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Published: June 28th 2006
Home Sweet Home
This is where I´m calling home right now. And for those of you who know Harrisonburg, wouldn´t you agree it´s very similar? Hmm...psych. But I still like it a lot!I know how excited you all must be to see that I have written yet another blog in such a short amount of time. The past two days have been super amounts of fun, though it´s not even 8 o´clock and I´m pooped. My eye lids are gaining pounds by the second, so I´ll hurry and tell you about the past two exciting days. Starting, of course, with Yesterday.
MONDAY (6-26)
During school today I taught my babies in K-class and later in the morning went upstairs to teach the sixth graders. It was a fun morning and the kids are just wonderful here. It´s so much fun talking with them, even if I have to tell them to slow down or be more clearer with their pronounciation. Practice makes perfect, and believe me these kids won´t stop testing me! When school was over we back to house like usual to eat lunch that Señora Maria prepared for us. And again, like usual, it was delicious. Señor and Señora Loyola left to go to the doctor, but told me to stay here and wait for Dora because she was on her way home and we were going
For Tina
I know you´re dying to see my hair, and I know I said it wasn´t much different, but here´s a better shot of what I did to it, haha. (tell Dad not to worry...it´s healthy and it´ll grow faster than he knows!) xoxo to spend another afternoon together. And that´s exactly what we did.
We headed down an "autopista" towards Dora´s brother´s house called Perimetral. When we got there we, sadly, had to inject Andrea with a vaccine to cure her nasty cold she´s had for a while. She´s gotten a lot better and is coming back to school on Wednesday. It was horrible to watch Dora and Andrea´s mother inject her while she was pleading with them and crying. It made me think of my mommy and how when I was little up till now always look for my mom for protection and comfort. Though we waited until she calmed down before we hit the road again. We headed South.
First stop, Mall del Sur. It´s twin on the northern side of Guayaquil is Mall del Sol. There at Mall del Sur I bought a pair of shoes and a beautiful formal dress. We headed off to Riocentro Sur, the twin of Riocentro in northern Guayaquil, about 2 minutes away from Colina de los Ciebos, where I´m staying. The only thing I bought here was a large purple ring and an ice cream float. Two of my favorite things in
Across the Lake
La Politechnica lago, since there wasn´t an offical sign of the school, I decided to put up the prettiest picture of a place on campus for you guys. the world, haha. Well we left the South part of Guayaquil and leaving was a lot nicer than entering as far as traffic is concerned. Thier doing major construction and a ten minute drive is suddenly turned into 30.
Home was our last and final stop for the night and I was happy that it was. After greeting the Loyolas, I went upstairs to send the blog that I had written for you guys the day before and got ready for bed. When I was ready I watched some Spainsh drama on TV with Dora called America. When it ended I practically fainted into bed and selpt peacefully the whole night.
TUESDAY (6-27)
First of all, I´d like to anounce that it is my parents Silver Anniversery today, and what a special day it is because of that! May God continue to bless thier marriage now and forever. To the happy couple, whom I´m proud to call my mom and dad! I love you both so much!
Whew, today was crazy! I woke up for my juice like usual this morning, only Señor Loyola told me when I was done to just go
Beautiful
I couldn´t resist. There´s so many gorgieous plants and flowers here it´s insane! This is one flower I got at the top of Corazon de Jesus. This walk was only 164 stairs. back to sleep and come in later when Dora was leaving. Turns out, Señora Dora wasn´t feeling that well this morning and wanted to stay, so I came in late and went straight to work with my first grade classes. When that was finished, I headed upstairs to finish up the day with my 7th grade class. That was pretty dull because the kids were taking a test that day and they all used pretty much the entire class period to complete it. Oh well. The day was short and when it was over I was ready for lunch.
After we ate another delicious lunch, I waited for Dora to come home and watched a little world cup on TV. It´s sad that I won´t be watching Ecuador play anymore, though they do have an excellent highlight tape that they run every now and then that still gives me chills each time. I know everyone here is still sad about the game on Sunday. It was hard to be defeated after watching what an excellent team we had. I knew the game was going to be tough but when I watching it, I knew we could beat them. David
Malecon
The vegetation here is spectacular! After working in landscaping for several summers I´ve finally found a garden that is quite remarkable. Thank God--I was starting to think that I´ve lost all appreciation for gardens after working at JMU and comparing! Beckham just lost a fan. As far as chances that Ecuador had on goal...there were many. We also had ball possestion just as much as England, if not a little more, since we´d look to play back to our defenders before attacking. Delgado did have an amazing breakaway and it was surely going in. The only thing that stopped it was one of defenders on England; he nipped it with his leg and they didn´t even call it a corner! You can see it so clearly in the reruns, and it makes me so angry!
