100 days

Flew by. Two weekends ago we had our first retreat to Playas. The weather made our experience more reminiscent of New England beach trips than Ecuadorian ones so maybe for that reason it was an especially nice weekend and you just cant go wrong with built in time for naps and swimming in big waves. To keep with the theme of critters I seem to have begun here, I got my first jellyfish sting (little blue guy, no harm done) and my first parasite(s)! The round worm living in my stomach has hopefully bitten the dust after $1.20 worth of antibiotics.

Last weekend was spent almost entirely in the neighborhood (the best kind of weekend). I had my first bowl of ceviche, and Ecuadorian specialty. After I got over the fact that I was eating shrimp it tasted pretty ok. Sunday afternoon we played our first bingo; bingo is a huge deal here so it was about time. We sat in the street in front of the panaderia whose owners we have befriended (bread making lessons to follow!) and Brendan won tupperware! Chevere. It means something like awesome. Sunday night Celso, Mark and I went to Cynthias, (another Mundo teacher) house for seco de pollo, one of my favorite meals here. We played Monopoly in Spanish (which I think I won, but who knows). Great weekend.

Sidenote- Christina helped the little guys at Semillas make Flat Stanleys, well, Flacito Estanleys. For those who dont know, Flat Stanley is a cut out of a little man that children send to people who are far away or taking a trip and that person then takes a picture with Stanley and sends the picure back to the little type and ships Stanley back home or someplace else. We are going to send these to a few people we know scattered around the U.S. and the globe so, if you are taking a fun trip (or not!) and would like to be the recipient of a Flacito Estanley, let me know.