Flying Water Balloons....

It has been a bit of a lonely 10 days since Mom and Dad left. It was so great to have someone to talk to 24/7, access to internet to talk to my friends, etc. When they left I was thrown back into the isolation of Zhoray, but now a little more isolated since I’m living in the subcentro and I got back just in time for the weekend when the subcentro staff leaves for Azogues. Luckily I get to keep the subcentro phone with me whenever they leave, so while I can’t call anyone, I can receive calls and got to talk to my parents a lot.

Last Saturday, two kids came up to bake bread with me. It’s nice because since I’m not in somebody else’s house, I can invite anybody I want to come up, so it was different kids than usual. I was sad that Nayeli wasn’t allowed to come up and that she has to suffer/be punished for the situation. Hopefully with a little time they’ll be over it and let her hang out with me again. Until then, I will hopefully make other friends in the community and broaden the group of people I hang out with.

While it is a little lonely at times, I really do like living here at the subcentro. The privacy is great and I was ready for it, and the conversations with the subcentro staff are much different than those in town. Instead of petty gossip about people, we have conversations about traditions, religion, consciences, and more. I didn’t realize how much I missed that until I was around it again.

The other thing I really love about the subcentro is my food independence. I have been baking and cooking again and am so much happier. Not only does it make me happy because it’s something I love to do, but just in the last week I feel so much healthier and stronger from having reasonably portioned meals full of veggies and steering clear of mountains of rice. I made pasta with chicken and fresh marinara and veggie sauce, learning that you actually have to COOK the tomatoes, not just blend them J. Once that happened, it was quite tasty! I also made chicken and black bean burritos on fresh, homemade flour tortillas. That with veggies cooked in mole powder and fresh mozzarella, mmmm, mmmm, mmmm! Almost like real Mexican food! As far as baking goes, I made a ton of banana bread, which is always a hit. I also tried an orange cake, which turned out well, and Pilsener (beer) bread, which was very good. The Pilsener bread was an even bigger hit when I made it into French Toast for the subcentro staff. While I’m making most of my own food, Lucy, Martha and I each cook one day for the others. That means I’m still at the liberty of some food, like the pig liver I had the other day, but overall it is working well and they are getting to try a lot of new foods.

It is Carnaval now, as it has been for the last 5 or so weeks. During Carnaval, people throw water balloons at each other, dump buckets of water, spray Carioca (a foamy spray), and all sorts of things. Thursday was the last day of work for the subcentro staff before the ferriado for Carnaval, so they won’t be back until Wednesday. Since it was there last day, we played Carnaval for most of the day. By the end, we were all dripping wet, covered with egg, flour, tapioca and yogurt. It was a sticky, fun mess!

After the subcentro staff left, Nayeli came up and got to try some of the French Toast, which she also loved. We then went down into town to hang out for a few minutes with Cora and the kids before mass. There has been mass twice a day all week for the Holy week here, so I went to a few of them. It was nice to go on Thursday to be around so many people instead of just being alone in the subcentro. Thursday was the procession through town, stopping for prayers at all of the houses that set out altars. It was a very nice mass, and the church was beautifully decorated.

Since the subcentro staff won’t be back until Wednesday, I have made a few goals to keep myself busy and not get lonely. There is a lot of baking planned with different kids from town, Cora is in need of some more strict training, and there are different Carnaval activities happening. Tomorrow is the huge Carnaval fiesta in Zhoray, so it should be a lot of cold, wet, fun! It supposedly starts early and goes well into the night. I’m still unclear about what else happens surrounding Carnaval, but I’m guessing there are more events because Tuesday is the actual day of Carnaval.

Hopefully after Carnaval, I will be able to be more productive with work. The holidays are definitely something I’m not used to and while some are fun, it is very frustrating as far as work goes. It seems like every other week there is another holiday or fiesta, so nobody is working, everything shuts down to celebrate, and all organization is gone. It makes it very difficult to have anything consistent happen, so I think I will have more success with individual charlas rather than any long-term groups. I’m still hopeful that a group with kids will be more successful than the older community members, but again, I have to wait until after Carnaval to be able to start anything.

There is a company coming into to town to build a new hydro-electric dam, so 300 men are supposed to be coming to live and work here for 3 years. That will significantly increase the population of the community and should be interesting. The good news with that (although I still am not holding my breath) is that Lucy said we are supposed to be getting Internet because the company is bringing Internet for the men. We’ll see if it actually happens, but it sure would make staying in touch a lot easier!

I miss everyone very much, but things are still going well here overall. My computer weather update for C Springs is stuck at 20 degrees and snow from when I last had wireless, so I can’t say I’m missing the cold, but I hope it’s warming up a bit for all of you! A very, very happy Carnaval birthday to Mary and hello to everyone there!

All my love,

Kerry