Evil Spirits & Eventually Sweet Dreams

March 25, 2010 Thursday

Let me just off by saying, if I haven’t already, how much I am in love with my site. It really is the shit (excuse my language Sister Mal).

This is my fourth day here and even though I haven’t done a lot, the little I have done has made this week a success for satisfaction. On my second day, I went to visit eat all three meals with a lady named Angelita, not that giving you her name will make any difference because there are like 3 Angelita’s, 3 Carmen Macas, and 4 Vicente’s, so I everyone here calls each other by their full name to avoid the confusion. After the lunch, her son took me to some caves and a small waterfall, which is a tourist attraction and part of the community I live in. The hike up the mountain was a bit tough and the kid laughed a little at me but once I got to the top, it was a beautiful site.
HERE ARE SOME PICTURES OF THE PLACE


The caves


The Inca Baths


Walking to the Inca baths

That was all for that day because I was a bit tired so the rest of the afternoon I rested in my room and only got up to go eat. Haha The next day however was filled with more hiking. After I had breakfast with another lady, I went to meet a guy who “knits”, I guess it’s the word, from wool. I was nice to him and sort of hinted that I really liked the purse-like bags. They are super cool and my host mother here lent me one to carry my stuff around and it is so useful. It’s not a “murse”, it’s a crafty indigenous hand bag! Well after lunch this man, Don Angel, decided to take me for a hike up the mountain to see the “terrenos” (plots of land) where the cows were kept at. Since I told him I had walked to town to use the Internet and came back walking he assumed I loved walking. This time however, I was a bit more acclimated to walking up steep mountains and so it was not so terrible. It was however, a long, fast-paced hike, but the vistas from atop of the “cerro” were amazing. We did a semi-circle so I got to see most of the surrounding villages around where I lived. Here are some pictures from the top of the mountain.
HERE ARE SOME PICTURES


The mountain view from my site.


The center of the biggest town next to me.


My site from the mountain side.

Back in community it was time to eat again! I love to eat a lot and so when I got to Ecuador and they said people would feed you a lot, I was happy. But I wasn’t expecting this much food. In training with my fellow PC friends, I would actually eat their left overs but here, I can’t seem to process the food fast enough that I seem to drag from place to place. It seems that all I do is eat. My digestive system is backlogged so much that I think I have a good three days worth of food in my stomach! No joke!

Today I went to go eat with the Sra. Luz whose husband is in the States for the last 7 years. She talks to him nightly through messenger and has a web cam to talk. Her father-in-law is actually the president of my community and her neighbor so I went over to talk to him a bit. He was actually in the process of killing 2 cows for a festival this Saturday. I can’t remember the last time my dad killed a cow. I think he had to stop killing cows because the meat markets would not process self-killed cows by its owners for safety reasons, so my dad had the meat markets kill his cows. But anyways, it was huge and a lot of meat compared to the goats I’m used to seeing.
He was actually very nice but as soon as I told him I was from the US he asked me something rather strange, even though he was already the 3rd person in the community to ask me the question. “Did I know a Linda, who was also from the US? She brings dye to Ecuador and sells it to them and there is nowhere to get this type of dye” I’m not sure if he knew how big the US was or that there could be a billion Linda’s but he asked anyways. His wife would later ask me the same question. Since they knit ponchos, they like to dye it a certain color and apparently they can only get from the US and this Linda lady is the only one who brings it. But she only brings it to certain families so others in the community are jealous and have asked me if I knew about this “indigo dye”. I have no idea what kind of dye they are talking about.

After my lunch with the Sra. Luz I went into town and I found a wireless connection. Since I brought my iPhone with me, I was able to connect and use the internet for free. I got to check my email, read the news, and even connected to Skype to call my mom and friends. I was there for about three hours because I finally had time and wasn’t being charged. I saved $3 bucks!

While I was sitting checking my email, a group of teenage girls “Tss, Tss”-ed me. At first I thought it was a guy doing it to a girl like always because this is the norm in Ecuador, which by the way, drives female volunteers crazy. But as I looked up, I saw the group of teenage girls giggled as they looked at me and I realized what had happened. I was rather pleased with myself that I could get a “tss, tss” but disappointed it was from teenagers. Still, it means I have a shot in Ecuador to do as other volunteers have done: get married with a local! I’ll just have to raise my age limit so I don’t get thrown in jail.

As I came back, I went to dinner which consisted of cow soup from the mornings slaughter. It was really good and I was so happy that that was all I was given because I was still full from yesterday’s supper. As I walked down towards the lady’s house, there was a light fog like always that added magic to the night. As I walked the path, lightening bugs lit the night and made it a beautiful site to see as they covered the rolling hills of my community.
When I got back I told my family how I met a really funny guy who made my day at dinner and was soon disappointed when they told me he was probably drunk but he was so good at hiding it. Either way, I liked him and I am to eat with his wife and family tomorrow. Haha I also shared with my family, how I had numerous and constant nightmares the night before but that it ended with a happy dream. They were so freaked out and said that it was probably bad spirits. They decided to spray holy water all over my room. I figured the gesture was nice but I chose to take a muscle relaxer (which are legal and prescribed to me by my doctor for my back). I forgot to take one last night but I chose to withhold this from them so they could feel better. When I take one of those (and I only have a total of 5), I sleep like a baby. Speaking of which, I am kind of sleepy now.
Sweet Dreams (bye-bye bad spirits)