The Body of Who??

I had just finished teaching at the grade school last Tuesday when the Director asked me if I was going to "Corpus". I told him that I didn´t know what that was, so I didn´t know if I was going or not. He explained that it was a big party this weekend outside of Latacunga. Since I didn´t have anything to do on Saturday, I went to check it out. The name turned out to be short for Corpus Christi, Latin for Body of Christ. And the festival was allegedly to celebrated the feast of the Eucharist, but in reality it celebrated beer, booze, and dancing to bad music. The parade started right on time (2 hours late) and was pretty much the same as the Mama Negra parade in Latacunga, but with a little less booze. There were a couple of other PCVs there, and it was a good time. The funny thing was that they didn´t try to hard to make it look like they were celebrating a religious feast. The only guys wearing anything religious were the guys (sorry, I don´t know what their official name is) wearing these huge hats with pictures of the Virgin and Jesus on them. They are traditional to the Pujili area (where the parade was).

While we were walking around we met an Israeli guy who had just started traveling around South America. Since he didn´t speak much Spanish, he tagged along. It was amusing to see how shocked he was at the way people were acting. He refused all the drinks people piled on us, kept asking if people always sold food uncovered on the street, wondered why the police just stood around while fights were breaking out, and generally questioned what he got himself into. None of this stuff bothered or surprised us PCVs. I guess that shows that we have integrated.

The traveler left before us and later as I was changing buses in Latacunga I ran into him again. I asked if he got back without any problems and he just shook his head. He said that on the bus ride back to town he fell asleep and someone stole his hat. He couldn´t believe how that could happen...lesson learned for him.

We planted another garden last week and all went well. I also got some good news from my boss. Since I´m having to travel a lot more to go to all these gardens, I´m paying a lot more on bus fares. I asked for a raise to cover these extra expenses and it was approved. I will now be receiving $10 more a month...huzzah!!!