Though it´s been fun watching the other teams from around the world play. Whenever I have a little down time in the afternoon or at night, I always watch soccer. Of course then it´s always teams that I don´t really want to watch, but it´s still good soccer all the same. I´ve watched teams like Korea, Switzerland, and Japon play but I really enjoyed watching Brazil beat Ghana. I´ve hated Ghana ever since they beat us earlier. It felt somewhat like revenge. Our neighbor beat you. If we couldn´t win the World Cup Champion, it´s at least going to be represented in South America,
Me and Dora
Enjoying our boat ride down the river and checking out the additional construction for Malecon. Exciting! baby! I always think about G whenever I sit down to enjoy a game. And I know whatever game I miss, he´ll have waiting for me when I get back, haha. Thanks, bro. Soccer is everywhere you look in this country. It´s a shame that no only is it considered a man´s sport, but if a girl were to play she would be looked at as "bad". That´s my only downfall on this country, haha.
Dora came home and off we went to La Politechnica, where both her brother and sister studied in college. It was a very relaxing enviornment with a beautiful campus and nice students. I enjoyed walking around there and snapping pictures everywhere.
On our way out, we headed for Hospital Vernaza where Dora works there as a doctor. I´d be lying if I said I liked it. It was so depressing there. I´ve never seen such poverty in all my life. They only thing I enjoyed at the hospital (besides leaving) was the beautiful garden they had in the back. Simply beautiful! Though I couldn´t stand it there. I saw some really ugly things and I came close to vomiting a couple times. One
Paradise
Minus the pollution, trash, overpopulation, filth, and unsanitariness...Guayaquil is simply breathtaking! room I walked into smelled like bloody bandages and rotting raw meat. Not to go into details I´ll just tell you the places I went to while at the hospital. For people who: got burnt/electricuted, broken legs, broken arms, messed up digestive system, problems with eyes, reproductive system problems. I tried not breath while in there and never in my life have I felt so sick. Especially when we leaving and I saw my first dead person, still on the stretcher, face uncovered. I don´t know what happened to him, but it looked like his face was burnt and beaten up. Though his mouth was gaping open and his eyes were still open and looking up at me. I don't ever want to go back there again.
After that depressing show, Dora took me to see the Corazon de Jesus, and the 164 stair climb that came with it. Though as I´ll later find out that was a very minor part of the workout for the day.
We headed to Malecon del Salado and it was a first time for both me (duh) and Dora as well. It was stretch of a walk, though very impressive and well worth, and when we got to end we realized how fun it would be to go on a boat ride. Though we were short 50 cents. FIFTY CENTS!! Can you believe it? So we had to walk all the way back to the car to get 50 cents for our tickets and walk all the way back to the dock. Well we took sail on a tiny little canoe called the Titanic of Guayaquil, Ecuador. It was so cute. And the guy that was rowing for us was very nice and informative. Along the ride we got to see construction of the new section of Malecon they´re building and I witnessed a couple of homeless people showering on the side of the river.
The "driver" turned the boat around and we headed back to the dock. It was about 10 minutes till 6 when the lights would come on over the bridge. So the "driver" of our canoe told us we could pedal around in one of the swans to spend our time while we waited for the lights. It was so nice of him! While other tourists are paying away, we got a free ride. Though, ouch, my legs hurt from all that pedaling! Well, after a while we got tired and the lights hadn´t come on and all the "drivers" were leaving for the night. So we brought our swan back to the dock and got some food for our starving bellies. When we were done eating, wo and behold, the lights were on! It was awesome. The bridge was covered in a shining blue array of color.
I took some shots of it before we headed home because it was pretty late and I had to write this blog, shower, and get ready for tomorrow. (we´ll be going to the Finca!)
Well, it was nice to hear my parents voices today, as they called so selflessly on their anniversery night. Though we couldn´t talk long due to phone complications, I could hear them both fine and I can´t wait until the next time they call!
Until next time,
Shir
<3
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non-member comment
Hospital, etc.
Your experience at the hospital reminds me of my internship at RMH. I saw some pretty sick things there (pardon the pun). It's an eye-opening experience, but I hope that you don't have to go back there again! I'm glad that we were able to hear from mom and dad, even on their anniversary! Tina and I may try to call you in the future. I've never made an international call before, but I'm willing to try it. :) Now, about the World Cup...which four teams will make it to the semifinals, do you think? I predict that Brazil will smash France (Spain should knocked France out already). I hope that Portugal will beat England, and that the Ukraine will defeat Italy, but it'll probably go the other way around. As far as Germany versus Argentina... that will be a killer game. Since I don't want a repeat of the last World Cup Final, I'd like to see Germany lose. Besides, it would be more interesting with 2 Latin American teams and 2 European teams than only having Brazil in the mix.