I´m a slacker.

Okay, so being consistent in blog-world is not my forte. Nor is gettig up early. I got up at 12:30 today and managed to leave at the bright hour of 3:45. pm. I know, I know, I´m a slacker. But, technically it´s a holiday (even though it´s not here, but I still get it because I work for the US government), and I didn´t have a lot to do, so getting out of bed just was not that appealing to me. But, life is good.

Now that the brutal winter and it´s 65 degree temperatures has waned, it´s back to the balmy 78 that I´m used to. Yesterday it hit me as I was running on a secluded road as the sun set over the mountains and the cows stared at me as I sang at the top of my lungs with my ipod, that my life is pretty darn good. True, my house has been water-free for a week (it´s really lovely when you´re sick, or have dirty laundry and dishes, or want to wash your hands. Please write your local water municipality and thank them for their consistently amazing service.), and this computer is so slow that it won´t upload my tiny pictures, and sometimes I still don´t understand what´s going on, but for the most part, I cannot complain about the Ecua life. Oh, except for the chicken heads in my soup. The other day I won the bonus prize and got not one head in my soup, no, no, no, but two. I dissected one of them, it was lovely. I did not eat the soup. (see picture.)





Last week my kids sponsored a music festival for the ¨month of youth¨ and despite only 2 days of advertising, 300-400 people showed up! I was so excited for them and their success!






Hmm, in other news, I taught my little kids how to make friendship bracelets, and they´re now addicted. They´ll still succumb to my cheesy construction paper crafts, but they beg me constantly for more thread. I´m a very stingy thread distributor.

Last month I trained some of my Red Cross kids to teach sex ed, including STIs and HIV-AIDS. They then taught my 9-13 year olds, which was quite entertaining. We´re hoping to go into some of the barrios (neighborhoods) around Loja to teach the same class. The picture here is of my boys who learned how to put condoms on bananas. They were pretty proud of their accomplishment and freaked out about the slimy latex.

A few weeks ago I visted Piura, Peru with my friend Paul and ended up hanging out with one of the mission groups there. The poverty in that area is amazing...makes Loja look like Beverly Hills. The people are so full of life and spirit, though. They were so kind to all of the gringos, many of whom sponsor families there by sending $25 a month, which purchases basic food staples such as rice and milk. The barrios where I helped distribute the food baskets consisted of homes made of bamboo and woven straw. The very wealthy of the barrios had cement floors and maybe bricks. I had a great time hanging out with the kitchen staff at the church, who I think were entertained by a Spanish-speaking gringo and my odd stories. And, I bought some killer pottery for the price of $2-3 per piece. Maybe I´ll sell them at home and make a great profit. The pictures are of Paul, a girl from the mission group, and two of the girls from Paul´s parents´ hosted family, who are super-sweet. We went on a boat ride to see the sea lions, and this is the small monkey that some of the teenage boys had in Piura during their one month stay. I thought it was going to die the last day, but seemed to be making a bold comeback.



This is a picture from a hike I took with my kids. Somehow, the 60 of them, ages 5-13, managed to walk about 8 miles in one morning. I´m not sure why they planned such a thing or what they were thinking, but the little buggers didn´t even use up all their energy and were still wild when we got back!

This is from a large advertisement on the side of the store. In case you can´t see the photo well, it´s of suicide-bomber-Barbie, complete with tnt tied around her waist and a detonator in her hand. Who made this up? And, what
on earth compelled them to put it on the side of a supermarket?!? This is not a militant country!

So, that´s the end of my summary of Ecua-life for today. Hope you all enjoyed your 3 day Labor Day weekend!