Free at last, Free at last!

My probation is finally over. For the last three months in-site, we were not allowed to leave without special permission. That officially ended this week. I´ve been able to leave my site with my family, but nothing else. Many other PCVs in my group have blown off this rule and done whatever they felt like, but growing up under Rich and Mary Verhoff, I have learned that I can´t break any rule without getting caught. Therefore, I have been a "Site Rat" since April. Now, let the fun begin. I already have some trips semi-planned for August.

I hope everyone has had a chance to look at the pictures I sent out last week. If you didn´t get them (I got a lot of undeliverable messages afterwords) , or would like some more, let me know. Here are some of the reactions I received via e-mail. Aaron "Bulldog" Ogorzalek, a friend from Rolla wrote: "Sweeeet! You look like Andre the Giant next to them!!". Jared "Millertime" Miller, a friend from after college wrote:"Dang Jay! You must be like Andre the Giant to the people of Ecuador!". And Brian "Manilla" Curylo, a friend from work in Chicago wrote: "Jay the American Giant". They say that great minds think alike. I guess this proves that the opposite is true as well.

A couple of weeks ago the owner of my house decided that it was time to repaint the roof. My house is made of concrete and cinder block walls, but the roof is just raw timber (Eucalyptus and pine branches) trusses with corrugated fiberglass sheets over that. I offered to help, but the owner said that he didn´t want me to because I was too heavy and would break the roof. It took him a while to finish, and afterwords he asked me if the roof leaked every time it rained. It never did, but w hadn´t been getting very much rain. I figured that he was worried that he may have put a hole in the roof while painting. My thoughts were proved correct when we got a heavy rain last week. The roof leaked, but I was able to catch the water with two buckets and a pot. When the owner´s wife found out, she said that we had to put a plastic sheet over the hole. Seeing as the owner wasn´t home, it was my job to climb up on the roof and put on the plastic. I said OK to this and climbed up. I got to the peak of the roof and saw a small crack that looked like the owner had misstepped while painting. I turned around to get the plastic sheet to cover it, and then I had my own misstep. I only fell about three feet to the ceiling of my bedroom and my right foot stayed on the roof, but I had turned a small manageable crack into a hula-hoop sized hole. Good work Jay! I ended up covering both holes with plastic (which has worked perfectly). The big hole is still there and I have a feeling it is not going to get fixed for a while.

After six months in-country, the PC nurses do a follow up to see how all the PCVs are doing. My appointment was scheduled for this week. The interview/check-up went fine and afterwords, the nurse asked if I wanted to ride along to the next site. I said OK and off we went. WE headed South to Ambato and talked to two more PCVs. Then the nurse asked us all to come with her to the next site and spend the night. We took advantage of our new freedom and all said yes. We ended up with four PCVs and headed West to Guaranda, The drive there was cool. We passed right under Mt Chimborazo (Which because of the bulge at the Equator, the top of Mt Chimborazo is the farthest point from the center of the Earth). WE had a nice dinner and then crashed at the local PCV´s house. I volunteered to sleep on the floor and woke up to a cat starring at me about six inches from my face. I freaked out and woke everybody up at 5:50 AM. Normally this would have pissed everyone off, but not in Guaranda, Ecuador because we were all getting up in ten minutes anyway. Apparently an old Mayor of the town thought it would be a good idea to install a town alarm clock. They put up air raid sirens all over town and had them go off every day at 6:00AM, noon, and 9:00PM. I´ve seen Big Ben, the Glockenspiel in Munich, and the Astronomical Clock in Prague, but I´ve never heard of public time telling that included waking everyone up at the same god awful hour.

Yesterday, I performed a rarely accomplished feat, "The Holy Hat Trick". Yes, that´s right, I went to mass three times in the same day. I got up at 7:00AM and went with the family to another family member´s new house for a "blessing". A priest came and had a full mass in the living room and then blessed the inside and outside of the house. After that, w had boiled potatoes and fried pork at 10:ooAM and then went back to La Libertad for a 1:00PM mass at the grade school to commemorate the one year anniversary of the death of the former school director. After the mass we ate boiled potatoes and fried pork. I took an hour nap, and then it was off to Machachi for a Wedding. I didn´t know that people who were getting married, but apparently they were friends of friends of the family. Then it was back to L.L. for dinner of...leftover boiled potatoes and fried pork. I declined the "Anti-Atkins/Cholesterol Hat Trick" and had a PBJ sandwich and wrote out this blog post instead. I guess that is what I get for making fun of the Niña Sana last week.