Monday, July 03, 2006

More San Pedro

Yesterday was the Desfile de Alegria for San Pedro and I was lucky enough to watch the entire parade from the roof of a building. The dancers were really stunning, in bright pinks, yellow, and greens. They were followed by big groups of guitar playing muchachos singing Viva Cayambe at the top of their lungs. There were floats with children dressed up in indigenous outfits and with comely women in evening gowns throwing flowers. My family had a little cafecito afterwards and I played poker with my very patient host father and a couple of my PC companions.

Today Risa and Jordan came to visit me in Cayambe from Quito. That was awesome. I wanted to introduce them to my host family, but it seemed like they were busy working so we just stopped in at the house for a little snack and then I took them for bizcocho, which is apparently only made here in Cayambe. (It turned out that my family was waiting for me to call them or stop into their store, but I didn´t really understand that. These kind of little miscommunications seem to happen a lot between Peace Corps volunteers and families that house them. I just kind of chalk it up to language and cultural adjustment and hope I create enough good will through other time I invest in hanging out with them to make up for little mistakes that I make.)

On Friday, the amoebas will be spreading out through the whole of Ecuador. We take technical training trips to see various Peace Corps sites and I will be going to Cuenca. In the meantime we are busy throwing ourselves onto the mercy of our training community. Our first meeting with a group of mothers is tomorrow.

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