The cat is gone but the chickens are here to stay.

This week started off fantastic! Cuenca was so much fun – I got to meet about 10 other volunteers from the area and we hung out all night. They are really cool and a tight-knit bunch, so I definitely have more people I can hang out with in Cuenca, which will especially be nice when MacKenzie leaves for the States in October. I also got to do a lot of shopping on Saturday at the SuperMaxi in Cuenca before going home to Azogues. The SuperMaxi is more expensive than a regular grocery store, but has all sorts of American favorites! It will be dangerous to go there too much, so I’m going to try to limit myself to every few months, but it is a nice treat.

I got home Saturday night to find out that MacKenzie had made me a functioning copy of the house key, so I won’t get locked out anymore! Also, the family had discovered the cat’s habit of eating their guinea pigs, so the devil cat is now gone and we are living in peace upstairs (aside from the frequent chicken visitors that we are still battling with). The family was also very chatty with me, so it was a great return from an even better outing in Cuenca!

I’m still working on the cookbook. This week I made cinnamon-raisin and oat bagels! I had planned ahead and bought cream cheese in Cuenca, so I am loving it right now. I know I’ll be able to survive here with my new bagel making skills, so things are looking bright! Well, things are looking bright metaphorically, but the weather is still awful. I’m starting to think this is going to be the weather for the next few years – I guess it’s like having moved to the Northeast? Permanent overcast and frequent rain. I don’t mind it too much, but it still gets cold and the rain is keeping the landslides coming, which makes me hesitant to travel. Even though it is still gloomy and rainy, I am either getting more accustomed to the cold or it’s actually starting to warm up! I no longer shiver 24/7 and the nights aren’t as bad as they were in the beginning. I think summer is on it’s way!

Another baking endeavor that turned out to be a huge hit was the oatmeal-raisin cookies. Nayeli (the 8-year-old girl in my family) loves to bake things with me, so we spend a lot of time together at night baking and hanging out. She is adorable and very helpful with my Spanish because she doesn’t give up easily on me understanding a word or idea. The baking has proven to be the perfect way to share some of my culture with her and give her something to do after school. We have plans to try a carrot cake with campo cream-cheese frosting and an apple pie this upcoming week, so we’ll see how it goes!

Classes in the school went really well on Monday. I actually taught 1^st-7^th this time, which was completely exhausting, but also really fun! In 4^th-7^th grades we went over body parts, then played Simon Says, which was a huge hit. The little kids are crazy and energetic, so we did some quick learning of colors enough to get us outside and have them running for Red Light, Green Light. I think games are going to be the way to go, so if anyone has easy suggestions, please send them this way!

Work in the subcentro was very infrequent this week, so I dared to try more laundry on Wednesday when I had a free afternoon. After last week’s painful and poor laundry job, I was a bit hesitant, but it has to happen. Last week’s clothing all had soap left in it, so I decided to wash a smaller amount and have a new rinsing technique – if it is ever sunny enough to dry the clothes, I’ll be able to see how it went! At least I provide good entertainment for the family with my lacking laundry skills. I’m also not convinced it will ever get any easier because laundry is frequently the biggest complaint of the women living here who have been doing it their whole lives. Hmm.

On Thursday I gave the subcentro staff their first English class. We hang out in the kitchen, so we just learned kitchen vocab and phrases, etc. They are very excited about it and wanted to learn everything, so we did a 2.5 hour class! I never thought I would want to teach English classes here, but people are genuinely excited about it, so it’s a lot of fun.

Lucy and Pablo walked me down because it was dark out by the time we finished (at 6pm…). Zoila, from my host family, was outside and still using my headlamp that she borrowed, so I stopped to see what she was doing. Turns out she owns a house across the street from where we live that she is fixing up. She is currently replacing all the old electrical wire in the house, so I hung out for a while to watch. She couldn’t understand why I was nervous about her getting electrocuted…it might have been the live, bare wires hanging everywhere that did it, but they didn’t seem to bother her. She seems to know all about fixing things – houses, cars, locks, etc, - so I think I’ll be able to learn a lot from her!

I actually started my community surveys on Friday, which means I completed 1 of the 100+ I need to finish in the next month. Zoila agreed to do it with me during lunch, which ended up taking a few hours, but I got a better idea of how to conduct them, the important and feasible questions, etc, so I’m getting ready to actually go out in the community and conduct them. I’m supposed to go with someone from the subcentro for safety and credibility reasons, but they don’t have a lot of time, so I am planning to start with the extended family that I already know, then working outward to the other communities who I’ve already started forming relationships with. Hopefully by then the subcentro will understand what I’m trying to do and will make some more time to help!

The family situation is going to be tough for the next few months. MacKenzie leaves in 1 month and the dread has set in with them, so I’m bracing for the next 2 months or so – first until she leaves, then the month after she leaves. After that I think I’ll have a better idea of how I really fit in with the family and will be able to better evaluate how it might go for the next two years. Until then, I’m trying to give them as much or little space as they seem to want at any given second and continue working on things on my own. Nayeli and I have big plans for carrot cake, apple pie and banana pancakes this week J.

Here are some pics for you – I will try to take some more soon of the people here, the subcentro, my work, etc, but until then, this is a little slice of the most consuming parts of my life in Zhoray:

Market day in Zhoray!

 The actual view from my bedroom window - I get to look at the Andes all day, everyday :)

 More of the market

 My hallway during times of peace

 Here comes trouble....

Annnd my archnemisis. We are in a constant battle over the use and cleanliness of the hallway...