What I Found at the Supermarket

It's not quite as good of a find as President butter or Maille mustard of Kikkoman soy sauce, but the other night we were in the supermarket and I found...

I'm Getting Married in 10 Days!

I think most of you know that, but I just realized that today.

Morning Ritual

Carlos wakes up at 7AM.  Without an alarm clock.  I don't know how he does it - the only time I have witnessed him oversleep is when he has been ill.  I don't wake up then.  I mean, I hear him, but burrow back underneath the covers until 7:45AM or so when he comes to say goodbye and then leaves for work.  I am awake then, but still refusing to leave the bed.  I stay there until about 8:30AM.  The only reason I get up is because I'm having nightmares again, and I know if I stay in bed they will stay in my head.

After being off my thyroid medicine for a month and being put back on it a few days ago, I feel 100% sure that these nightmares are drug induced.  They are the sort of dreams that would be called delusions if they occurred while I was awake.  I wake up mumbling to Carlos about dinosaurs or floods or my brother wearing a Victorian suit, complete with top hat (he actually has the top hat, I think it was our grandfather's).  If engineering doesn't work out for me, I'm sure I would have a profitable fiction career based on these dreams.  But they are not just dreams, they are nightmares.  Nightmares are dreams whose effects linger throughout the day.

After I get out of bed I make some tea and get dressed and get on the computer.  Everything is fine and normal until about 9:50AM.  There may be a 10AM blackout.  So I finish my downloads. complete important correspondence, warn who ever I am talking to that I may disappear at soon.  But at 10AM everything is fine.  Then 10:01AM.  10:02AM.  10:03AM.  We're safe for now, I can consider doing laundry.  10:04AM.  Then the beeping starts.  The power is out (for some reason something in the neighbor's house starts beeping when there is no power).  It will return at 1PM.  Until then I really can't do much.  I need to find matches if I want to light the stove.  Laundry is out of the question.  I can wash dishes.  Or I can read.  Or write thank you notes.  Or see if we need anything at the market.  Or take a walk in the cemetery.

Sometimes it is 10:06AM and we still have power.  Phew.  I can cook lunch.  I can bake bread.  I can do laundry.  I can download lectures from the London School of Economics to listen to during the day (my new favorite educational podcast to listen to, though This American Life will never be dethroned).  And at 12:55PM, I do the same thing I did three hours earlier, seeing if the 1PM blackout will blanket the neighborhood.

And then it is no longer a morning ritual.

Disaster in the Kitchen

Over the past few years I have become a decent cook.  Right out of college I didn't do much in the kitchen besides boil water, mix drinks, and wash dishes.

But now I can make almost anything.  I can bake bread, roast duck, whip butter, even make cheese.  Anything.  Almost.

Today, my attempt to make brownies was a disaster.  However, it was the fault of physics, not my own.  This is what the brownies looked like after 20 minutes in the oven (the recipe called for 40 minutes).

The brownies had exploded (not the best photo, I know, but it was all I could get at the time).  Even though I used the 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder that the recipe called for, I obviously used too much for the altitude or creamed the eggs and sugar too much because all those tiny air bubbles became enormous and hurl the brownie batter in every possible direction.

Here is the brownies after I removed them from the oven and tried to clean it up a bit (i.e. taste the rough stuff around the edges).

They actually taste amazing despite not looking so good.  I've had the recipe for ages and used to make these brownies quite often until I misplaced the recipe.  I would have used the word "lost" except last week I found it among some piles of paper.  Will someone at sea level try this recipe and confirm that I am not delusional and that these brownies really are easy and tasty?

Brownies

1 cup butter

2 cups white sugar

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

2/3 cup cocoa

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

Grease 9x13 pan (I had made a half recipe).

Melt butter.

Mix in sugar, eggs, and vanilla.

Beat in cocoa, flour, salt, and baking powder.

Bake 40 minutes @350F

It's Amazing What a Coat of Paint Can Do

Sometimes it seems that Carlos and I can not agree on anything.  He prefers coffee, I prefer tea.  He wants to watch a movie, I want to read a book.  He's a PC, I'm a mac.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, on his parents property there is a little playhouse that we thought would be a nice background for wedding photos once it was cleaned up.  Here it is before...

Boring Blackouts

Last night we had our first blackout at our house.  It lasted about 10 minutes.  A very dark and boring 10 minutes.

Today we had our second blackout.  It lasted for four hours, from 3PM to 7PM.  I read during the first hour or so, napped during the part of second and a bit of a the third, but I woke up just as it was getting dark and there is really not much to do at home alone in the dark.

The Rolling Blackouts...

...seem not to be affecting our neighborhood.  Actually, just our block.  Across the street it's dark (and not just the cemetery).

