Carne Molida...A ticket to Toilet Town

So, last week after I left the Internet "cafe", I went shopping for the week´s groceries. I had a spice packet for enchiladas, but needed to get the meat. I have been avoiding buying meat in town because the meat stalls are outside and basically just wood tables with piles of uncovered meat. It is about as unsanitary as you can get (in-keeping with the rest of Ecuadorian food safety practices). I finally worked up enough courage, or desire for red meat, and went up to a booth and asked for, "Una libra de carne molida" [one pound of ground meat]. The enchiladas were ok (as good as can be expected without an oven, good cheese, or tortillas[I used lettuce leaves]). The problem came at about 4:00AM, when I woke-up and realised that I had about 15 seconds to undo the drawstrings on my sleeping bag, unzip it, worm my way out, and get to the bathroom. Luckily, I just made it. I would have hated to, "Shit the bed", and not in the figurative way. Anyway, I made trips to the John about every hour all day. At least this was on a Monday, so I didn´t have classes to interrupt the fun.

Also at the market I tried to buy three potatoes for the carrot soup that I was going to make. Now seeing as this area grows almost nothing but potatoes and onions, I thought this wouldn´t be a problem. I went up to one of the many women selling massive amounts of pappas and asked for three potatoes. She said, "Three Quintals?". A Quintal is an entire sack, so she was asking if I wanted about 150 Lbs. of potatoes. Of course I said no and explained that I only needed three single potatoes. She was amazed and confused that I would want such a small amount because most people buy enough for an entire family for a month. After a little broken discussion, she finally said that she wouldn´t sell them to me. I tried other stalls, but with no luck. In a market with tons of potatoes, I couldn´t buy three.

The family had some bad luck this week when the old father fell and broke his leg. As far as I can tell, he is doing ok, but is still in the hospital in town. I must be a bad luck charm for dad´s legs, because that father of the first host family I lived with had both his legs amputated while I was there.

I keep forgetting to mention a funny story. After being here for about three weeks, I would be talking to someone in town, and they would say, "¿Está sencilla?". Now, I took this as, "Are you simple?". Wait, are they asking if I´m retarded. Is my Spanish that bad? I had them repeat it, and yep, that´s what they were saying. I just looked dumbfounded for the first couple of times until someone explained that they were asking if I was happy. I´ve told probably 50 people that I was,"sencillo". finally after a couple of weeks I was studying and came across the word, "enseño". It means, "accustomed", and that is really what people are saying, but with their accents, I couldn´t understand. Maybe I am simple.

Finally, it has been COLD here this week. I´ve had a hard time sleeping and can see my breath in my house. The heater is not really working and since it uses a lot of power, I don´t turn it on much. It is so cold here that the other day I grabbed a bottle of vegetable oil and saw that it had solidified. Oh well, at least I don´t need a refrigerator for my food.