Day 5 (and end of day 4) - Deportes

End of Day 4

After my last blog yesterday, I was able to play some Ultimate Frisbee. Woohoo! I went to the field where we were supposed to play at 4. I showed up right at 4 or maybe a couple minutes early and there was nobody there. Once people started showing up about 20 minutes later, I learned that it is Ecuadorian culture to not be on time (funny, because this seems to be the same culture as the women in my life) LOL. Just kidding . . . 

Anyways, right around 4, the skies rapidly changed from clear and sunny to a huge downpour of rain. It rain steadily and heavily for a good 20 minutes and the field was soaked. We decided to still play which was awesome and I had a lot of fun. It was almost all missionary families from the ages of probably 8 to 40. It was a very diverse group and a very eventful game of slip and slide frisbee. Kelsey played with us too and she was really good but I do have to say that I probably broke a couple social norms tackling her several times while jumping for the frisbee. Haha. I apologized. 

Later that night, I walked all the way across town to a Chinese restaurant believe it or not. I got shrimp and vegetables and could not finish it because there was so much. It was muy bien. Afterwards, I walked back towards home and stopped for some ice cream which was different than American ice cream but still pretty good. The girls saw me eating and came to get me to go to Puyo with them so we hopped on the bus and headed there. It was about a 20 minute ride.

Puyo is a bigger town than Shell and they were celebrating their 100th year of existence I guess. They had concerts in the streets and beer everywhere. There were vendors selling food and candy all over the place. The streets were filled with people and dancing and food. It was really fun just walking around. We ended up going to an Italian restaurant where I got a smoothie and a salad which were both pretty good. Salads here don't have anything on American salads though (No salad is near as good as the salads Hannah makes back home btw). The Italian food was awesome too. Melissa got Gnochi (Sp?) which was just introduced to me by Hannah the week before at Geusepis (sp?) in Nicholasville. Misspellings evrywere. Teehee. After Puyo, we came back and made a makeshift fire in the girls driveway. It wasn't quite like the fires we have back home but it was nice to just sit around it an talk. 

Day 5

Today was my first Sunday in town. Melissa picked me up in a cab, because it was raining, around 1030. We headed to Casa to pick up four little girls to take them to church with us. They were so cute and their names were Anna, Ruby, . . . Dangit, I met like 50 people today and cannot remember all their names but in short, they were all really cute and fun to be with. They all took a little while to warm up to me but after church we were friends. We went back to Melissa and Kelsey's house for lunch. When we got there, Ruby grabbed my hand and said "Come on". Thats when I knew we were friends. She held my hand for a while and hugged on my arm. I was glad she had finally warmed up to me but then I realized she was afraid of Melissa's dog so that might have been the reason for the hand holding. haha. 

For lunch we had ham sandwiches, a bag of chips, and Oreo cookies. The girls loved it all and ate a ton. For entertainment while we ate, we watched a bootlegged Spanish copy of the Princess and the Frog. I watched it with the girls while we ate but couldn't really understand anything. It was a fun afternoon. 

After lunch, I came back to my house, ate a little more food, then did some laundry and took a nap. At 4 I woke up and headed to the basketball courts. I got there about 410 because I knew the locals played at that time but there was nobody there so I walked back to the house and got a basketball and by the time I got back to the courts, there were two guys there. They saw me walking while they were walking and they signaled for me to follow them. They could tell I was coming to play I guess because I had a basketball in my hand. Their names were people (nickname) and Wilson I think. About 20 minutes later, there were about 20 other local Ecuadorians there. I met all of them and after about an hour and a half of playing, we were all pretty good friends. They invited me to come back next Sunday and play again with them.

Basketball down here is quite a bit different, kinda like everything else. :) The call fouls on pretty much everything. They actually got mad at me because I wasn't calling any when I got fouled. At one point, everyone stopped and said that someone fouled me but I argued that it wasn't. I tried to explain that I don't call fouls and especially not like the one that just occurred. I tried to tell them that it was called a sissy foul but that did not translate. They all got a little frustrated with me I think and finally said in Ecuador, that is a foul. Now I know. We played on from there and had a great rest of the time. It was really fun too because most Ecuadorians aren't that tall so I was like the 4th tallest person there. 

After basketball, I stopped by the store, grabbed some milk, granola, and oatmeal. I mixed all of that with some dried fruit and nuts I brought from home and that was my dinner. I ate by myself but it was really good. 

Overall I am having an awesome time down here and am truly blessed to be able to experience all of this. The one thing that has been slightly difficult to get used to is being alone most of the time. I live in the basement by myself and eat a lot of my meals alone. Everyone here as been super helpful and very welcoming but I can't go over to someone's house every day for every meal. It's just hard sometimes being the extrovert that I am to have a couple hours and a meal to do by myself. It is all good though. I am praying that God will develop me and teach me in those times and help me with something beneficial to do then. As of now, I have read my Bible, prayed a little, done laundry, and cleaned up. It should get better too because I think mission trip teams start coming this week and will be here every week the rest of my time here.

Well that is a long post but thanks for reading. Tomorrow I start my first full week working and teaching PE. I love being down here and although I don't feel that I am called to be a missionary oversees, I do enjoy this place and really like living here among this culture. Thanks for all the prayers and support! Time to take a shower. Peeyew. Goodnight.