Apparently we are in the worst drought in 45 years and the country, maybe even the region, runs on hydroelectric power.  So every night a board decides what hours to cut power the next day.  But until yesterday, the proclamations are only made public in the morning so there isn't much time to plan.   And sometimes their maps are not the most accurate.

Climate Change Strikes Again

Yesterday smelled like popcorn.  Well, more like burning corn stalks.  There was a haze over the entire city.

Last night there were power outages.  Different neighborhoods for an hour or so each.

This morning Carlos tells me that the water might be cut today, so he fills pots before he leaves for work. 

Now he tells me that there was no power in his office this morning, and that this afternoon our neighborhood probably won't have any.

WTF?

Apparently there is a bit of a drought here in Cuenca, in our river basin, in our region.  The major energy supplier for the country is a hydroelectric plant, downstream from us.  Thus no rain means no flow which means no electricity.  Maybe I haven't been reading the paper or watching the news enough, but nothing about this problem was mentioned until yesterday.

Let the conservation begin.

I Understand That Something Is Wrong with My Blog

And I'm trying to fix it.  But the first and last programming class I took was C, and that was in 1997.  I know that my photo is now near the bottom of the page instead of at the top. 

Hopefully the problem will take care of itself.

If not, I'll call the experts.

English Exam

Quick Quiz...

1. Which of the following sentences is correct?  And why?
a) We were going to paint the house, but Carlos was sick.
b) We would have painted the house, but Carlos was sick.
c) Both
d) Neither

2. Please explain why different tenses (present perfect versus present perfect continuous) are used in the bolded sections of the following sentences:
a) Since 2000, I have been traveling on my own.
b) Since they met, they have become better friends.

My iPod is Possessed

I have an iPod Touch.  The problem seems to be that the screen moves before I even touch it, when my finger is hovering a few millimeters away.  Maybe I will bring it with me to get exorcized the next time I go to the curandera.

Kilimanjaro

McHale and I climbed our first mountain. It was very difficult. Kilimanjaro is 5896m, it took us five days to climb up and a day and a half to get down. The air is so thin at the top that it almost hurt to breathe (but in my case that may have been due to the constant bouts of bronchitis in college).

In Arusha we found a reputable tour company and booked a 6 day/5 night trip up Kili. Our group consisted of the two of us and a Frenchman named Georges, who was traveling alone for a month, plus a guide, asst guide, cook, and six porters. The first few days were relaxing, about 6 hours of hiking per day, we made friends with other tour groups, including some German journalists and a boxer. One afternoon we walked through a hail storm. When hitting the rocks it made a sound like the clinking of glasses, quite eerily. And it hurt when it pelted against our skin. And it leaked into our tent.

Close Only Counts in Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

On Sunday, like most, we spent the day in Challuabamba.  However, our plan was not to relax, but to work.  Since our wedding will be held there in less than two months, some beautifying needs to be done.  Nothing major, but a coat of paint here and a bunch of flowers there.  I was under the impression that Sunday was going to be just a flower day.  It wasn't.

After telling me that we would not be painting, Carlos decided that he wanted to paint.  There is a small house on the property for the kids to play in that was a bit faded.  We thought it would be a perfect background for photos.  So the first challenge was to choose the paint color.  We must have spent almost an hour in the paint shop because every time we came to a decision, we were told something like, "oh, those colors are for the interior, not exterior," or "sorry, we only sell these by the gallon, not the pint, " or " well, the oil based paints cost three times what the water based paints cost."

Baking Soda Post Script

One thing that I forgot to mention in the previous post was the comment of the stock boy to my shocked reaction to there not being baking soda in the supermarket.  He said to me, "Why don't you just use baking powder?"

Any amateur cook and chemist (or professionals for that matter) knows that they are not interchangeable.  Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate, a base.  Baking powder is sodium bicarbonate plus and acid. While you can use baking soda in conjunction with cream of tartar to replicate baking powder, there is nothing that you can take away from baking powder to replicate baking soda. 

Maybe the stock boys weren't awake in their chemistry classes.

However, at a baking shop I did manage to find a 70g bag of baking soda.  I bought it.  But while ringing it up, the women told us that it had to be sold as baking soda, not sodium bicarbonate, or it would be illegal :)

Answer: Drugs

Question:  Why can't you buy baking soda in the supermarket?

I asked this to a stock boy at the supermarket yesterday and he replied it's because it is used to make drugs.  You can only buy it at pharmacies.  Seriously, this is Arm & Hammer we're talking about, not Sudafed.  And here in Ecuador it's a controlled substance. 

Actually, besides at the pharmacy, you can buy it at most the corner shops in dime bags.  They look like this.

At it really does cost 10 cents.

I just want to bake some cookies and now I'm afraid of going on a wanted list.  So all foreigners should note well - not a good wedding gift.

Cute Enough to Eat

This is what my kitchen looked like on Thursday night.

This was the prime suspect.

But not the culprit.  The culprit is actually shown in the first photo.

