OY VE

The last few days have been fun but hard! It finally hit me than I´m actually here and I had a little panic attack. Just taking it day by day though, I´m sure things will get better. The other day we arrived in our training city in the Sierras....we stayed at this compound and I met my first friend Carla! She is 10 and we played basketball in the dark. I was winded after about 4 minutes. The next day she took me next door to her school and the kids where so cute. Imagine 40 kids crowding around u like you´re a celebrity. I always knew I was meant to be famous. Later we watched them all practicing for a parade that was on Sunday I tried to upload the video but its not working! You can see more pics on Facebook though. Later that day we took a walk around the city, I was thrilled until I saw a sweet stray puppy get hit by a car. It quivered in the road for a minute before a bystander picked it up by its tail and threw it off of the road. Culture shock experience numero uno.

So at training they mean business. Its hard core but its good, it keeps me excited I guess. They split us up into smaller groups of five and sent us off to smaller communities. My family is really sweet. I´m their seventh trainee so they understand that I can´t eat and my mom just gives me herbal tea all the time. It’s the weirdest thing ever though. I literally take two bites and I want to die. Still the doctor says it’s normal.

Anyway I know I´ll come out of my slight depression this weekend. I get to go spend a night at an Afro-Ecuadorian community! You can only imagine how thrilled I am. By the end we have to be able to dance bomba with a bottle on our heads without it falling. I´m thinking bomba is just a lot of hip gyrations…? We´ll see. Stay tuned!