4th of July festivities

Yesterday I went to a fourth of july party at one of the hostels here. We had some delicous sausages and then had the crap scared out of us by locally made ecuadorian fireworks. It was the first time I've been at a fireworks show and was prepared to duck or run should the situation require it. The fireworks had a tendancy not to go straight up into the air (even if that was the direction they were pointed), but off at crazy angles instead. Another exciting thing (although not in a good way) happened this week. Apparently the local municipality has decided to widen the road going into town. My house sits right on a little cliff next to the road. So the bulldozer driver says that my house might fall when they dig into the cliff. My host mom was quite angry and was arguing with the driver, asking him why he couldn't widen the road on the other side since there aren't any houses there. He said that people owned that property so he couldn't, to which she replied that she owned the property on this side. Nothing has happened since this confrontation, but I keep expecting to wake up in the street one of these days. Never a dull moment around here!
My little host brother was very cute the other day. We were all watching lion king and he started crying at the end of it. awww! School just finished up here with a big fiesta on Thursday. Everyone gets a party for moving on to the next grade. My supervisor also visited this week to see how things are going and it seemed like he was pleased with the visit. I was one of the first he visited so I didn't find out about how everyone else is doing. The sad news is that 2 people headed back to the states from my training group. I think the sites were a bit rough for them, but I don't really know much else.
Some random observations on my life here in Ecuador that I haven't mentioned before:
1. the radio stations around here are very random. they will play a bunch of ecuadorian songs and then suddenly throw in "eye of the tiger", "hot stuff", "footloose", or my personal favorite "my heart will go on" They'll throw in other american songs too, but these seem to be the favorites.
2. i've decided i'm not really a fan of guinea pig. they're hard to eat, there's not much meat, and i don't really like the taste too much. the problem is that as the guest in people's houses i often get served whole guinea pig (you eat the brain too) when i'd rather just have chicken. luckily it isn't rude to ask for a to-go bag so i take the guinea pig back to my host family.
3. it's cool to live in a place that people come visit. i've never lived in a scenic place before, and it's quite awesome to have trails leaving from your backyard.
4. the temperature here never really changes, but that doesn't stop people from always complaining about it. when i first got here i thought it was unseasonably cold since people were always talking about it, but then i realized they are always talking about it.