The mess was a result of the immersion blender versus an ice cube, not the pan de guagua (pronounced wa-wa, which is Quechua and means child).  Actually, I think it's a guagua de pan.  That makes more sense since it means that it is a child made from bread, not bread made from children.  I need to remember that - guagua de pan.

This type of bread is starting to show up in the bakeries.  It is typical eaten here on and just before All Souls Day (aka, Dia de Muertos, Day of the Dead) on November 2nd.

This specific specimen was consumed for its suspected involvement in the creation on the mess shown above, though it would not have survived much longer even if it was not suspected.

Are you a Jew?

No matter where you are in the world, taxi drivers seem to love to chat. After just crossing the border from Malawi to Zambia (on foot) McHale and I needed a ride to Chapata, the closest town, about 20 miles away. One driver approached us and let us know that he can take us there for 40000 kwacha ($8). We agree. As we were loading the bags in the back he paused, looked me up and down, then asked, “Are you a Jew?”

At first I was a bit taken aback by this question because I had never been asked that so abruptly, but I still managed to reply, “Yes, I am.”

The driver was so excited.

The mixture of religion is amazing in Africa. Everyone we met seemed so open about their beliefs and very accepting of others.

In the car we chatted even more. I knew that you were a Jew, he said to me, you look like a Jew. However, he then began to tell me that I should become a Christian. He was a Christian, but not always. He used to be a Muslim. He was very devout. But one day he had gotten bewitched (we heard that alot). He had gotten sick very suddenly. His neck was sore and it felt like something was always pulling his head back. The pain was terrible. When his Christian friends prayed for him, he got better. So he decided to become a Christian.

And I should become a Christian too, he continued. It's very easy. All I would need to do is let Jesus into my heart. But how does one do that? Again, very easy, I would just need to talk to Jesus, and ask him. But I wouldn't know what to say. The driver offered to assist me with that and started to utter, “Oh Jesus, please help my friend...”

Around this time, the car screeched to a sudden halt beside a guy leaning on his car by the side of the road. The driver made a motion for McHale to lower her window (she was in the front, I sat in the back). He then leaned over her a bit and yelled to his friend, “Hey! Have you ever seen a Jew before? I have one in the back!”

The friend slowly shifts his eyes, then his face, from the driver, to McHale, then to me. My window was closed (the road was quite dusty), and he stared at me for a moment like an animal in the cage. The two men then exchanged a few more pleasantries and we continued driving to town.

All this time, McHale and I were desperate to keep a straight face. We were both about to explode with laughter, but we couldn't. We didn't want to be rude to our driver. But we could see in each others eyes that we were hurting from holding this laughter in.

Around this time we were just approaching the town, and the driver said to me, “I have a Bible for you.” I protested. I couldn't take this man's Bible. I claimed that McHale was a good Christian and had one with her and she could let me read hers. He thought about that proposal for a moment, and decided it was acceptable, but only if I promised, as we were exiting the taxi, to let Jesus into my heart.

Things I Learned Yesterday

• Don't put anything in the oven without turning the timer on
• Walking downhill in flip flops is difficult, especially in the cemetery
• No matter how cautious you are, you still ache after the first time back at the gym
• Everyone in Cuenca knows each other
  

Feliz Aniversario

Today is exactly one year since I started taking Spanish lessons. I wouldn't call myself fluent, but I'm getting closer every day.

Also, it happens to be the 5th anniversary of the purchase of my condo. That means only 25 more years left on my mortgage!

Another Thing That You Don't Want Happening in the Middle of the Night

Like most stories, this one starts before the event in focus actually occurs. It this case, it begins in a different country, Argentina. McHale, Tom, and I needed to cross into Bolivia on foot. The border was about a 20 minute walk from the center of town. McHale and I had no problems leaving, but it turned out that Tom hadn't gotten a entry stamp. That meant that he was in the country illegally. Which meant that he couldn't leave without paying a fine. A 50 peso fine (about $17). We had only 22 pesos between the three of us, since we spent down the local currency because we were leaving the country. They didn't have a currency exchange. They didn't accept dollars. And town was so far away.

But we were so close to the border.

McHale and I had to cross the border, enter Bolivia, change money, cross back to Argentina, ransom Tom and his passport, then return to Bolivia. Not a problem, we had plenty of time, like an hour and a half. Or did we? Once in Bolivia we learned about the time change. The border didn't close at 6PM Argentine time, but at 6PM Bolivian time, which was 5PM in Argentina. In half an hour.

But we made it across the border and rushed to the bus station to find a bus to Potosi. No luck. We had missed the bus by minutes (stupid border troubles). So we spent the night in the border town. There was a morning bus to Potosi, but we decided just to take morning bus to Tupiza and spend the day there and take the night bus to Potosi from there.

Tupiza was lovely. We spent a full day hiking. We saw goats.

