El tiempo está volando!

Time is definitely flying by. I can´t believe that I only have about two weeks left! Craziness! I have definitely been hit with a lot of work but also a feeling of intense gratitude. I am finally feeling like a part of the school and the community and unfortunately I have to leave soon. I am also in love with my kids. The relationships teachers have with their students at the school including myself is more like friends and children than students and everyone gets attention. I love getting hugs from my third graders and I love it when my students come up to me and ask me ¨may I go to the bathroom¨ which sounds like ¨my go to da batroom¨. If I only accomplished teaching them that at least I did something right? One of my 4th graders asked me how to write homework so she could put it in place of Deber (which means homewok) for her math homework. It is the little things that make me happy here.

In other news I went to a La Calera community party on Saturday night. What a trip! It was a party for the champions of the futbol tournement. There was live music which was mostly cumbia and a boat load of men. I swear, there were maybe 10 women. I danced with a friend of Ines´ and was the only pair. It was a bit awkward but aparently everyone thinks I dance really well. ¨Bailas muy bien, muy bonito!¨ Haha, love it! I made friends with a little girl named Leidy who, when I saw her the next day, called out to me as ñaña, which means sister in kichwa.

On Sunday night I went to Otavalo with Jhon Luis, a friend I made last week while working in the internet cafe of Ines´. We went dancing at the only bar that was open to a lot of reggaeton and a bit of merengue. Since it was Sunday night there were no busses going back to Cotacachi so we ended up spending the night in Otavalo at a friend of Jhon´s. I slept on couch cushion but it was fantastic. Anything that isn´t my rock hard bed is so nice. I will admit that I sleep really well. It´s cuz I am so freakin tired at the end of the day. There is something nice about falling into bed and passing out within minutes.

I went to my friend Rachel´s presentation to the urban women´s group in Cotacachi the other night. It was super interesting. It was about women in the military and treatment of women during the war. I am amazed by the amount of work this girl has done. She has probably made about 5 power point presentation and done a million projects for her supervisor all on top of writing her final paper.

I am happy to say that the scabies are improving/ goin away slowly but surely. I decided that the stuff Dr. Suarez gave me wasn´t good enough so I went to the pharmacy and told the pharmacist what I had. She hooked me up with prescription cream and I am very happy. The only thing is that I have no clean clothes right now and it is raining cats and dogs so doing laundry isn´t an option. I really won´t be able to get rid of these bad boys til I get back to Quito and having a washing machine.

I am in a really good mood right now. I just had a meeting with my tutor and we revised what I have written so far. I am excited to be as far along as I am so that I am not stressing big time when I get back to Quito.

I was going to go to Loja tomorrow but now I am not so sure if it is going to happen because the concert is at 5pm and the only flights are either at 5:30AM or 4:30PM. 5:30AM means I would have to go to Quito tonight to be able to get to the airport in time and 4:30PM means i would get to the concert around 6pm which means I would miss it. I just don´t want to drop the cash on an airplane ticket if I am going to miss the very thing I was going to see. It is probably better anyway because I have a ton of work to do and another meeting with my tutor on Monday so I want to get stuff done this weekend.

Well, that´s all for now. It will probably be a little while before my next entry. I am presenting to the community on Wednesday what I have found in my research at the school and then I leave to go back to Quito either wednesday night or thursday morning. From there it is work work work til I present and then I will have two days of relaxing before heading home. I am pumped! These last two weeks are going to be good ones!

Ciao!!

P.S. I have a student named Stalin Darwin Matando Bonilla (Matando by the way means killing). Stalin Darwin though...he goes by Estalin.