Wearin´ o´ the green...

Ecuador style. First off, happy St. Pat´s to all y´all. I´ve looked everywhere for a Guinness and a corned beef and cabbage special, but I think I´m out of luck (side note to Conor Magee: This is not the country for you). I am wearing my newest piece of clothing today. A green Brazil tee-shirt that I just got for $6. It says "Adidas" on the front, but the tag is different. Oh well, another six bucks to the pirated clothing industry. On the subject of sports, I setup a NCAA pool for my training group. The response wasn´t as much as I would have wanted, but as long as UNC wins it all and I take the pot, I´ll be happy.

A family in my town just opened up a Pool Hall with satellite TV. The group from my town thought it would be a good idea to invite the rest of the training group to town last Sunday to watch Conference Championship games and the selection show on ESPN. About 27 showed up, but all ESPN was showing was Spanish soccer games. Luckily the hall has beer, so everyone still had a good time.

The other day I got a package from Steph (my sister) with the Post Dispatch in it. It had a complete Cards schedule. Now, even though I can´t watch the games, I´ll know when they are playing. (P.S.- If anyone wants to send a Cardinals wall calender or DVD highlights of some games, I´d love you for ever).

I had some good food last Saturday. My host mom decided to treat me to some hamburgers. They were good and just needed some french fries, iced tea, and apple pie to make me feel like every Sat night back home. I decided to return the favor and make them dinner this Friday night. We had spaghetti with tomato sauce, bread, and wine. Everyone liked it. Apparently some other PCT´s that have lived with my family have tried to cook and it never turned out well. It was good to eat familiar food, but I have to admit that it made me a little homesick.

Something else that reminded me of home, but didn´t make me homesick was cutting my hair last week. I did it with my beard trimmer and some safety scissors that we have in our medical kit. I think it turned out OK, but my family thought that it was pretty funny that I cut my own hair.

Spanish is going well. We had another progress test this week and I got a 4 out of 10. This is a lot better than the 2 out of 10 that I got on the first test. We need to get a 5 out of 10 by the end of training, so it shouldn´t be a problem.

Now for the BIG news! I got my two year assignment location the other day. I´ll be stationed in a town called La Libertad. It has an extremely high altitude, 11,000 feet, so I´ll have to deal with that, but the work sounds great. I´m leaving tomorrow to visit the town for 8 days and to meet the people I´ll be working with. The trip will only be about 3 hours because the town is just a little south of Quito. The temp will be a little chilly at night, but it is going to be very convenient to get to Quito for supplies and to meet people when they visit. I can´t wait to see where I´ll be for two years and I hope I don´t make a complete ass out of myself right of the bat. I´ve already met the guy who is currently serving there and he seems like a good egg, so it will be easy with him there to introduce me at first. He leaves at the end of April, so when I show up for good, I´ll be on my own.

Other than that not a lot to report. I´m feeling well and hope that everything is good with you.

Jay