"I thought I´d seen it all"

We were informed at the beginning of our intensive Spanish month that the last Friday of classes, we would have to do a 20-minute Spanish presentation on a topic of our choice, but it had to be something we had covered in our Talleres class (therefore, something to do with Ecuadorian history or current affairs in Ecuador). My professora, Jacqueline, didn´t make it sound too intense and said we could start on Thursday, when we would be given an hour to work on it. So, Thursday rolls around, and we decide we want to do something with the life story of Rumiñahui BECAUSE Sarah Heimlich (an awesome but crazy girl in my class) has ´I´ll Make a Man Out of You´ from Mulan, on her computer, and we LOVE this song. So, Ashley, Hilary and I start writing the "story" of Rumiñahui, half CREATIVELY made-up, and half actual facts haha, and Sarah and Alec start writing the lyrics to the Spanish/Rumiñahui version of this song. It was fabulous, let´s just say that. Thursday afternoon, Alec, Sarah and Ashley finished up the lyrics to not only "I´ll Make a Man out of You", but also Spanish/Rumiñahui lyrics to the Little Mermaid´s "Part of Your World" and Aladin´s "A Whole New World". On Friday, after I had finished the "story", we practiced and made DANCES to our little skit as well. Let´s just say, we jumped around like horrible ballerinas, pretended like we were warriors, colored a face on a small rock to make the "stone face" and pretended to fight a lot of people, while wearing scarves on our heads to look like warrior band things (they really just looked rediculous). It was FABULOUS! As Faba said afterwards, "I thought I´d seen it all" and really, he has seen a LOT in his life, so we obviously made an impact :) haha. I had so much fun, and in reality, I learned so much about Rumiñahui, I can now easily explain the story, in Spanish or English, to any who wants to know. Just give me the a-okay, and i´ll tellyou the best darn story of Rumiñahui there is!

Anyways, Friday is NOT over yet! Friday afternoon, Mamita, Antony and I went on a search for jungle pants in Sangolquí and found some near the market. They were a whole $8 and they are EXTREMELY attractive. They are navy blue with white stripes and cargo pockets. Y´all should be jealous, that´s all I can say.
Mamita and I had taken naps and therefore left a little late, so by the time we got back to the house it was already 6:15 and we were supposed to be at the end-of-the-month fiesta at SEVEN. Don´t worry folks, we are on Ecuadorian time here. I put on my blue dress from Spain and my mom, dad, sister, and antony went to the fiesta. We had dinner and Lisa played three songs (one in Spanish, can you believe that!). She is an amazing artist, can I just say that. Then it was time to dance! I love to dance, but don´t love it when I am being judged. Let´s just say us folk in Gig Harbor don´t take a lot of dance lessons and therefore are not so great at dancing to Ecuadorian salsa and marengue music. Ie I AM NOT so great at Ecuadorian crazy funky dance. But, my sister tried to teach me (I am a failure, what can I say). Eventually, around 10pm, a lot of the family members had left and we decided to dance GRINGO style (ie. have very little rhythm, jump around like crazy people, and just have fun). I swear, my sister thought I was crazy. While we were Gringo-dancing, she stayed on the dance floor, but definitely did not partake in our bad-dancing-party. It was fun though, so I´m glad I exposed her haha. I went home with my family around 11:30pm (Antony had passed out on mamita´s shoulder around 9pm) and I went straight to bed. Lol, I´m such a party animal.

Saturday morning, the fam was semi-loud so I couldn´t sleep past 8 or so. I got up and hung out until about 12pm when I went to San Luis to meet Eva so we could search for thank-you presents. It is a lot more difficult than one would think. Eva wanted to print a picture of the family, so we went to a photo-developing place. You would be AMAZED at how many options there are on those digital photo things, especially how many frames there are! AHH! It took awhile and then we found out each photo would cost FIFTY CENTS ($0.50) unless she got 50 pictures and then the 50 prints would cost $10.00. Is that not rediculous! I have been educated: Shutterfly is definitely the way to go.

I went home for lunch and we had PIZZA HUT, which in Ecuador is seen as GODLY. It tastes pretty much the same as at home, which, when you have it once in awhile, does taste pretty delicious. But here it is GODLY. After that I took a cab into the boonies to Eva´s house. She lives in a MANSION. I live in a nice Ecuadorian house that I love. She lives in a nice American house, if you know what I mean. We made cookies and brownies for our families. It is much more difficult to cook at 9000 feet. The brownies were good, but they stuck to the pan, so they didn´t LOOK so good haha.

It is now Sunday morning. I woke up at 7:30am after going to bed at midnight. I don´t know why I can´t sleep in here... it´s very very strange. The sky is clear, blue and it looks deceptively warm out, but I know it most likely is not :( I am leaving at 3:30pm to go to Quito for the night and then to the JUNGLE until Friday!!! We have a lot planned, but the rivers are flooding so we might not be able to travel the rivers and might have to stay at the lodge. I hope they go down though! If we can travel, we will go by motorized canoes to a school to teach them math (I don´t know who thinks of these crazy ideas) and then to play soccer with them yay! I have a feeling we might get our butts kicked by elementary school kids. We also are going to have an art session with clay yay and are going to a building with a disco-ball in the middle (ie a discoteca i guess...)

It should be interesting who wins the fight with my luggage today. I have a feeling that I might lose. Wish me tons of luck though! Chao!

madz