Feliz Navidad

Reading: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

Posing for the Holidays

Discúlpame, dear readers, as it has been over a month since I last posted. With Christmas right around the corner, I have been rather busy with work, visiting amigas, despididas, street dances, getting ready for my mom, aunt, and uncle to visit, and planning a trip to the Galápagos with my dad and step-mom.

A few quick things:

• I finally hiked El Altar, which has been on my ecua-bucket list for a while. Despite all the horrible stories I have heard about bad weather and knee deep mud, we had absolutely gorgeous weather for our entire hike. Besides getting to enjoy a bit of snow in December, we were graced with morning sundogs—one of my favorite natural phenomena and something I only thought existed on the Great Plains, Scandinavia, and Siberia.
• At a very gringo-y Thanksgiving, I attempted to make lefse, in honor of the great state of South Dakota. It hardly turned out the way that I had intended it to, that is, like how my family makes it. But people swore it tasted good... probably because they have never had legitimate lefse. Their loss, my gain. 

Vet Bills: Lesson Learned

Reading: Empire Falls by Richard Russo

What my $8 kitten is costing me these days:

A very pregnant Denali

• Sterilization shot from shoddy vet - $12
• Sonograph to determine the source of mystery lumps - $45
• Hysterectomy - $120 
• Oophorectomy - $40
• Antibiotics - $9

Total cost: $226

Lesson learned: Just get your cat spayed the normal way, BUT make sure that it's done by a legit vet... and stay away from sterilization shots - they result in swollen mammary glands and an infect uterus and ovaries. Bad story.

Side note: I'll be back in the states for a nice little vacay (and Miranda & Mitch's wedding) in 25 days. So excited.

Infección de Garganta

Reading: The Moral Equivalent of War by William James

So on Sunday I managed to come down with a nasty case of something that left me with a fever and some good old body aches. Normally this would not be all that worrisome, simply remedied with some self-prescribed Tylenol, water and sleep. However, we are not in normal, this is Ecuador, which means that fever and body aches could be a whole host of things, the most problematic being malaria and dengue.

Now, I personally ruled out the two worse extremes, mainly because I’m currently taking mephaquin for the malaria and I’m told that dengue feels like death itself, which my state of being could not be exaggerated to. On Monday, since I was still freezing even though it was clearly hot out, my neighbor, Marilyn, decided that we need to confirm my claims by rubbing me down from head to toe with a raw egg. The idea is that the egg will absorb whatever ailment is possessing you, so when it is cracked open in a glass of water, one can read the position of the yoke and albumen to determine what is actually wrong with the patient. My egg voodoo confirmed that I indeed had a fever, no thermometer needed.

Zorro

Reading: Diarios de Motocicleta by Ernesto “Che” Guevara

So for months here my host family has been asking me if I’ve ever tried zorro, which in Spanish means fox. Being as fox is not commonly consumed in the States, I can only tell them no, and shutter a bit when they start raving about how great what I envision as the cute, little, wild, red cousin of a dog tastes. However, as this conversation has come up several times, I had started to think that perhaps the Ecuadorian zorro is not exactly the same as a North American fox.

Fun Facts

Reading: Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets

1. I’m rereading all of the Harry Potter books, including Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them.
2. Katherine Hanson is getting married this weekend!

Milena (11), Moises (9) and Belen (8)

3. It’s been 5 years since I graduated from high school and a year now since I graduated from college… weird considering that my closest friends at the moment are 8, 9 and 11…
4. My shower that used to simply function more or less as a hose to fill up buckets for bucket baths suddenly has enough pressure to function like an actual shower… that being said, I decided to add this fact while showering after swimming in the river and mid-shower, my water complete disappeared… so this might not actually be a fun fact, we’ll see what happens tomorrow…
5. I figured out where all of our water comes from finally. Like I feared, it’s from the very dirty Rio Chimbo, which I swim in on a very regular basis.

Lost In Translation

Reading: How To Grow More Vegetables by John Jeavons

One of the last Spanish classes I took was one on how to work through the art of translating. Basicamente, the gist of the class is that translation is quite difficult, especially when trying to convey the nuances of a culture. This can create a whole host of humorous situations, so others that are frustrating and then a handful of others that are just unfortunate (watching Blade 4 with subtitles). And so I give you – Things That Translate and Things That Don’t:

Translates: Harry Potter Movies
Ecuadorian kids seem to be just as infatuated with HP as Americans (not limited to children). Consequently, I’ve watched HP 1-3 and 7p1 in the last two months. Luckily, it seems to be working as a great integration tool, plus it’s a pleasant reminder that I can actually understand Spanish even though I still don’t understand the coastal butchering of the language.

Doesn’t Translate: The Idea of Reading the Harry Potter Books
Most of us in my generation grew up eagerly anticipating each new release of one of the HP novels. So when they finally hit the big screen, we knew exactly what was going to happen – the movies were just buttresses to the vivid imagery that enchanted us in print. However, the thought of reading a HP novel is completely foreign to most Ecuadorians. Perhaps this is due to the fact that a culture of reading is much more prevalent in the United States then it is in Ecuador. Books here are crazy expensive and I’ve only had one encounter of leisure reading since I’ve been here. This is bad news for HP because not only is British humor lost in translation from English to Spanish, most of the gritty details are lost in the translation from text to film.

Under Oath

Reading: Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig

Omnibus 105 officially sworn-in

As of today, Omnibus 105 is officially sworn in a Peace Corps Volunteers, which means we are all now defenders of the United States of America. You can take that as sarcastically as you see fit. I'm leaving for Guayas tonight and will officially start as a volunteer in my site tomorrow. That being said, leaving my host family here in Tumbaco as well as the rest of the group is going to be much harder then it was leaving the states. Welcome round two of culture shock.