Getting poked

I'm in Quito right now for my final medical checkup, which means getting poked a lot. Luckily they're not making me get a flu shot (I boycott those on principle), but everything else is getting checked up. The nice thing is that they had us come for 3 days but the actually appointments aren't that long, so I have a lot of time to wander around. I'm planning on getting some books for my last month here. I really wish that I'd kept a list of all the books I've read here like some other volunteers have done. I know it's at least a couple hundred. In other news we've finally started planting some gardens. Of course now that we've started it's stopped raining, so we'll see how things go. It's been a pretty dry winter overall, nothing like my first one here in Ecuador. I don't think the roads have washed out at all this year. Last week I played manager at one of the hostels here because the owners had to go to Latacunga last minute. It was a nice change of pace and I had fun chatting with the guests there. Most tourists that come through my area have been to so many other cool places so I'm always getting new trip ideas. Who knows when I'll have the time and/or money to go, but at least I have lots of ideas.

pics

Here´s some pictures from Mateo´s birthday party and some new year`s celebrations. They were playing a game where you popped the balloon and inside there were instructions on a charade you had to do. The little kids were too embarassed to really do anything so they ended up just bursting the balloon. For new year´s a bunch of people got dressed up and worked their way down the road into town dancing all the way. It was pretty funny to watch.

driving

I was on the bus the other day and noticed that the speedometer didn´t work. I started wondering why they wouldn´t get that fixed because i remembered a time in a rental car with a broken speedometer and the fact that we had to go back and get a different one since without the speedometer it was really easy to go to fast on the highways. This got me thinking about the fact that i´ve never actually seen a speed limit sign in ecuador or any kind of speed trap. so i guess a speedometer isn´t really neccessary. plus the roads here pretty much enforce a natural speed limit because of all the potholes and the curviness. just thought i´d share that random observation. i´ve been helping out at one of the hostels here this past week because their dog fell and hurt her back so i´ve been giving her shots and physical therapy. but other than that there´s not much to report.

nice leaving time

Wow, so I don't have to start this blog with sorry i haven't posted in awhile. i figured i'd do one now since i still have free internet here in quito. The seminars have not been particularly exciting and they foiled my plans for reading in the back since they moved all the chairs into a circle (i think they might have noticed me reading in the first session). last night peace corps took us out to a really nice restaurant on a hill overlooking old town quito. it was really fancy, with a fancy sorbet they brought out between courses to cleanse the pallet (all i could think of was the movie princess diaries at that point). i was disapointed i didn't have my camera for the party afterwards complete with a mariachi band (which i don't think is really ecuadorian). i'll have to get some pics from the other volunteers. i think some people are pretty bummed that this is the last time we'll probably see each other (or at least are all together), but honestly i haven't seen most of the volunteers in my training group very regularly so i'm not too worked up over it. that's not to say i don't like them, but i've gotten used to not really seeing them already. so it'll probably be awhile till i post again, just an fyi, and i hope everyone reading this is doing well.

Senoritis

Okay, I've been really bad about updating. I think it's the whole senoritis thing, getting lazy in the home stretch. I'll be done in less than 3 months which is kind of crazy to think about. Another reason for my lack of updating is that nothing new is really going on here. It's pretty much the same old, same old. I kind of avoided the new year's party because it was cold and most people were drinking to get drunk, which I didn't particularly want to d0. Plus no one would really notice if I left so I did. They burn the old year in effigy, represented by a life size dummy, which really smells. We're slowly getting around to planting the gardens, the problem being it hasn't quite started raining enough. We'll have a rainy week and everyone will think winter has started, but then it will dry up for 2 weeks. Next month I'm actually visiting some other volunteers further south because their community wants to learn how to make shampoo. So I'll have a nice little road trip and see some friends.
For the past week and a half I've been in the states doing some job interviews. I'm hoping I'll at least get one offer so I'll have something lined up for when I get back. I've gotten to see some friends and family along with enjoying chipotle's every other day (plus some other tasty treats). The only downside is that it's freezing here and I've gotten soft living at the equator. I fly back to Quito this morning and then we have our close of service conference, which is mostly just book-keeping type stuff like how we wrap up our service and where we want our resettlement allowance sent. This means I'll be sitting in the back reading, which is how I normally deal with boring meetings here.
I do have some pics from new years but I didn't bring my camera with me so I'll try to get those up within the next couple of weeks. Happy (belated) New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Here´s some pictures from when my brother was here (including one where I´m looking particularly good! ha ha). The wall I´m sitting on is an old incan ruin. Not much to report here, things are pretty slow with the holidays coming up. I´ve just picked up some more seeds so we´ll probably start some more gardens after new years (and after everyone sobers up after new years). I´m in town buying some candy for the kids here as well as getting a lot of things done on the internet. Right now White Christmas en español is playing on the radio. I find that humorous as no one here has actually had a white chrismas. A couple of volunteers will be visiting over christmas so i´ll be doing some hiking and hanging out with them. My gardening community is planning a xmas meal too, which means potatoes and guinea pigs so certainly something different. new years is actually a bigger holiday than xmas around here (or at least that´s the impression i´ve gotten). the school dancing troup has been practicing every day for the new year´s eve festivities. anyway sorry this blog is a bit all over the place, but i´ve been running around all day after getting up at 3 so i´ve got a reason for being a bit incoherent. Happy holidays to everyone out there!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I know that it's thanksgiving today, but it's kind of hard to get into the spirit when you're not being inundated with propoganda and people talking about it. I'm over at the local hostel for my thanksgiving dinner, and that's about the only special thing I'm doing today. I spent a good chunk of the morning doing laundry because the sun has finally come out after about a week of rain and clouds. Seeing as it's getting close to christmas I was wondering if anyone out there would like to donate a little for the candy bags for the school kids here like last year. If you are willing, email me at lugess720@yahoo.com and i'll let you know how you can send some cash.