I'm in a great mood, despite the beginning of my day. After waking up to a blocked internet in my house (again), I remembered an assignment that was due last Wednesday in Spanish class. My group got an extension on it because an idiot in my group decided not to do the whole thing even though it was CLEARLY given to him three weeks ago. Anyways, I had to go to the internet café, and after plentifully eating to appease my over-eager host-mother, I stepped out to pouring rain. I threw on a sweater and hoped it wasn't as bad as it was, but the rain worsened until I was pelted with hail. After being told my computer wouldn't connect with the internet at the café, I called my friend Gaby to pick me up so we could all go to the grocery store to pick up some needed items for my friends' hiking trip tomorrow. I walked across the street to a small, independent minimarket to pick up a pack of smokes. I made friends with the shopowner, named Lola who instantly knew whose house I lived in when I told her what street I lived on. Amidst other things in my days were a 3 hour traffic jam, baking a cooke of double chocolate chip cookies, and watching planes take off into the clouds from my friend Gaby's balcony.
Speaking of my host mother, I had this really interesting conversation with her, ethnically speaking. My friend Jessica has an allergy to gluten, which pretty much stops her from eating any type of bread. She's been regaling me with stories of how her mother stole a bag of gluten-free noodles she brought from home to make her family a dinner, her mother's insistence that if "she eats more, she'll get used to it," and how she was told she had to buy her own yogurt if she wanted to eat it for breakfast because it was "too expensive." Magda started telling me about this girl who talks to her boyfriend and speaks in English describing this "shithole" of a country (unaware that the family speaks perfect English), a girl who makes 70 eggs a day and wastes her family's energy by making her own meal, one who has a gluten allergy and is now switching families, is causing her host mother a lot of troubles, and that this makes her sad because her friend is so worried over it. I suppose this coming from someone who gets angry because I don't eat all of her food was to be expected, but I guess it just goes to show that there's always 2 sides to every story.
Last night, four of my friends were celebrating their birthday at an Italian restaurant called Capulet when my friend Michelle walked in and started bawling. Apparently two men came at her outside of her house and held her at gunpoint. She lost some money and her camera. After that, our table started talking, and someone brought up a girl named Ingrid who had her laptop, iPod, and around $55 stolen from her right outside the bus station at gunpoint. Someone else told a story about how they went to Guayaquil and got robbed of their bank cards. Although the latter had a funny antidote about how this really crude, uneducated girl began to protest when they demanded she close her eyes and they pistol-whipped her! I've been waiting for someone to do that to her forever. The robbery, yet, that's a little excessive, but she learned a valuable lesson!
My host mother and I have been getting along better because I've been eating. A lot of times, I stay out and grab a bite to eat and she gets mad at me when I don't want dinner. She kept claiming that I "needed to eat because she put a lot of amor in what she was making and she wanted to see me well-nourished." When she was telling me about Jessica, though, she described to me how after her friend finished venting, she said she had the opposite problem, which was that I wouldn't eat what I was given. This coming from a lady who serves rice, potatoes, a spinach tort, colada morada, chicken, peas, soup, juice, and potato chips all in one serving? I guess too much is better than too little, though.
We're planning a trip to Canoa, a beach city, to celebrate Nov. 2nd's Day of the Dead. The whole country makes a soupish-dessert called Colada Morada, or purple strainage. It's made with a thick, soup mora juice (which is like a giant raspberry) with freshly cut strawberry pieces. The drink is actually a dark purple because mora is a blackberry. The drink can be really sweet or kind of bitter, depending on how much sugar is added.
We had this really depressing discussion earlier today about how returning abroad is supposed to be even more difficult than arriving in the foreign country. Michelle told us about how it's because every on the trip changes drastically without their friends in tow. It then feels as if you can't mesh well anymore because the other party hasn't been abroad. Either way, I can't wait to see my family and sleep in my bed for 48 hours straight and wake up on Christmas morning!
I guess I should probably hit the hay, it's pretty late here. But I'll try and do this again sooner!!