Night bus to Potosi. It was supposed to leave at 9PM. It left at 10PM. The seats were full, as was the aisle (the luxury of Argentinian buses was a thing of the past). At the first police stop, some more women wanted to get on, but when they tried to squeeze their way on, there was an uproar from the other passengers. Apparently the driver makes extra money for himself by selling extra “tickets.” The women somehow made room for themselves.

All was well until about 2AM when I was woken up with a thud. Then the bus started to tip over. Shit, I thought, we're going to fall off a cliff. It managed to stop at a 45 degree angle. Everyone was yelling to go slowly, as not to upset the balance. We slowly exited the bus. Half of it was in a ditch, partially submerged.

It was the middle of the night, we were in the middle of nowhere, no food, freezing cold, and the bus driver left. He just left (which I have since learned is standard in Ecuador as well - if you are a professional driver who gets in an accident you run away). We were hours from any major town. Rumor was that they didn't have a spare bus to send, so we tried to fix it ourselves. Of course, since I was a gringa who didn't speak Spanish, I had no say in the matter, though I believe I was the only engineer there. We deforested a small area (not that there was much there to begin with) to make a fire to try stay warm.

Once the sun rose, my suggestion to drain the ditch finally worked its way up the ranks and we basically destroyed the road to drain the water. Imagine one pickaxe slowly creating a canal through the compacted dirt road. We tried the push the bus upright (we meaning me and all the able bodied men), but no luck. Around 8AM we got a ride in the back of a truck full of ore going to Potosi with about 10 Argentinian backpackers and a couple old women. It was less than 300km away, but it took over 9 hours. There was as rise of 1km, thus the truck had to go very slow. And we were stopped by mining protesters that had closed the road (which I wasn't used to at the time, but now it just seems like another day Latin America).

There were about a dozen of us in the truck, sitting on our luggage, which was much softer than truck full of rocks. Once in Potosi we went to the bus company to complain. Unfortunately the bus company only refunded 1/3 of the ticket price, despite the fact that we had essentially been left to fend for ourselves. Typical.

But we had made it to Potosi.

Mom was Wrong...So was Carlos

Sorry Mom. Sorry Carlos.

I've been having trouble sleeping and bad dreams for the past four or five months. I am convinced that it's because of the medication that I'm on for my thyroid, though my research on the meds has only turned up muscle fatigue as a common side effect, not nightmares. Both Mom and Carlos had suggested (repeatedly) that the only solution is to visit the curandera.

Yesterday I finally went to the curandera. A curandera is like a witch doctor. They are all female and trained by their mothers and grandmothers, etc. Mom and I had gone when she visited in July, so the photos of the process are going to be the ones that I took of her.

First, the curandera puts together a bouquet of flowers, herbs, leaves, and branches. Then she bruises and crushes them to release the aroma and shoves it in your face for you to inhale.


Then, she hits you with the bouquet for about five minutes while repeating "chuka, chuka, chuka..." to get rid of your evil spirits.


Next comes the egg, which is rubbed all over your body to see what is bothering you. This part can be dangerous. The day I went with Mom the curandera squeezed the egg a bit too hard while rubbing my back and I ended up with yolk in my pants.


But most of the time this does not happen and after being rubbed with the egg, it is broken into a plastic bag and is "read," i.e., checked to see if the bad energy has been absorbed.


Finally, the curandera spritzes you with some sort of holy water/alcohol and puts ash crosses on your forehead, stomach, and back to protect you against other evil spirits.


Now, the reason that Mom was wrong, and Carlos too, was that last night, after my visit to the curandera, I had one of the worst nightmares ever. I was almost crying when I woke up and had no idea what was real and what was a dream.

The thing that confuses me the most about Mom's and Carlos's unwavering belief in the curandera is that they are both scientists. I understand a holistic approach to medicine and the power of plants and herbs, but I really don't see how the "chuka, chuka, chucka..." repetitions and the ash cross will help me.

But then again, the meds I'm on now aren't really helping either.

What You Don't Want Happening in the Middle of the Night

McHale and I had gone south. Not quite to Ushuaia (the southernmost city), but to first to El Calafate, then El Chaltén. Of the two, El Calafate is the bigger town. From there you can arrange day trips to the glacier Perito Moreno. But this story is about El Chaltén. It is a tiny place about four hours north of El Calafate. I think the town had one phone. At the hostel that we camped at they communicated by radio. The town itself is technically within the limits of Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, but we didn't know that at the time.

After spending the night at a hostel, we divided our bags, leaving some stuff at the hostel and only carrying what we needed to hike. Our plan was to spend four days and three nights in the wild. We went to the one shop in town and bought bread, cheese, and something that resembled orange Tang, plus a few empanadas to start us off. That was our food for the trip. We had no stove, no way to even make fire if we wanted to cook. And then we set off.

