Real Beer´s Better

I’m making coffee right now. The small propane stove I have in my room is noisily hissing away, and the faint smell of gas reminds me that I’m tired. I haven’t been sleeping so well lately. I’m not exactly sure why. The problem’s only been going on for about a week now, and I got around seven hours of sleep last night, so I’m just going to pretend it’s going to go away on its own.
I spent last weekend in Quito. I wanted to see my old host family, the Pazmiños, one last time before heading home for the holidays. For those of you who don’t know yet, I’m going to be headed home earlier than expected. Because of some unexpected changes, I had to change my flight from December 16th to early in the morning on December 5th (avoid changing flights whenever possible; it’s not cheap to change things around!). As such, I’ll be home for nearly the entire month of December, from the 5th to the 30th. (If anyone would like to get a hold of me for whatever reason, that will be the best time to do it.) I have three medical school interviews scheduled during that time, so wish me luck.
I’ll return to the Pazmiños now. Peter, my new English mate living here, came with me to Quito (he called me a “legend” today, which isn’t just funny, it really made me feel good). We took the night bus out of La Libertad at 9:30 P.M. and arrived in Quito early on last Saturday. After meeting up with Katie, a volunteer from Ambato who decided to join us for the weekend, in the Mariscal, we ran a couple of errands and hopped on a city bus to the north side of the city. Two clowns (not you, Du and Tyler) performed an act on the bus and even went so far as to crack some jokes at Peter in English. This made me very happy. I gave them a little extra than the normal amount I donate to people who showcase their talents on the public transportation systems.
Returning to the Pazmiños was a little like returning home (no offense intended, Mom). Everyone was very, very happy. We ate a big meal and decided to head to Otovalo, the marketplace I’d been to once previously, now over a month ago. The man who had originally found Peter his job here in Ecuador lives near there, so Peter wanted to go and say thanks; Miguel’s, my old host father, parents live in the small town, so he’s always up for going; and Katie and I wanted to go to see Anita, an Australian volunteer we’d met earlier on during our exploits in Quito. We made the two-hour trek starting around 4:00, and by the time we got there, the market was starting to close. The biggest day is always Saturday, though, so even when I say that it was closing, you could still have gotten a lot of shopping done. And, yes, I did end up buying more stuff.
Everyone completed his or her respective objectives and we all met back by Miguel’s parent’s home, where we watched Ecuador get stomped by Paraguay in another World Cup qualifying game. By halftime, even Miguel, who loves soccer, had seen enough to recommend we all start back for home. That was before we hit the traffic jam….
This won’t take too much explaining. Near Quito there’s a small village with a Virgin Mary that’s been cited for a number of miracles. It’s a local tradition to travel to the Virgin on a specific Wednesday in November (this year that Wednesday was yesterday). Most people, however, have a conflict—as you might imagine—with traveling to see the Virgin on a Wednesday, so they elect to make the little pilgrimage over the weekend. Coincidentally, 30,000-40,000 had traveled to this small village on Saturday, and the roads were completely plugged by Saturday night.
The bus we’d gotten onto tried to find a way onto the main road, but there wasn’t a chance we were going to make it. We then tried to find a way around the mess, thinking we could find a different way into Quito. Let’s just say that the Ecuadorian idea of a highway system is much different than the American one. As in, only about two main roads travel into Quito from the north, both of which were clogged to the point that a motorcycle couldn’t even get by.
We actually ended up having a slumber party over by grandma and grandpa Pazmiños’ for the night back in Otovalo. The four of us got up early on Sunday morning, walked to the terminal and returned to Quito on clear roads before 9:00. We ate a monster breakfast with the rest of the Pazmiños before Katie took off for Ambato and Peter and I headed downtown.
Later that afternoon, I met up with two other volunteers working in Quito, and the four of us went to an Irish pub that Trinity, one of the Quito volunteers, had heard about. There, I finally had the chance to drink a “proper” beer again—something other than this Pilsener crap. It was everything I remember good beer to be. Wonderful. The bar itself was on par with a good Irish pub back home. I was incredibly impressed with it.
