing feast for about 20 of us! Later that night I made M&M cookies for my family which took about twice as long to bake up at 8,000 feet elevation as they were supposed to. My host mom was apparently quite impressed as she had a fresh bag of M&Ms for me when I walked in the door today, "So she could learn the recipe." Those cookies lasted about 20 minutes. 

   Back to school today, we had another dance practice which consists of 3 other guys, 4 girls and myself learning an Afro-Ecuatoriano dance which we are to perform tomorrow for the US Ambassador to Ecuador. Needless to say it should be a good time for all! Also, on Wednesday we get to learn our site assignments and then actually go visit our sites for a week beginning on Thursday. There has been a lot of excitement around the training center as to where people are going and we are all looking forward to getting out to our sites and start meeting our future families.