Keep in mind that even though this was December, the peak of summer, it's not very warm there. We are in the Andes, though only at about 4,000 ft (1300m), we are still in a place that has been named after its glaciers.

There was no real path to the park. Just a few barely visible signs. As we left town it was so windy that we seriously considered heading back. But we walk on. And on. It's cold. Freezing. We battled light rain, occasionally snow. We are wearing all our layers. We have socks on our hands since neither of us had gloves. We were probably the worst trekkers ever. But we had fun. The park is absolutely beautiful and pristine. We could drink the glacial water straight from the streams. Take that Evian.

After a few hours of walking, we found what looked like a place to camp. It was a clearing and there was signage nearby. We may have seen another tent there already, but I can't recall. We set up camp there, ate some bread and cheese, and went to bed.

It was dark when McHale woke me. At that time of year in that part of the world it is only dark from 10PM to 4AM. McHale woke me with a nudge and, “I felt something just crawl over me.” My response, "So did I." Some creature was in the tent with us. We found the flashlights and looked around. We spied a quarter size hole in the side of our tent. I felt a little better. Whatever was in the tent with us couldn't be that big. We heard some scurrying. A mouse. A cute little mouse had gotten into our bread. It took about half an hour to catch and rid it from our tent (thank you Mc) including discussion of how to do so (for it could have rabies).

We took a few photos for posterity and tossed it outside. We then covered the hole with some electrical tape.

But after that we couldn't quite sleep. We've both had quite a bit of camping experience before, but it didn't even cross our minds to leave our food outside. We didn't even contemplate that there could be animals around.

The next day we checked for more damages. There were droppings in McHale's book. And about half the bread was gone. Our three night trip would need to be reduced to only two to prevent starvation.

But the hikes were amazing, even though the weather was not. The glaciers are such an astonishing shade of blue that you become mesmerized. However, we continued to do slightly stupid things during the next two days, like plunge our hands into glacier fed pools to take photos in order to see what was under the surface (I had a waterproof camera).

And when we returned to town, no more bread and cheese for a while. We feasted on huge Argentine steaks.

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times...

I have tons of stories from my travels, not my experiences while living in Holland or Ecuador, but mainly from a trip I took about six years ago. So, now that I have actually written out a few of them, I am going to (try to) start posting some of them here.

Just after graduating from Duke, McHale (yes, that is her first name) and I somehow got a brilliant idea that after a few years of working we should quit our jobs and travel the world. And we actually did it. Most of the adventures that I will be sharing are from that trip back in the fall of 2003 and winter of 2004 and will be tagged "Tales."

The reason that I hadn't shared these before is not only because I didn't have photos with me, but also because it was really difficult to remember everything. During my visit home in August I found a few CDs with the pictures and my journals from this time, so now you can read a bit about what happened during the trip.

Mc, feel free to correct me if my memories don't exactly correspond with reality.

King Solomon

I have been fortunate enough to inherit my father's skin and metabolism. And hair. Apparently I have tons of gray hairs on the back of my head. I can't see them, but my in-laws, nieces, and nephews assure me that I do. But that's not the point.

Like Fight Club, this is about soap.

For the past 10 years or so I have been washing my face with a bar of Purpose. It's made by Johnson & Johnson, so that means it's available everywhere. Except Ecuador. So I try to conserve the soap by keeping it dry in a dish next to the shower. But daily, my soap seems to appear into the soap dish that is in the shower.

After a few weeks of telling Carlos how amazed I was that the soap always seemed to jump out of my soap dish, he tried to convince me that his soap dish was a better place for the soap! I wasn't buying that. I mean, I'm stubborn. And it's my soap.

So, I came up with a solution...

Burn Baby Burn

Yesterday, like most Sundays, Carlos and I went to Chaullabamba to spend the day with his family. We brought our bikes with, but somehow forgot the sunscreen. When we got there, no one else had sunscreen. We thought about going to one of the shops nearby to buy some, but neither of us had any money. So I figured, "just this once," "it's only a short time," "I don't burn that easily," I'll just go without.

Bad idea. Even though we rode for only about 45 minutes, I got burnt. Even though as soon as we were done riding I covered up with long pants and a jacket and sat in the shade, I got burnt. Even though we hadn't had strong sun in weeks and why should this day be any different, I got burnt.

Maybe, someday, I'll learn.

Rules of the Road

I still haven't driven in Cuenca. I will, eventually. I have my international driver's license and we have found a few places for me to practice (we have a 35 year old manual truck, that is a bit, um, heavy, to drive). The thing that has actually been holding me back the most is trying to understand the rules of the road here. A few examples...

No Turn on Red?
Here in Ecuador, you are not allowed to turn right on red (like in the US, the driver is on the left hand side of the car and the traffic drives on the right). However, it is quite common to see people turning left on red. It seems perfectly acceptable to turn left on red while the cross street is green, even if there are come cars coming.

