Un-zambonied Ice and Impropperly Oiled Lanes

Where to begin?


First off, Training is still going good. It's hard to believe, but we are already halfway through. As I write this, the Trainees are all at their future sites. Things have gone great so far, but the real problems will beginning after they get back from their sites. That will be when they start to complain if they don't like where we put them.

It was sad last week because we said goodbye to seven members of my training group who all flew back to the USA. A couple of us who weren't leaving came in to Quito to give them a nice send off. We let one of my friends decide how to celebrate, and she picked...bowling and ice skating! It was fun, but the bowling alley lanes were drier than your grandady's scalp and the ice was gouged up. I know I shouldn't expect too much, but I was disappointed that I couldn't show off my patented spin-ball and triple axel.

After that we went out for a bit of dancing.

I went to the airport at 6:00 am the next day with some friends to say goodbye. I don't know if it was the headache or the heartache, but it was hard. I think a lot of it was realizing that my time is soon to come to an end as well.

One good thing about a friend of mine leaving was that he gave me a couple bottles of Guinness that he had just received, but wasn't going to drink. I shared them with the other Co-Trainers. It wasn't like a good draught pint, but good enough.

After seeing them off, I went down to La Libertad for the day. I wanted to give the new PCV who is living there, Russ, some contact information for the schools that I worked with and also to attend the La Libertad grade school "Sports Day". As it turns out, Russ wasn't there that day, but the "Sports Day" was fun. When I showed up, all the kids from the grade school and high school were in the center of town watching the grade school teachers playing the local police in volleyball. As I walked up to the court, a ton of little kids came running out to greet me. They all were yelling my name and asking if I was coming back to teach them more English. It was nice to know they remembered me, but I think that I'd have to teach them "some" English before I could teach them "more" English. I said hi to all the parents and teachers and got a sore hand from high-fiving all the kids.

After saying hi to my neighbors, one of the teachers asked me to be the referee for the next game. I tried to get out of it, but was unsuccessful (as always). The game was a basketball game between the female teachers at the high school and grade school. As soon as they started to play, I knew I was in trouble. They were fouling and double dribbling all over the place. I decided that since I would either have to blow the whistle every 15 seconds, or not at all, I'd go with option two. Most of the male teachers watching started to yell that I should call more fouls, but I stood by my guns and only called two fouls in the first half. I don't know how many I would have called in the second half because they fired me at halftime and let someone else do it...fine by me.

The best part about going to La Libertad was seeing my neighbor's kids. They were all doing good, and Karla, the middle girl, won the "Sports Day" beauty contest. The youngest daughter was confused to see me again. I think she couldn't quite remember me, but when I picked her up and asked her my name she said "Jay" right away, and then it all seemed to come back. Overall it was nice to be back for a day, but one day was enough.

Last week we had a session on small animal management. We did some work with chickens and cuyes. I think the Trainees enjoyed the hands on experience, but they were a little grossed out when yours truly castrated two guinea pigs. I don't have a lot of experience doing this, but it's not that hard. I'll be more than happy to give lessons when I come home.

Here is a picture of some of the guinea pigs with their babies (these were un-castrated of course) and a picture of Mount Cayambe that I took from near the farm.





The biggest thing we have done recently with training was assigning the sites to the Trainees. As I said, they all seemed happy with their sites, so Mary and I are pretty happy. We sat down for a couple of hours two weeks ago and put together a list of where we thought the Trainees would work out best. We gave the list to our boss expecting that he'd make some changes, but he kept them all the same. It's kind of strange to think that in two hours we decided the next two years for 20 PCVs, but I guess that's how things go in a government gig.

NOTES:
-I finished my taxes for 2008 recently. Surprisingly I owed Uncle Sam nothing again. That is one nice thing...the taxes on nothing are very low.

-I also wanted top say thanks to everyone who sent me a card, a phone call, or an e-mail on my birthday. THANKS !!!!!

-I haven't made a big deal about it on the blog, but I wanted to finally write about something that has been very exciting for my family. We found out in December that my sister was pregnant...with twins!! Everything has gone well so far and she is due to deliver in June. Here are some pics of babies and mother.

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