July 7, 2008

I returned from Mindo today. The town was gorgeous—surrounded by mountains, rivers, and waterfalls. It was also full of mosquitoes and my ankles are now swollen to twice their normal size as a result of all the bites. We didn’t have time to do many of the activities that Mindo offers (like horseback riding, canopy rides, tubing, etc.), but it was still nice. I hope I will have a chance to return and really experience the tourist side of Mindo. (Note: one thing I did learn is that no one is from Mindo. It is chock full of tourists.) We had some free time and I spent a lot of it in the hammock reading. Three other trainees and I gave our first charla to a group of youth about gender and stereotypes. It went alright. A little boring, but oh well. The youth were well behaved and listened.

I’m starting to have problems with training. My biggest issue is that I never have alone time. In the States I spent a lot of time by myself. Here the only ‘me’ time I have is bedtime when I am too exhausted to do much more than write in my journal, if that. I’m used to being independent and setting my own schedule. I miss having time to myself! Once I’m at my site I will have an extraordinary amount of me time and I may miss all the structure time in Cayambe… or not.
I am also getting really frustrated with my pronunciation. Some words I just can’t get my tongue around and people therefore think I can’t speak Spanish. Cissa offered to spend some more time helping me. I honestly don’t think I can stand any extra tutoring, but I know I need the help. Why won’t my mouth cooperate when I try to speak!?

On our way back from Mindo we stopped at la mitad del mundo (the real one… there is also a fake one). It was really cool and our guide was really interesting. He showed us one trick about how water drains in one direction in the northern hemisphere and in the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere. On the equator, however, the water doesn’t swirl at all. It just falls straight down. It was so cool! I always thought that was a myth, but it is not! The sun was also really hot on the equator. It was fun to be in two hemispheres at once!

When I returned to Cayambe I met four other relatives. I think the woman is Mama Inés’s niece. She was really nice and very interesting. She has three kids including a four month old. The baby was adorable. I think they are here for the week, but I don’t know where they sleeping. It is already a full house. Oh well, I assume they’ve got it figured out.

After dinner we had a bonfire and the kids roasted marshmallows. That was fun, but I didn’t spend much time hanging by the fire. I was too busy itching all my bug bites! One thing I do like about Cayambe is that there are no mosquitoes here.