Here’s a view of the sunset from my balcony. I take way too many pictures of sunsets and don’t know what to do with all of them.
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Baking. There is always baking. These are my two becarias – girls who are on scholarship through a Peace Corps-supported program that provides them with supplies and uniforms for the schoolyear. Juanita is on the left, and Josselin on the right sports her Emelec soccer jersey. Sebastián tagged along for the afternoon and was the only one besides me who liked raisins in their oatmeal cookies; we bonded.
Of course, all baking must take place upstairs in Molly’s apartment, seeing as I don’t have an oven. (She’s okay with this because I pay her in baked goods.) On the wall behind the kids are calendar photos from Molly’s home state – bonus points to anyone who can guess it correctly.
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Most VW Bugs in the world end up in Guayaquil, and this one is my favorite. She lives down the street from me. It fills me with the reassurance of all things humdrum and routine to glance down and see her sitting there. I call her the Pepto Bug.
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The other day some of the kids were quizzing me on my English vocabulary. (They like to point and/or shout out words in Spanish just to make sure I really can speak English. Meanwhile, I find it a useful exercise in Spanish vocab review.)
One girl marveled, “She knows everything!” While that is very, very far from the truth, it did get me thinking about all the words one has occasion to learn from completing daily activities in a foreign language – most of which words it probably would have never crossed one’s mind to learn otherwise. Things like "compost," "scorpion," "deadbolt," and "shoelace." Things that would only come up unless you had cause to plant a garden, watch the local news, secure your door, or fix your toilet.
Think I'll leave you in suspense on that last one.
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Good news: the seedlings are sprouting! Here are some onions. The tomatoes are beginning to grow as well, so now it’s just the peppers that are being stubborn. Mike and I will turn in our grant application this week so we can start the project in earnest. Rather than explain the whole thing to you, here is an easy-to-understand diagram that covers the basics:
Andrés and I were looking for something to do one evening and decided to make puppets by drawing on our hands.
He was really into it for about 2 seconds, and then he got distracted by the movie we were watching.
I don’t think he appreciated my hand puppet’s running commentary.
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Here is what Molly and I made for dinner the other night.
And here is a tongue-twister: Camarón caramelo (shrimp, candy). Try saying that a lot of times fast. I couldn’t, and kids laughed at me.
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Surprisingly, a lot has been happening in the Guayaquil animal kingdom of late. Allow me to fill you in:
Cats.
One of them got a name, the other one got spayed. Sorry if that’s a little too much information; it’s a big deal around here. 90% of the Ecuadorians I’ve shared this with have looked at me askance and asked, Why? Not, ‘Why are you telling me this,’ but ‘Why would anyone get their cat spayed?’ Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you EVERY WORM-INFESTED CAT AND MANGY DOG IN GUASMO SUR. I walk past an average of 10 per city block, daily.
The little one’s name also happens to be the latter part of that tongue-twister from above.
Camarón
Caramelo
Camarón
Caramelo
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This is a lizard in my house.
We like lizards. They eat all kinds of bugs and mosquitoes.
We do NOT like walking into our bedroom and finding a lizard on our bed. No, no, no.
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There is one lone palm tree on my street.
It stands on the corner opposite my house and is the tallest landmark in sight, staid in demeanor as if tired of carrying such a weighty responsibility on its drooping fronds; humble and resigned in its solitude; but to me it is a beacon of home.
But wait…look a little closer…
Unfortunately – or fortunately, as it were – you, dear reader, cannot hear the sounds emanating from that palm tree…
…but here you can see the feathery culprits. Lately there’s been a flock of emerald green birds that have taken up residence in my palm tree, and that like to test their wings flying back and forth between the tree and my balcony. At around 5 o’clock in the morning. And they’re noisy.
All I can say is, those birds better be thankful I’m here as a representative of peace and justice in the world. Otherwise it might be a different story for them.
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A less offensive member of the avian class is the hummingbird I caught sight of the other afternoon on the terrace. He was too flighty to get close enough for a good picture, so here’s the best I could do.
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...And that, my friends, is a taste of May. It really flew by. I’m approaching the 1-year mark and feeling panicky at how quickly the time is going, feeling like I’d give a lot to go back to the age where one full schoolday seemed as tedious and interminable as eternity. Is this how fast time goes when you’re an “adult?” How do I put the brakes on this thing?!
Jordan, I love reading your blog. It makes me giggle. (And sometimes I learn things! Camarón caramelo!)
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