Crossing the Street
Over the past year, the former mayor had installed new traffic lights and crossing signals in the center of town. All the streets there are one way. With these new lights I have observed something strange - people tend to cross the street when the traffic light and crossing signal is red, not green. It's like the people wait until the light turns red to cross the street. Maybe it's because drivers here believe they always have the right of way, thus do not slow down (while turning) for pedestrians on the crosswalk.

Green Means Go, Yellow Means Slow, and Red Means Stop
In our neighborhood there is a stoplight that doesn't have a yellow. It goes from green to red immediately. It was not always like this, I think while programming other lights over the past few weeks, someone made a mistake. But as dangerous as this seems, it really isn't, because people here tend to accelerate on the yellow, and going from green to red actually causes people to slow down and stop. But, that's not always the case, lots of drivers don't seem to want to break on yellow even when they are still a few hundred feet from the light, so they speed up then honk the horn to let other drivers know that they will be zooming through the red light.

And We're Back...

Yesterday, we finally got internet in our apartment. It took three months, which I don't know if that is quick or slow. Anyway, I can now once again connect with the world.

Back Again

After hours of delays, I'm finally back in Chicago with my family. I've spent most of the day chilling with my brother, since I'm exhausted. So what do we do? Watch Harry Potter previews in Spanish (from Spain) and make fun of the accent :)

Slept Through an Earthquake

Carlos and I are in Guayaquil. We just put Mom on the plane home. This morning, as I woke up, Carlos asked, "Did you feel the tremor?" "No, you were probably dreaming," was my response.

Moments later, Mom asked, "Did you feel the earthquake last night?"

I didn't think I was that deep of a sleeper...

Still No Internet

And it looks like we won't be getting any in our apartment for a while. Apparently there is not enough capacity in our neighborhood for us :(

Corpus Christi

If you like sweets, come to Cuenca. Now.

This past week the city has been celebrating Corpus Christi. For those of you who are not familiar with that holiday (like me), Corpus Christi literally means the body of Christ. Apparently there is a golden piece of bread that is somewhere in town that is revered and is said to represent Jesus, based on the story of how he said that the bread was his body. Something like that.

But I haven't seen any bread. Just rows and rows of sweets. Lining the main square are dozens of tables that are filled with every sort of pastry, cake, cookie and candy that one can imagine. I don't really like sweets, I find them, well, too sweet. Also, as much as I like street food, so do the bees. They like sweets and I am not fond of eating food that had just been home to a dozen bees.

On Tuesday night Carlos and I wandered through the main square where he bought some sweets and I had one alfajor (a sandwich of vanilla cookies with dulce de leche in the center and rimmed with coconut). But after that we had some meat on a stick (no bees).

However, the highlight of the evening is the castillos. There are two or three each night. These are bamboo towers that have been decorated with tissue paper and fireworks. I know, tissue paper and fireworks do not sound like a very wise combination, but it works. The castillos are beautiful and smokey and loud. They are usually three of four different levels. The fireworks are set so they start at the bottom and work their way up to the top, where the most spectacular ones are. Also, at the same time other fireworks are being set off and tissue paper hot air balloons.

Makes for a beautiful night (except if it rains).

Note: I have no idea what is up with the fonts...will try fix soon.

More Night Visitors

I was all cozy in bed last night, and Carlos was already asleep, when I decided that I needed to use the toilet. When I returned to bed, I slipped off a sandal and put my foot on the floor for balance. But I didn't touch the floor, just a cold slimy mass. I jumped in to bed and peeked over the side to see another slug! I woke up Carlos to complain. He was not very happy to be woken up, so mumbled that we should just salt it.

So I did.

The next morning we had a squishy mass of preserved slug on the floor, which Carlos graciously removed for me.

Does anyone know how to discourage these visitors?

Night Visitors

The other night we had a little visitor in our home...


If you didn't quite get a good look, here is a close up...


Yep, we had a big fat slug in the house. Plus two more in the front yard. Carlos swept them all into the street.

They should keep in mind, the next time they think about visiting, that we now have our welcome mat doused with salt.

Before and After

We've been in the apartment for about a week. We have made some progress in a few rooms, but sadly, we still do not have a dining room table. However, we do have a lovely living room...

Before

After

Before
After

I think we need a rug, but we haven't gotten that far yet...

The Replacements

About two days after we moved out, Papi found replacements...

Roughing It

The shower in our apartment sucks. It's electric, and supposedly made for the sierra, i.e., cooler climates. For the water to be hot, there is absolutely no pressure. But when there is enough pressure to actually rinse your body, the water is cold. We have already spoken to the owner about replacing it, which we plan to do this weekend.

