I´m Back Baby!

After a three week vacation, I´m back in Ecuador (for better or worse). I had a blast in the States and want to thank everyone who hosted a BBQ, gave me tickets to a ball game, let me sleep on their couch, drove me around, let me barrow their car. bought me a beer, took me out to lunch/dinner, gave me a hug, said they enjoyed reading the blog, and generally made my trip home the best time I´ve had in a while.

The trip back was pretty uneventful except for a lot of turbulence over the Gulf of Mexico (Thanks Dolly!) and when we landed in Quito, the woman across the aisle from me asked me in Spanish, "What time is it?". I answered her, but she just looked confusedly at me. I repeated the time, but again, she didn´t understand. Then she held up nine fingers and said, "nueve". I said yes, and then she started talking to me very fast. I only understood about 1 word in 50 and thought, "Holy S___! I lost all my Spanish while I was in the US". Then a Mexican lady behind me started talking to us. Her, I could understand. She asked if I understood the other lady and I said no. She then asked the lady where she was from. She didn´t understand and showed us her passport...she was from Hati! She was speaking French the whole time with a little Spanish thrown in, Thank God!

I got to my house too late to visit my neighbors, and since I was tired from the trip, I just went to bed. THe next morning, I awoke to my neighbors knocking on my door asking me to get up. I opened the door, and two of my neighbors were carrying pots and pans and asked me to come with them to another neighbor´s to kill some Guinea Pigs for a fiesta that night. Well, if you´re going to get back in the swing of things, you might as well go all the way. (Note: I went to a pet store in the US and saw that Guinea Pigs go for $34.50 a pop. Outrageous! I can get a Guinea Pig cleaned, cooked, and with two side dishes for $6). After killing them, my neighbor asked if I could go to her daughters graduation that afternoon to take picture. They had another neighbor´s camera, but didn´t know how to use it. I changed out of my killing clothes and we took off. We got to the high school at noon, but of course the ceremony didn´t start until 4:00. After the graduation, which was really more of a fashion show since the school´s curriculum was clothing design and manufacture, we went back to my neighbor´s to eat (oh, guinea pig and potatoes how I didn´t miss you!) .

Later, the DJ started up and we drank and danced until 3:00 AM. Itried to leave earlier, but they insisted that I stay. I just kept thinking that two days earlier I had dinner at a nice Chicago sushi restaurant with 12 of my friends. Good food, good wine, good conversation and a lot of laughs. Now, I was dancing all night to music I didn´t like with a belly full of rodent. The thing is, earlier in the night when we were making toasts, my neighbor raised her glass to congratulate her daughter and turned to me and said, "Jay, I´m glad you made it back in time to help us celebrate because you are a part of our family". That got to me. As much as I miss my friends and family, I´m glad I here for now. I only have nine months left to work, and its going to fly by. I don´t think I´ll miss the food or unpunctuality when I leave, but I know that I´ll miss being a part of this messed-up World.