4th of July, Not a Big Deal In Ecuador

I had my first culinary failure last week. I tried to make pesto sauce, but it turned out horribly. I couldn´t find any fresh basil, so I used dried. That may have been the problem, or possibly the garlic was bad. Either way, the pasta was ruined. Right after that, I tried to make blueberry/blackberry jam. I didn´t know how long to cook it, so I just kept it on the heat until it got thick. It never did, so after an hour I stopped cooking it and let it cool. Within 10 minutes it turned rock hard. Apparently I cooked it about 50 minutes too long and instead of jelly, I had made Jolly Ranchers. I´m going to try again and I´ll let you know how it turns out.

Last year I spent the 4th of July in San Diego on the beach. It was a beautiful day and my friends, a couple hundred thousand other people and I spent it eating BBQ, relaxing in the sun, drinking some beers, and watching 4 simultaneous fireworks displays. This year however was a little different. I woke up at 6:30 AM when someone started beating on my door. I opened it and it was a women and her son. She asked if I could teach her son English. I said OK and asked when. She said, "Now". I said no and told them to come back later. I tried to go back to sleep, but soon another person was beating on my door. This time it was my neighbor asking for a band-aid. I gave her one and figured that it wasn´t my day to sleep in. Instead, I spent the next two hours beating my clothes on a concrete slab. After the laundry was done, I went up to the school for a planned game of basketball. The game was between the 6th and 7th grade girls, and I was the Ref. Now, I´m not saying that they were bad, but I´ve seen street brawls that were better organized. After an hour the score was 2-2, so I called a foul and let the best girl shot free-throws under the basket. Luckily she made one and it ended 3-2. Then it was the teacher´s turn to play. They let me play too and put me on the team with the ladies. I haven´t ran in a while, so I could barley make it up and down the court. They wanted me to stand under the basket and just toss it in. Since I was so much taller, it was pretty easy. I really didn´t want to win this way, so I passed it off a lot. We ended up winning, and now I know how Wilt Chamberlin must have felt. After the game we all had some soup.

Next, I went in to town to use the Internet and then came back to teach the kid from the morning some English. After "class" I hung out with the family. I had bought some peanuts and Budweisers in town, so we shared them and had a small Independence Day party. They though the beer was good, but too cold (I had put them in the fridge for an hour). The older Grandma and the two-year old tried the beer and both were impressed. (Note: the two-year old´s condition got worse on Tuesday, so they took her to the Hospital. She is fine now, but I guess spitting booze on here didn´t work after all...surprising.) Later, I made a ham and cheese sandwich and sat in my room listening to music. I hate to admit it, but I got really homesick while listening to Willie Nelson´s version of "City of New Orleans". I was thinking of everybody being together and having fun and well, "Good morning America, how are ya?", it got to me.

This was the last week of classes at the school. Graduation was on Friday and the teachers asked me to come to the ceremony. It was nice, and they even had me sit on stage and help hand out diplomas. I had to call out the students names. Luckily they were all easy ones. After that we had a Guinea Pig lunch and then drank and danced in a classroom for 6 hours. During the afternoon, I took a break and went outside to play with the kids. They were kicking a tennis ball around and I told them to throw it to me. This turned into me throwing the ball across the yard. They were all impressed at how far I could throw it (It wasn´t far for me but miles for them). Soon we had a crowd and there were probably 12 parents and 30 kids Oohing and Aahing at every toss.

The next day I took a 4 hour bus ride with the family to their relatives house for a Birthday party. I had met the girl whose B-Day it was, so I thought it would be fun. I didn´t know it, but turning 15 is a big deal down here. It is the "coming of age" for a girl. The girl got all dressed up and the house was cleared for guests. We first went to a special mass for her. It was interesting at the mass. She was sitting up front with her family like the wedding party. She had came wearing slipper, but in the middle of mass, she switched to high-heels that her Godmother had brought on a pillow. After mass, we went to the house for toasts and special dances. It was just like a wedding. They had prepared a ton of good food, so I ate like a king. The the DJ started playing music and people began to dance and pass bottles. I was tired of dancing from the night before, but I ended up staying up until 4:30. I can´t say that I had a good time, but it was better than being at home. I was disappointed to see the girl drinking heavily. By 1:00 she was fall down drunk(The same as her parents). They grow up quicker down here, but I really don´t agree with someone that young getting hammered. I eventually made it to bed (I say bed, but I had to sleep on the floor), but the party was still going on. I only got 2-3 hours of sleep that night and was glad to get back to L.L. the next day in time to help the ladies of the community bank write some correspondence on the computer and then get to bed early.