We Have Our Refrigerator

At about 3:45PM on Tuesday afternoon the delivery guys came to replace our refrigerator. They were supposed to be there at 3PM. Actually, they were supposed to be there at 5PM on Monday, then between 9AM and 9:30AM that morning.

Carlos was in meetings most of Tuesday morning, but every hour or so he would text me asking if the fridge had arrived yet. No. Not yet. Still not here. Nada.

Around 1PM Carlos went to the store to complain. He told the manager that yesterday they had told him that the fridge would be delivered between 9AM and 9:30AM that day and that I had been waiting all morning and no one had arrived. So the manager called the delivery guys (on a radio or walkie talkie) and apparently the conversation went something like this...

“You were supposed to deliver a fridge to this address this morning.”
“Oh, you never told us about that delivery.”
“Yes, I did.”
“No, you didn't, it's not here on the schedule.”
“I did. And I have the client here with me.”
“Well, you still didn't tell us.”
“That doesn't matter, can you deliver the fridge this afternoon?”
“Sure, we'll be there around 3PM.”

OK, so this is a secondhand conversation that has been translated from Spanish, but that's the gist of it. The delivery guys arrived at 3:45PM and replaced the fridge within 10 minutes. The second they left I wiped down the fridge, inside and out, and sent Carlos a message to buy me butter (for the past week I've wanted to bake a cake – we have all the ingredients except for butter because there was nowhere to store it).

He wasn't able to bring the butter. He stopped at home after his afternoon meeting, but then had to go back to work for an hour before his evening meetings. However, he had stopped at the municipality to ask about the internet. My next task is to wait for the internet inspection.

They will be by between 8AM and 8PM on Thursday.

Settling In

We still don't have internet in out apartment, so I am writing offline, and will post this when I go to Mami and Papi's later. Right now I am waiting for the delivery guys. It's 11:40AM on Tuesday and they were supposed to be here between 9 and 9:30AM to replace the fridge. When it arrived on Saturday (at exactly 10AM, when they said they would come) it had a big chip in the paint on the door. We didn't notice it right away, since we had to remove all the boxes and wrapping, and the guys also delivered the washer, drier, and stove at the same time.

When we called in the afternoon to complain, the women said that we should have told the delivery guys when they were here so they could take it back (um, lady, we were a bit busy at that moment). She said that they would replace it on Monday night at 5PM. Well, after calling at 5:30PM and 6PM last night and being assured that they were coming, we called again at 6:30PM to be told that in fact, they would not be replacing the fridge that night. But they would come Tuesday morning between 9 and 9:30AM.

But the lady didn't tell us when the technicians, who were also supposed to show up at 5PM to connect the washer and drier, would arrive. They actually did show up at 6:30PM, just as we were trying to call the lady back. Our laundry room is in the courtyard, so it was dark while they were connecting the machines and all they had was the light from a dinky cell phone. Not very professional. So we let them use our headlamp and they connected the machines and I now am spending the day doing laundry. Our washer has a glass lid and it's pretty cool to see the process.

Scratch that. I mean scary.



Any suggestions on how to exorcise a washing machine?

The Move

We started moving Friday night, and as of Monday morning we have moved about 95% of our stuff into our apartment. Of the things that have been moved in, about half has a place. We still have boxes and bags sitting around the apartment, brimming with unknown items. Therefore, we still can't find everything we need yet (i.e., tape measure, soap, phone charger, etc.).

This move has been a bit different than those I've experienced in the past. It's probably because my items here in Ecuador could fit in two suitcases and a backpack. My last big move involved dozens of boxes that were all precisely labeled with not only the contents, but the date, who packed it, the relative weight, and special instructions. Like this...

Books K-S
9/26/09
JJ
heavy

sheets and towels
9/30/06
JJ
light
Wash Me!

During the last move I knew that it would be at least a year and a half until I saw the boxes again, so I was so proud of my specificity. As wonderful as I thought that system was, the last time I was home (two and a half years since the boxes were packed) I could not find Kafka in “Books K-S”. Nor in “Books F-K” either. So my system was not quite as successful as I had hoped.

Back to Cuenca. Over the course of three days, Carlos, myself, and various nephews moved multiple truckloads of items the mile and a half from his parents house to our new apartment. I didn't really help with the packing or moving of his stuff. I'm too weak to carry the furniture, and really had no idea how much of his thirty years at home that he wanted to bring to our apartment. He was a bit annoyed that I didn't help him pack his stuff, but I would have probably thrown away old papers that have sentimental value to him. So I tried to manage and organize the new apartment instead.

I know that I shouldn't be using the terms “mine” and “his”, but rather ours. But really, those books in English, they are mine. The dead bugs pinned to cork board that hangs on the wall, that's his.

