Trip Home

Sorry it has been so long since I last updated the blog, but it has been a hectic couple of weeks. Conor Magee was down for 9 days and we had a great time (Thanks for the blog post Conor. Now everyone can see that Irish wit at it´s best!)

Sadly, on the second to last day of Conor´s visit while we were in Quito, I got a call from my Sister. She told me that my Grandfather had passed away that morning. Gramps had been sick for a while and although I was prepared for the news, it still hit pretty hard. Before I came down here, I spent over a week visiting my Grandparents out in the Country. The day I left Loose Creek, he was having a "Good Day" and was pretty lucid. As I hugged him for the last time we had tears in our eyes and I think we both knew that we would never see each other again. I´m grateful for those last days with the man who had such an influence over my life (and the lives of so many others). We miss you Gramps!


After putting Conor on the bus to Guayaquil to catch his flight, I headed back to La Libertad. I spent a day getting stuff ready and then headed to the States for the funeral. It took over twenty hours to get home even thought the flights were only 7 1/2 hours. The trip back was pretty uneventful, but if anyone is thinking about flying to South America, I recommend flying "LAN". Good food, good movies, and free whiskey. What more can you ask for? After spending the night at the Miami Airport, I got into St. Louis on Sunday the 9th and after changing clothes and putting away my first Ted Drewes concrete in months (famous frozen custard for you non-Saint Louisans), we headed out to my Grandparent´s town for the visitation. I don't really want to go into all the details of the weekend here. It was great to see all my family even under the circumstances, but with the funeral of my Grandfather and this being the first time I´d been home since my Cousin Dale´s passing, it was very emotional.

I didn´t have a lot of time back home before I had to head back to Ecuador. My training group was having an important meeting that started the day after the funeral, so I had to get back. The meeting was over funding procurement for our projects, so it was imperative the I be there because this was going to be the majority of my work for the rest of my time in-country.

I only had a couple of hours free time in St. Louis before I had to catch my flight. I went to the grocery store to get some things that you can´t find down here. Most of the stuff was for me, but I also picked up some stuff for a friend of mine. I had called a bunch of my friends to see if they wanted anything while I was home, but since another friend had just been home, nobody really needed anything. The one thing that I had to get was a box of tampons for a girl I know. Apparently you can´t find them in Ecuador, so I had to pick some out. Mom went to the store with me and I think she got a kick out of seeing me try to decide what brand, size, etc. I needed to get. I didn´t think it was very funny, and of course when I got to Ecuador I found out that I got the wrong type. Oh well, beggars can´t be choosers.

I got to the Airport with plenty of time, but my flight was delayed. I grabbed a beer at the bar by my gate, but I didn´t realize until after I got it that it was $8. Holy Sh#%! That´s more than I make in a day. Anyway, because my flight was delayed, I missed my connection in Atlanta. Instead of waiting all night in Atlanta and then having t spend a whole day waiting in Miami, I flew to Ft Lauderdale and then took a Town Car to the Miami Airport. I made my flight to Quito OK, but without my bags. This normally wouldn't be a problem, but I had to go right to the meeting without a change of clothes. I ended up wearing the same clothes all week, and even with showers, I stunk bad! A couple of my friends didn´t know about my bag situation and told me, "Man, you really are going Peace Corps!". Other than my stench the meetings were good and informative. A couple of days later I was able to get my bags in Quito (with the most important contents: canned chili, hot sauce, and curry past intact). Also in the bag was a pair of old shoes (I can´t find shoes in my size down here), a portable CD player and a bunch of CDs.

Since I got back, I´ve been trying to get in the swing of things. I have English, agriculture, and gym class every day. Yeah, I said gym class. Apparently the old gym teacher was a little on the heavy side, so the wanted me to help out. The kids aren´t used to doing much during class, so they are going to be in for a shock when I make them run everyday. That is the reason I said that I´d teach that class. I´m getting out of shape, and this will be motivation to exercise more. Also, I want to teach the kids baseball. I got one of my Chicago friends working on getting me some 16" softballs to play with so the kids won´t need gloves. I´m counting on you Tubbs!

Other than that things are OK down here. The election for the new Constitutional Assembly is next Sunday, so my normal routine will be disrupted because we are on "Lock Down" for the weekend. I won´t be able to leave L.L. for those days in case there are any problems with the election. It will be interesting to see how things go with the new Constitution they are going to write. I´m sure you guys will here about it in the States if anything crazy happens, but hopefully it will be calm and the news can focus on crazy OJ Simpson.