training...

I wrote a blog post a while ago, but my flash drive broke so I couldn’t post it. Now I have a new one, I’ll just highlight a few events since last time I posted on my blog. I have more pictures to post as well, but I haven´t found an internet cafe that is fast enough and has Flash, so I´ll get to it soon enough!

- I have now washed my clothes twice on a rock. I haven’t washed any jeans and I only wash half of my other clothes at a time because if it rains I never know how many days it will take for them to dry. They are a little stretched out since there’s no dryer, but they actually feel really clean.
- I made pizza from scratch for my family, with one of their favorite toppings – hot dogs. These are even nastier than regular hot dogs because they are bright pink and don’t look like meat at all, but they liked it. I also made peanut butter cookies and PB and J sandwiches. I am planning on making hamburgers with sweet potato fries sometime this week or next week.
- We are still in fiesta season – I went to a “bull fight” in Tabacundo (really just whoever is brave enough and has a red jacket or something jumps in the ring and yells at the bull to chase them). Then afterwards there was a parade of dancing and singing down the street – there’s a few people with big water bottles of unidentified liquor walking around sharing shots with everyone, and somehow I became that lady which was better because I was giving it out and not drinking as much myself and I got to meet a lot of local people.
- Last Friday we went on a cultural trip with about 20 other volunteers, my group went to Salinas de Ibarra. It is a community of 90% afroecuatorianos who are descendents from slaves brought by the Spanish. In the past their main source of income was salt mining from the salty dirt, but now they grow sugar cane and are trying to promote tourism. We rode back to a city to catch a bus in the back of a truck and got stopped by the police once, but we saw some condors flying and it was way better than a crowded bus ride!
- This Friday we had a soccer tournament between all the different language groups. There was also a beauty contest so each group had to have a queen. Luckily, another girl in my group wanted to do it so I didn’t have to, but the whole day was pretty fun because everyone went all out. We had uniforms made – our group had the design of Argentina with a condor printed on the front and Paquiestancia. It only cost $11 for the whole uniform including printing on the shirt, and shorts and socks!
- Tonight my family was making fun of me for being tall and calling me an Amazon woman. Its weird being tall here, I am just about the same height as my dad.
- We find out our sites this Friday and next week we have a site visit! Time feels like its moving so fast!

I feel like my English is getting worse as my Spanish is improving, so I apologize for grammar errors but its hard to switch my brain back and forth so often!