Putting the bed back together was an ordeal. While it took about five minutes to take apart, it took about three hours to put back together. The four corners of the frame had L-brackets that just didn't line up. If three screws fit, the fourth one did not. At every corner. While the headboard and footboard were different, the two sides were identical and unlabeled, so we switched those about three times, hoping that they would fit better on the other side. After one nephew had to leave, Carlos called his brother-in-law, who is a mechanic and very adept, to help us put the bed together. He was able to do it and we didn't need to spend the first night in our new apartment on the floor.

However, it will take a few more weeks until everything here is in order. We have most of the essentials, but are still missing some useful additions. For example, we don't have any bookshelves. In Carlos's room they were built in. Here I have piles of books. We don't have a dining room table either. We have been picnicing, when we've eaten here at all. We couldn't even cook until last night when Carlos finally attached the gas tank to the oven. When I say finally, it was not because he hadn't gotten around to it, but because it's not quite as simple as it is in the states.

Carlos had to drill holes through two concrete walls so we could put the gas tank in the courtyard. We didn't have a drill, so we needed to borrow one. After one hole was drilled, Carlos realized that the drill didn't reach the other wall, so at 8PM on a Sunday night we needed to find an extension cord. But nothing is open here at 8PM Sunday night. We were able to borrow one from his aunt that lives across the street, but had to wait a little while, since she was just ironing the curtains that she had made for us. But it got done. And the curtains are lovely.

So last night I was able to have a cup of tea and Carlos had some hot chocolate. Fortunately, milk is shelf stable here, since our refrigerator has yet to be plugged in. It was delivered on Saturday morning, but it wasn't until after the delivery men had left, did we notice a huge chip in the paint of the door. We called the store and they said that they would send a replacement Monday evening. Thus we will be eating with Mami and Papi for another day or two.

With that said, it's time for lunch.

Oh, So That's How It REALLY Works

On Friday afternoon, at around 1PM, Mami is frantically knocking on my office door.

Apparently I hadn't heard Papi yelling for me (I still don't know how I could have missed that, he's pretty loud). The phone company had called him (don't know why him and not Carlos) and said that they were at the apartment to install the line. We had a suspicion that something was up when that morning Carlos was complaining that he couldn't get service on our landline. But, I had no time to argue about the fact that they said they would only be there Monday, there was just enough time to grab the phone from the office and rush to the apartment with Mami (Carlos was at work).

We arrived at the apartment and one guy needed to do an inspection. That was quite easy because there had never been any phone service there. We walked through all the rooms and there were no phone jacks. None. I don't know why I didn't notice that last week when I checked all the outlets (the only one that didn't function was the one in the bathroom). Around this time Carlos arrived.

So, no phone jacks = no phone line.

One of the workers then crossed the street with a length of phone cable, climbed a pole, and basically attached the wire to the pole. Simple as that. He ran it to a smaller pole just outside our house and tacked it to there as well. In the corner of our office window, he chiseled a hole through the wall with a hammer and screwdriver, then threaded the other end of the wire through. We then went inside and asked if we have a phone jack. What? Um, no. I had no idea that we had to buy our own.

Carlos ran to a hardware store to buy one. Well, he went to about two or three that were closed, since it was lunch time, before finding one that is open. It cost 25 cents. By the time he came back the phone line has been checked and is proven to be working, so all the workers had to do was put the phone line in at one end and the cable in the other and we had a working phone.

The whole process took less than an hour. It probably would have been less if we had known that they were coming and that we needed to buy our own phone jack. But within 24 hours of our request we had a working phone.

I hope that getting internet will be as easy.

The Way Things Work Here

Yesterday Carlos informed me that it would take three to four weeks to get a phone line installed in our new apartment. I didn't mind too much, since I never use the phone. But apparently you need a phone line to get internet. A month without internet! That, I could not handle.

I gently reminded Carlos that if we don't have a phone in our home office, and that if he doesn't yet have a phone is his work office, he wouldn't be able to work (yeah, he's two months into his job and they haven't given him a phone yet so he spends half the day working from home). He said he would figure something out. And he did.

Today Carlos went to the municipality to start the request for the phone line in our apartment. They looked at his name, then asked if so-and-so is his brother (yes, he is, and he has worked for the municipality for about 15 years) and if so-and-so is his sister (yes, she is, possibly an old friend). OK, they said, we can install the line for you this Monday.

That's the way things work here.

I'm So Excited!

Mom is coming to visit for two weeks in July.

Our Apartment

Here are the "before" photos...

Entrance

Dining Room (taken from living room)

Kitchen (bigger than in Delft)

Courtyard (taken from kitchen)

No photos of the bedrooms, because without any furniture the photos just look like a bit of door and two painted walls with some windows. Oh, I guess I should add one because Dad was asking about the floors.

Bedroom (one of three)

Last Saturday, we also measured all the windows (for curtains) and the rooms (for furniture dynamics). Our apartment is almost 1100 square feet, a bit less than my previous estimate, but still feels spacious for just two of us.

We move in next Saturday.