Hellos and Goodbyes...and a surprise!

So today is my birthday. I am 23 years old. The only thing I regret is that I can’t be in a site where my mom can call my cell to wake me up, the way she has every year before. That is, after I stopped living at home. I hope Bellavista will be getting cell phone service soon. They were supposed to get it a while back, but the phone company got confused and installed a tower in Buena Vista instead. This is the first birthday in a couple of years that I haven’t been hung over and I have no plans of drinking at night. But I will still be with friends. Granted, they are really new friends that know very little about me and don’t speak the same language as me. Yes, of course I know Spanish by now, but I still can’t make sophisticated jokes or innuendos or be sarcastic. Everything I say is very literal. But the family I am staying with is having a special lunch for me and has invited the town doctor and nurse to join us. I don’t really know the doctor yet, but I will soon be living in the same building as him: the Subcentro. A subcentro is like a mini clinic for minor medical problems in the community. People mostly go there for baby check ups. People used to go there to deliver their babies as well, but now they go to the main city of Portoviejo. It has much bigger hospitals and the chance of the babies living is much higher. So the maternity area has been collecting dust for about a decade now. And when people go to medical school here in Ecuador, they are required to spend a year after they finish school in a rural community. Most people who go to and get through medical school are in it for the big bucks. And they usually come from big money as well. But they want to get their degree and therefore go to live in a rural community with a subcentro. All subcentros in Ecuador have an area for the doctor to live. The area for the doctor and the maternity area are separated from each other. I will live in the maternity area. It is super nice. There is a kitchen, two bunk beds, two toilets, one shower, and a yard in which there are already banana trees. (Brian, they aren’t everywhere, though, like in Machala.)


Tungurahua, still smoking...

The only time my feet have been remotely clean here in Ecuador...

My dog, Ruskaya is much better behaved than she was the first few days I had her. While she doesn’t let me sleep as much as I would like to, she leaves me alone for at least four or five hours during the night. And she already walks on her leash without giving too much of a fuss. (Except when Eva is around, then she lets herself be dragged because she knows that Eva is a sucker enough to pick her up.)

I am very sad about so many of my friends who have decided to Early Terminate their service with Peace Corps. While they all have really good reasons for leaving, they will be missed. Maggie, Ericka, and Robert, good luck with everything!

My family is coming to visit me here in Ecuador in a few weeks. We will visit my old site and my new site. Hopefully my mom will approve of this new site.

Jeff was supposed to leave, but now he is staying. Yay!

We have a lot of time on our hands here... and we can be gross....really gross

The negative Crew would have missed Jeff...if he had actually left.