Peter and I then stopped off at SuperMaxi where we loaded up on ingredients for lasagna. We cooked a (huge!) late almuerzo for the Pazmiños before Peter and I had to get a cab to the airport in order to catch our 6:30 flight to Guayaquil. The way our butts felt after the original ride to Quito was enough motivation to make us buy the tickets once we’d arrived to the city early on that Saturday morning. It only cost us $47 a piece, which was money well spent seeing as we hardly slept a wink over the course of Friday night.
The flight put us into Guayaquil at around 8:30 or 9:00—I’m not too sure—and we were back home on the peninsula before 11:00. I watched a little bit of Sunday Night Football (which is sometimes aired on ESPN) and passed out.
Changing the subject, classes are going as well as ever. I’ve had to significantly alter my schedule to accommodate my plans for the month of December, but everyone has been phenomenal in seeing me through this. My directors in Quito, Humberto at the school in Santa Elena, my students and even Tom and Carla have been nothing but incredibly supportive. I’m extremely grateful to all of them. I don’t know that things would be happening the way they are without the positive attitudes everyone has had towards me.
In the light of these developments, I’m preparing a fairly sizable Thanksgiving dinner for my class. It’s 4:07 now and a bunch of my students were supposed to show up seven minutes ago to help me with the preparations, but I doubt anyone will get here before 4:30 or 5:00. I wanted to keep things modest and prepare an eight or ten pound turkey, but when I went into SuperMaxi, nothing was smaller than seven kilograms (over fifteen pounds), so I knew I had to go big or go home. I’ve enlisted the help of Elsi to help me prepare this thing, and it’s cooking in the oven as we speak. If things turn out well, I’ll post a picture of the bird. If they don’t, you’ll probably never hear a word about the Thanksgiving meal unless you ask me. I went on a second SuperMaxi run this morning to get everything for mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, a special corn dish and cranberry sauce too. I was going to do stuffing but I forgot all about it, and I meant to do pumpkin pie too but SuperMaxi didn’t have any of that canned pumpkin goodness.
What else? I went to a teacher’s meeting in Playas, another beach town located a few hours to the south, yesterday. The morning was boring, but the afternoon was fun. We played a bunch of these games meant to inspire teamwork, which was actually more fun than it sounds. The sun was out too, which was great. Plus, the resort where the meeting was scheduled was uber-nice. Upon seeing it, I joked to Humberto, “I’m not this good of a teacher.” I can’t wait until we get some rain around here, though. The entire coast (at least as far as north and south as I’ve seen) is incredibly dry; everything is brown and somewhat dismal. I can’t get over all the vultures I see from the bus whenever I travel.
Peter and I have started taking dance lessons this week. I’m pretty terrible, but Peter’s not much better, so I don’t feel too bad. The funniest (and sometimes slightly annoying part) is that we draw a crowd of Ecuadorians every time we have a lesson with Mariuxy. Some people laugh, but most people just watch us from the street like we were caged animals at the zoo. Today, one guy even went so far as to press his face up against the dance hall’s glass door positioned beside us, not realizing that we could see his every move in the wall of mirrors in front of us. Besides him, small children are especially enthralled with the dancing gringos. I know I’d be laughing at us.
That’s about all I’ve got for now. I’m almost finished with that submission for the writing contest, so I’ll post that within a week or so. I’m going back to Cuenca this weekend to hang out with the volunteers there and get in on another Thanksgiving meal (one I’m sure will top mine). It should be more relaxing than the last, not that I’d take a second back.
I’m super-excited to be returning home so soon and having the chance to see so many of you. We’re under two weeks away! I won’t be so stupid as to write Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, knowing that I plan on posting this entry tomorrow, but just know that I’m thinking it. Hopefully the Packers have successfully manhandled the Lions by this point. I can’t wait to catch a game in English!