Had another fun/life threatening experience with my neighbor Carlos the other day. His outdoor hot water heater was on the fritz, so we decided to take a look at it. We figured out what the problem was and were taking apart one of the gas valves when a friend of mine sent me a text message. I was standing next to Carlos responding to my friend while he was fiddling with another valve. He apparently turned to water on while the gas valve was disconnected. When the water came on, another gas valve opened to light the pilot and then WOOOOOSHHHH!!!!! I turned and saw a jet of flame shooting out the side of the heater and climb up to the second story of Carlos´ house. We both ran and Carlos turned off the gas at the tank. I was unscathed, but Carlos singed most of the hair in the front of his head. Someday that guy is going to kill me.
What does it take to win “Mother of the Year” at the high school that I work at? I´m not 100% sure, but just remembering your kid´s name and Birthday will get you in the Finals. I was working up there registering students for the new year, and a bunch of the parents when we asked them what their kid´s Birthday was, they had to look up the date on the Birth Certificate. Some parents even had to look at the paperwork when we asked them their kid´s name, unbelievable. Another crazy thing is that to register the older students, they needed copies of their ID. Unfortunately, they are unable to get IDs now because there is a shortage of materials to make IDs in the WHOLE COUNTRY. Nobody can get a license or ID for at least a month.
The good news is that school started this week, so I´ll be busy again until I leave. I´m still going to be teaching English at the grade school and along with nutrition/heath classes every once in a while in the high school, I´ll also be teaching “Logical Reasoning”. If you remember, a couple of months ago, I helped the high school teachers prepare for a logic test they had to take. They liked it so much, I´m stuck doing it. Actually, it should be fun. On Tuesday I went there to see when they wanted me to start. The Director looked at me and said, “Now!”. They were busy getting paperwork ready for the parents, so I had to teach a one hour class without materials or preparing. I was pretty happy that I pulled it off.
I´m planning mostly on doing word and math problems with the kids and Brain-Teezer type puzzles, so if you have any, please send them to me jayverhoff@msn.com .
Another highlight of the week was that on Thursday, my friend John and I got to eat lunch with the new US Ambassador to Ecuador. Here is her profile http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_M._Hodges.
We met her at the 300 year old Hacienda Cienega “Swamp House” between La Libertad and Latacunga. The owner gave us a tour and explained some of it´s history. It was interesting. You can see pics of the Hacienda at http://www.hosterialacienega.com/html/en/hotel_cotopaxi_ecuador.html. We then had a really nice lunch with the Ambassador, two members of her staff, and the owner. The lunch cost about $25, but the owner was trying to impress the Ambassador, so he picked up the bill. Unfortunately, the owner talked most of the time, and since he was there, we talked mostly in Spanish. We only really talked about what John and I are doing for about two minutes, but for free filet migñon I´m not complaining.Finally, here is a quote from the comedian Lewis Black that I just heard. It is a couple years old, but it reminded me that no matter how bad it gets down here, I still went to college in a worse place…just kidding.
“If you´re thinking of killing yourself, Rolla is the place to go. Because when you get there, you´ll take one look around and say, ´I want to end it all´. You can´t even get there directly. You fly into St. Louis and then drive two hours south on Route 66. They wrote a song about it…but not that part of the highway.”
- Lewis Black on Late Night with Conan O´Brian
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