This is also a very fitting personal motto for yours truly right about now. You see, I have reached the point in my abroad journey where returning to the U S of A, although only two weeks away, seems nearly impossible. So thus, I have adopted this phrase, “Yes I can! Yes, I can make it through the next two weeks and yes, I can return home in one piece and yes, I can maintain some shred of sanity in doing so. ¡Sí, me puedo!”
día setenta y uno: 03/21/2010 I spent Sunday with Mayra’s family. She has three delightful daughters all about my same age and a splendid husband and a corky extended family. I woke up to eat breakfast with them. I had a bowl of Fruit Loops and milk. It tasted like American reminiscence with a lingering after taste of home. During breakfast, Mayrita, Mayra’s eldest daughter, decided to make strawberry and maraquilla (a fruit unique to Ecuador and an acquired taste in my opinion) juice. So, she got out the blender and blended away. When the juice was ready, she poured a glass and tried a sip as she sat down at the table. When we asked her how it was she said, “faltan fresas…y faltan maraquilla” (“it’s missing strawberries…and maraquilla.”) We all tried a taste and our reactions were quite comical, but my favorite reaction had to be Mayra’s. When Mayra took a sip her lips pursed a little but she still insisted, “No, está perfectamente bien” (“nah, it’s just fine”). I commented on how that was the typical “mom” thing to say and the other girls laughed. Oh boy was that a riot!
After breakfast, we got dressed and ready for church, which was nice, getting ready with a bunch of girls that
is. Because…for a change, I wasn’t the last one out of the house still trying to put my mascara on without a mirror. Speaking of church, it’s a bit different in Mayra’s family. They attend mass in the morning instead of the evening. They go to, what I would consider to be, Cuenca’s most beautiful church. Also, Mayra’s entire family attends together, instead of just two people one week and one person the next like in my host family. Mass was very inclusive, I felt relaxed and welcomed even as an atheist. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I converted to Catholicism or started believing in “god” or anything. Instead, I’m saying that I didn’t feel as tense as I usually do in organized religious settings. Probably because I took that time to unwind and reflect on the fact that not all of Cuenca is the tiny boxed in experience that I have navigated these past three months. I realized that there’s more to it than what I have seen thus far.
After church, we went grocery shopping and bought ice cream for lunch!!! Lunch was silly, I got a kick out of listening to Mayra’s family tease her youngest daughter for texting all throughout the meal and only stopping to eat the ice cream we bought (which was flavored vanilla and mora or “blackberry” in English, the best kind of ice cream I have encountered in Ecuador so far). Para descansar (“to rest”) after lunch, I sat on the couch and gazed out the window with the drone of Latin MTV buzzing in the background. From that window, I could see the entire city, the occasional humming bird whizzed by and flowers danced in the breeze and rays of sun drizzled over the steeples of churches and the tops of buildings. No joke. It sounds corny, but really, it was such a remarkable view and such a glorious moment…one of those rare instances where you think to yourself “everything is going to be ok.”
día setenta y dos: Monday I walked home in the pouring rain with Leah, my griping buddy. Together we clenched our hoods around our faces and could feel our shoes filling up with water. I even had to shout my complaints in order to be heard over the strong beat of rain and the annoying ruckus of traffic. There was a touch of lightening above us, purple lightening. Come on come on come on baby now twists and shout, just shout it all out! Oh, also Hannah’s mom is visiting from the States and brought me some of my favorite lotion, that purple Johnson’s melt away stress kind. It made my day, my week even!
día setenta y tres: Tuesday was a “day of service” for our abroad program. We all volunteered to paint the exterior of an elementary school. It was fun, a good way to spend time skipping class. We also got fed brownies in payment for our handy work. In the afternoon, I got my ecology midterm back, and let’s just say I’m not a biology major for a reason. I didn’t do as well as I had hoped and now have a bit of a tummy ache worrying about it. So, in order to alleviate my tummy ache…
Libertarians! no just keep reading...
día setenta y cuatro: I took a taxi to the Super Maxi on Wednesday and bought some yogurt and Planter’s mixed nuts (oh how I love nuts! “that’s what she said”…sorry, I couldn’t resist that joke and if you don’t know what I am talking about you should stop whatever it is your doing, which would most likely be reading this blog post, and go and watch the Office immediately)! I also bought a new shirt, it’s purple and has a screen-silked feather on it. It’s amazing how sometimes buying just one new thing will melt away all of your other consumerist desires. In other words, I no longer “need” that remote controlled lawn gnome, however amazingly ostentatious it is. I'm joking. At lunch today I had difficulty trying to explain to my host family what a “libertarian” is when they asked me about my thoughts on the new Obama health care law…oh man let’s not get me started on this, I’m too worn out from trying to explain it in English let alone Spanish!
día setenta y cinco: Thursday Sophia, Ally, Leah, and I tried the new pizza place, “Pizza House.” It still fascinates me how many businesses have English names in this country that speaks Spanish. How odd. Oh and the pizza was pretty darn good, it tasted pizza-y and well you really can’t go wrong with pizza-y (unless you’re Pizza Hut, but that’s another story for another time…mainly dealing with bitterness over a Book It! button and a small golden star sticker). Before I left to go get pizza, my host mom commented on how the Pizza House was my “refuge,” referring back teasingly to the night that I got mugged and had to use their phone to call Mayra to come pick me up because no one else was home and I was locked out…ha ha funny (I’m not actually laughing here).
día setenta y seis: Friday was a little boring, I filled out 10 job applications online and in-between cracked my knuckles. I also have gripe or a cold as it’s called in English : ( I didn’t go home all day and stayed at school working, which probably made my gripe worse. But on the sunny side of life I got to eat lunch at a restaurant. I had an inexpensive and delicious veggie burger with a side of fruit, something that’s quite hard to find in this country. In a country where you see whole pigs roasting on the side of the streets, it's understandable that “vegetarian” wouldn't be a common option. When I finally did get home, I just went straight to bed and got much needed sleep!
día setenta y siete: It’s Saturday now and I’m still sick. Apparently though, chicken broth soup is considered a remedy for a cold here too. Who knew?! I learned this today at lunch as I ate, can you guess what?, chicken broth soup! It helped a lot and for that I thank my host mom. Speaking of my host mom, at first she thought that I just have allergies because according to her “I’m sneezing a lot”. I tried telling that my body aches and that I have a fever and that for sure this is a cold…but who ever listens to kids younger than 30 here? Nobody, that would be nobody.
At 8:30pm tonight the most unusual thing happened. My host dad made us turn off all the lights in the house, I’m not really sure why. And besides, it’s too dark to get up and try and find him in order to ask him why we are all sitting semi quietly in the dark at 8:30pm on a Saturday night. Shrug. (update: I learned that we turned the lights off for international Earth Hour!)
I live off these things when I have a cold and really they work like a charm, promise
All I have left to say is Yes, yes I can make it through the next two weeks!
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