Traveling out of the dust

This past week I had vacations to celebrate "PortoViejo day." The other PortoViejo volunteer (Krista) and I decided to travel out of our dust cloud for the weekend and took a bus up to Cuenca. Cuenca is a beautiful, historical town in the mountains of Ecuador. We were able to see a lot of beautiful churches and check out a few museums. The museums didn't have very extensive collections, but they were free and fun to look through. Our favorite was the modern art museum... there were only three rooms, but in one there was a "googly-eye" piece. Basically it was a bunch of googly eyes glued to rocks and placed on metal rods... but we had a nice picture shoot there. As Krista said, "I don't understand... thats how I know its modern."

After our day of exploring the museums and churches we decided to take a day trip to Guallaceo where there was supposed to be a nice market. Fail... the market is only on Sundays. We ended up just walking around the city for a little bit, but we did find some delicious mangos! (There was a large fruit and meat market) We went back to Cuenca and found a market there where we did a little touristy shopping. That night, we met up with the Cuenca WorldTeach volunteers... unfortunately they had to work during the day. One of them brought their host cousin and her friends and we went to a salsa club where we proceeded to make fools of ourselves :) Her cousin wanted to stop by a law school graduation party of one of her friends and somehow we got invited to come along. One of my favorite things about Ecuador can also be a little awkward... every time you enter a room you better greet every singly person by kissing them on the cheek. Everyone was sitting in a large circle at the party so the 6 of us lined up and took on the circle... luckily no one asked for my name this time because that can really slow up the process. Hele...Jeda... Heder...yep thats it.

That volunteer has quite a large extended host family and another one of her cousins invited us to his country house on Saturday. We spent the night out there with a bunch of new friends, played a little soccer (US vs Ecuador... the US held its own), and made a Fogata (campfire). Of course there was someone playing the guitar as we sat around the fire and made "smores." I put that in quotes because smores here turned out to be roasted marshmallows with a little chocolate syrup on them. I would not recommend it... chocolate syrup somehow ended up on EVERYTHING.

Sunday morning we took our 8 hour bus ride back to PortoViejo... a little rough but we made it. Luckily we planned to come back with a day to spare before teaching so we could rest and lesson plan. We also were able to attend the last night of the "Feria de PortoViejo." It was a legit fair! One of my students and his friends showed us around and took us on some rides... The Terminator, The Pirate, and the Ferris Wheel. The Ferris Wheel by the way is not just for the view... that thing moves fast here. I explained to my friend that it is much slower in the US and he said thats because you like to relax in the US and people in Ecuador like to have fun :) haha

Random Updates:
--I FINALLY OPENED MY BANK ACCOUNT!!!!!! I have never felt so successful
--My students did well on their test and I am pretty sure no one cheated... there were 2 forms of the test, they were sitting every other seat, and their bags/materials were at the front of the room... I tried all of the teacher tricks. One of the students tried to copy his notes on a little piece of paper before the test and when I asked him what he was doing he simply said, "Teacher it is notes for test." You think he would at least try to hide it...
--Last but not least.... for all of you who haven't heard, my little brother made the UNC-CH Varsity Basketball team!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had to throw that in there- I am so proud :)