Cookies for Sue

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So, yesterday I had a good culinary/baking day. I made pancakes from scratch and I baked chocolate chip cookies in our toaster oven. Both managed to turn out pretty well. After my cooking and baking endeavors, we headed into town to catch the end of yet another parade. This was the big one so to speak. It started at 11 and went until 3. We met up with the other Volunteer in Puyo, Katie. She just switched sites this week. She invited us over to her apartment for lunch. She made burritos that were fantastic. The tortillas were made from scratch and were most excellent. I brought some of my cookies and we had a couple beers with our meal. After that, Sue and I headed home to read and relax.

Relaxing is a commodity this weekend, since as part of the Puyo festivities, there is a flea market of shorts right next to our apartment. The interesting thing, is that there are about 4-5 vendors who use megaphones to advertise their stuff and the volume is about 10 times louder than it needs to be. Needless-to-say, from 10 in the morning until 10 at night, it sounds as though they are selling stuff right in our bedroom. It is a little annoying, a little funny, a lot interesting, and will be over soon I hope.

We went there last night and just watched one of the vendors sell his stuff to a crowd of people. The goods are all laid out and he has 3 or 4 helpers who will pick up and item, hand it to the guy, who will then talk about its qualities and offer a price. It is the live version of QVC shopping network with a mound of cheap Chinese goods. The hot item last night was 8 rolls of toilet paper for $1. Most of the stuff is crap, though some is really good and really cheap. The process it interesting to watch and seems to me to be a rather ineffective way to sell things. For instance, if I wanted something he had on display, I might have to wait all day before he offers it for sale. Some people would request that he offer something and he usually obliged, spoke about it to the whole crowd, then stated his price - more often than not, the person did not buy the item.

There were many other vendors and stands there as well, selling things in the more traditional method. There were quite a few shirts that I liked and almost bought, but then realized that I am quite content with the ones I have now.

We did our laundry in the morning, however, the rain is preventing it all from drying which is driving Sue nuts. It rained off and on the whole day and night and today doesn’t look any more promising, oh well. I think, I’ll put some hooks into the walls in our apartment so that we can have an indoor clothes line.

Adios for now, perhaps when I go on my workshop I’ll add an entry from Riobamba or Banos.

Jeremy

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