It's been a week since I've updated...  because I'm trying to suck the life out of each moment here. Kind of like I've been sucking the oxygen out of the air all semester here at 10,000 feet.

This weekend was quite the mezcla. Saturday I hung out with the Williams' kids, a YouthWorld missionary family that lives in the jungle was in town for the weekend and Bryan volunteered to hang out with their kids for the day. Alyse, Sharon and I went with them to play laser tag at a mall a few blocks from our house. We had so much fun and the kids were great... espera, me cachaste (wait, did you get that?) I'd played laser tag here in Ecuador, in a mall. Weird things. We took kids that have grown up in the jungle to play laser tag and then we ate McDonalds. [insert feelings about western influence in Latin America here.]

Me and Ronald...just hanging out with our Ecua pals!

Sunday. I traveled south with Sharon to visit my friend, Jose Luis's church. He preached at the early service (8 freaking thirty) and then invited us back to his house for lunch. We had an amazing time with lots of bicultural and bilingual laughs. I love Latin culture in that way, even though there is a bit of a language barrier in some moments- the people here are so forgiving. Jose laughs off my terrible language faux pas and I correct his English pronunciation. It's perfect.  We talked about cultural stuff and laughed some more about that, too. Here, in the Ecuadorian Christian community, it's pretty trashy for girls to have tattoos or piercings. ( Oye! I have two tattoos and a nose piercing...!) It was funny that Jose told me, "well it's fine because you're a gringa." I'm beginning to love these Ecuadorian friendships I'm forming and the cultural interactions I get to have. When Ecua meets USA inevitably laughter ensues. Basically, "I'm lovin' it," but not in the way of McDonalds in Quito, even if they label me an aninada (spoiled brat), but that's another story.

Wednesday this week I hung out at the dump with the Chelsea(y)s. Chelsea has been interning there and showing off her cutesy kid spanish all semester, I needed to check it out. Chelsea's job at the dump is helping with the day care run for the children of parents who work at the city dump. Some are scavengers for metals and plastics and others are employed by the city. In my non-biased opinion, all of their kids are cute. Even that 10 month old baby girl who did nothing but cry for two hours straight with a green poopy diaper that soaked through her pants and went up her back, yep- her too. We had a great day.We colored, practiced writing big As and Bs and little as and bs. We even sang a song to learn colors in english and spanish (sung to the tune of farrah jacques!) Needless to say, had no one been looking when I left- I might have tried to take a kid home with me. : )

Ceviche with Mario

Today we made ceviche with Mario, our spanish professor. For those who haven't experienced this latin delight, its a cold soup made of orange and lime juice with tons of cilantro, chopped onions and tomatoes. Our ceviche had shrimp, but in South America there are lots of varieties, some with fish, mixes of sea food or some with clams. I'm glad we played and safe with the shrimp. To a North American palet, ceviche certianly sounds gross- but it was great. Enjoy it will all the Ecua fixins', it'll be reminiscent of the first time you had Chik-fil-a (ok not that good, but close.) The Ecua fixin's are congil (popcorn), tostadas (big unpopped popcorn kernals) and home made chifles (fried plantain chips). You put the popcorn in the soup, and munch on the other two on the side. I know it sounds bizarre, but it really was great.
...oh yeah. I wish i had pictures of our Ecua creation... BUT. we dropped my camera half way into ceviche prep. Thankfully there's a thriving black market here in Quito, full of stolen tecnologia.

We're leaving for the jungle on Sunday. I've got a feeling there will be quite the update when I get back...