Laughter is universal

What are the sanitary conditions like? Running water/indoor plumbing? How’s power there available and always on?
These are some frequent questions I have received and will now address. Sanitary conditions are pretty good here (in my house). Most houses in my community have running water and indoor plumbing (don’t flush the TP!) and electricity. Power has yet to go out, that I have noticed. However it is the dry season, despite that, it still rains about twice a week. But because it is the “dry” season every once and a while the water is turned off for conservation. The time varies from 2 hours to a day and I have to figure out how they pick the times to turn it off, it is never the same.
About a mile or so up the road (where I went for the walk in the previous entry) cell reception is spotty at best and the toilets are mostly in an outhouse out back.
My host family always has some kind of soup for lunch. Sometimes we have a second dish that always has rice and some kind of meat (canned tuna, chicken, beef, some things I am not sure of).
My favorite soup is Chicken Soup and vegetables – Sopa de pollo y verduras. It is my favorite because it has lots of veggies, something my diet here could always use more of.

Put chicken parts in a pot of water with a little bit of salt and sliced up carrots. Bring this to a boil.

After 20 minutes add chopped potatoes.

After 30 minutes add peas and broccoli and any other veggies.

Stop after 40 mins. Let sit for a minute and enjoy

Super simple recipe and it can easily be jazzed up more if the chef feels like it.

Friday September 3rd, 2010

Tonight I was on a mission to cook dinner for my family. I decided Portobello mushroom risotto would be the dish. They love rice and my brother lovessss mushrooms. So should be a big hit, I hope.
So as I am about to start cooking, I realize I have to find a wine opener. I figured since there were some wine bottles in the house, they have a wine opener. Don’t assume. So Isabel told me the neighbor have one. So we walked the 10 feet across the street and rang the bell. Sure enough they had one! Thank god.
Wait? It’s already sort of broken. So Isabel starts to use the opener, not well. I ask if I can do it. She looks at me like “what the hell could you possibly know about this.”
Finally the cork is ready to be pulled out. Isabel is unable to muster the strength required to open it. So finally I get my chance to open it and prove my worth. So what do I do? I end up breaking the handle of the opener right in half. Shiiittttt. This got a lot of laughter from the neighbor and Isabel. I felt dumb. But in my defense, that opener was made of the cheapest metal known to this earth.
Now what? Isabel suggests we go to the spa nearby because they probably have one. Sure enough they did and we finally got the bottle open. Ecuador is not a wine culture. Lesson learned.
The risotto came out pretty good, my brothers even got seconds, something I have never seen them do. This week I am going to cook homemade pizza and see how that goes.
Later that night, Isabel tells me it is time to go to the reigna competition (queen competition). I was expecting it to be pretty low key, or maybe the wine was. So I just wear jeans, hoodie and my camo nascar hat. We walk into the place and it was like how I would imagine it would feel like walking into a fashion show. Everyone was dressed up in nice dresses and suits. Crap. I ran home and changed so I would not stand out TOO badly. I always stand out, being the only gringo and all.
The 5 reignas aged from 16-20. They all did their initial runway walks (yeah there was a runway). After, came some famous singer who sang a few songs. I was not too impressed. Next up was the reignas dressed in different types of traditional clothing. The clothing ranged from coastal, sierra and oriente. It was neat to see how different the styles were in one country.
The next act had me in stitches from trying not to laugh out loud. Two back up dancers, and one long haired guy in a very tight gold suit. The all had very serious looks as they stood like statues. Until, Micheal Jackson’s Beat It came on. They were good, but it was just pretty damn funny and out of the blue. They also danced to MJ’s “they don’t really care about us” Shout out to the Bioko crew!

The oldest competitor of the Reignas won. She did not seem too surprised though.

Saturday the 4th,

Woke up. Ate breakfast. Read. Then I putted around for awhile until it was time for me to go my meeting in Cuenca. I was meeting up with the Cuenca scout group to check it out.
So it turns out scouts here are co-ed. They had about 30 boys and girls between ages of 7 and 20. They were all really nice and respectful. The scout master was really excited that I wanted to work with them. He told me if I ever have projects in Baños and need their help, they will gladly lend a hand.
So we hung out, played some games and I got to meet a lot of the older kids. Apparently most of them are very new and do not know each other. This worked great for me in getting to know everyone. Next weekend we will all be going to an orphanage to play with the kids there.
Afterwards I met up with a bunch of other volunteers to celebrate Jaime’s birthday. Ate way too much shwarma (gyros).

Sunday the day after Saturday,

Food Festival! Cool! Tents were set up all over the center and the futbol field. Selling a wide variety of food and trinkets. Isabel and I picked a stand that had some kind of traditional soup. Sure, why not, we will have a bowl. Turns out it was goat foot and intestine soup. Yum! No, not really. But interesting.
Then a bunch of guys started to build what looked to be a wrestling ring. Turns out it was for boxing. Not entirely sure why the food festival had boxing… but I am glad it did. We watched three matches before retiring back to the house for dinner.

Monday, Happy Labor day!

Met with Estella, the president of the Junta finally. So next week I will begin teaching marketing! Also we discussed a couple projects to include the scouts on. First project will be to repaint the cement basketball/futbol field. I have to come up a budget and pricing for the project, but it seems like it will be approved.

I hope to have my mail situation figured out this weekend so I can finally give my address out.