Ibarra!

So, I hope everyone has already begun planning their trip to Ibarra. I´m pretty sure I am one of the luckiest people in our group. There´s really nothing better than getting to work with nuns and little girls, whilst living in a big city…that has a KFC. I met the woman I´ll be living with for the first three months. She´s one of a kind. She lives alone in this nice big house, divorced with two kids about my age who live in Canada. She´s a total working woman who has hosted a radio program for the last 20 years. Its on from 4-6 on weekdays, and she pretty much covers everything from skin care to politics.

My work couldn´t be better. Its kind of like a boarding house for girls…they come from poor families who can´t take care of them or send them to school. But in order for the girls to live there, the family has to take steps to better their situation so eventually the girls can move back home. I´ll be spending my time both keeping the girls entertained and visiting the families to evaluate the environment. I only got to meet 11, but normally there are between 40 and 50 girls there. Their lives are really structured, but they have lots of time to play as well. There are about 7 nuns who are hard core, but super sweet. They told me I am a gift from God…and I can´t possibly describe the look on their faces when they later found out I was born on Christmas. Soon there just might be a statue of me erected in the church there…and I´m fine with that. Anyway, I can´t wait to go back. Only three weeks left of training…and I get to spend next week on the beach in Esmeraldas! And yes, I know that´s where an American couple got raped and pillaged…but I´ll be safe. I´m more worried about the parasites you can get in your feet after sunbathing.

Mal Aire

I so wish I had pictures of this…a mini exorcism was performed on me today. I puked after lunch…so my mom whipped out the egg again. I figured out that when she´s rubbing it all over me, if she hears a water like sound from inside, that means there is bad energy. She couldn’t believe her ears…apparently I still have a lot of mal aire. So first, she put a read string around my wrist like a bracelet, apparently that’s supposed to help. Then, she took me to my abuelos house.

Perhaps because I´ve never had a close relationship with a grandparent, I am seriously drawn to my abuelo. He is adorable. When we got to the house there were like 7 people (aunts uncles cousins) there. He had me lay down on the couch to relax. He came over to me smoking a cigarette with an egg in hand. He crossed himself…you know, father son holy ghost thing...and then he began. He took a big rip out of his cigarette and then forcefully blew the smoke out onto the egg…then he rubbed the egg all over my stomach. He repeated this five or six times, while he muttered some Spanish prayer. Keep in mind, everyone is watching. Then he gets some kind of a branch from a plant, and does the same thing. And I mean…he really blew that smoke out…almost like he was spitting it out. Of course, because I love this man, I wasn’t at all uncomfortable. The whole thing lasted about ten minutes. When it was over my mom just stood there shaking her head….In spanish she said, ¨I am really worried…I´ve never seen someone with so much bad energy¨. A few minutes later we left to go to my brothers soccer game. My abuelo however, was sitting on the couch not looking too hot. ¨He took on all of your mal aire¨, my mom said. I´ll feel really bad if I kill the man.

So some of you might remember when I was in Argentina. My host mom thought I had all this bad energy going on, so she proceeded to make a cross with her fingers on my forehead as she repeated my name. Minutes later my eyes were dripping with tears. Well I had another one of those experiences…kind of.

I think I had a mild case of food poisoning the other day so I stayed home to rest. My mom said something about a huevo (egg), and I kind of started to freak out. See the first day I got to my house she gave me some tomato juice. The following 4 days I had diarrhea like whoa. Anyway the other day I found out they make that juice with a raw egg…shell included. So when she mentioned the huevo, I thought hell no. This woman is going to have me drink a raw egg. But no. She entered the room with an egg, a brown one, and proceeded to rub it all over my head and body…repeating ¨Mal aire¨ (bad energy). I wonder, if I had cracked that egg open afterwards, would it be black inside? Bloody maybe? I didn’t check. Anyway hours later I felt fantastic. (Until today…I have diarrhea again.) If you think that’s too much information, I´m sorry but in a very loving way I really don’t care. Anyway the moral of the story is, rub yourself with an egg when you feel sick. And when you drink juice tomorrow, be thankful it´s not made with a raw freaking egg. I´m off to puke now.