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Published: August 3rd 2005
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Field Crew
Friday evening celebration after work. Whew! We have been suitably chastised by a number of you for not writing often enough...and the year has just begun.
What a week. The first Friday of work was a blast...apparently the town we are working in has a week-long fiesta celebrating the independence of the area - "The Fiesta De Colta". This fiesta just ended on August 2nd after 10-14 days of havoc. That friday (the 20th) we finished work with the field crew and decided to share some beers with everyone....well, 30 beers later we exited the site feeling refreshed, and managed to literally walk into a very colourful parade down the Pan-American highway and through the centre of town. Our Ecuadorian friends decided a parade just wasn´t a parade without a couple boxes of fruity wine and the liquor of choice down here, Zhumir (Zhumir comes in many flavours, of which coconut is, well, the smoothest while lemon tastes like dish soap). Once the parade was finished we headed over towards an old church for some dancing and street food. On the way, a woman felt rather sorry for us in our lubricated state and exclaimed "Poor gringos!".
Sarah and I were both able to
Salsa Sarah
Sarah getting down with HER bad self and showing the Ecuadorians a thing or two. get down with our bad selves on the dance floor in front of a makeshift stage in the church courtyard(though I seem to lose the beat after about a minute, as usual). The wife of one of our workers actually got up on the stage at one point and thanked us for coming to their fiesta and dancing with them....and promptly won a CD for her efforts. Interesting country.
Work went smoothly all the next week with nothing much to report, until Friday. Walking back to the site from lunch, Sarah (ever the photographer) was gazing at the horizon and fell into a MANHOLE. Yes, a manhole. Apparently covering manholes in this town is an extremely low priority... Whatever the case, Sarah fell into the hole up to her chest, quickly jumped back out and complained that her leg was sore. We found a hole in her right leg about the size of a nail (Tetanus tetanus tetanus) and managed to corral a nearby doctor to drive her to the hospital in Riobamba, about 15 minutes away. We were attended to by the nice staff, got in nearly right away, and Sarah was taken good care of by Dr.
Pobre Gringos!
A woman felt sorry for the drunk gringos. Dick.
Incidentally, Dr. Dick was a smooth talking 31 year old who likes to dance....while we were stuck at home that night, our housemates went dancing at the local club and Dr. Dick was there...our friend Eve says he is a fantastic dancer. Unfortunately Dr. Dick is better at dancing than keeping charts on his patients, because when we returned the next day to have the wound cleaned and dressed, no one had a clue as to what happened.
And so Sarah has spent the past six days mostly at the house (except for the hospital visits) in slight pain with her leg elevated...good news came today though, as she has finished her antibiotics, there is no infection in the wound, and we can clean and treat it in the comfort of our own house with no more hospital visits.
Every one of the crew members was very concerned about Sarah and has asked about her every day...they even sprung for a stuffed dog to keep her company! She promptly named it Sicalpa, after the town where she had her accident. Her circle of friends at home has expanded as well, as the house recently received a
Still Life With Leg Wound
A stir crazy Sarah keeps her leg elevated. kitten. Its name is Gringo.
This past Sunday we traveled back to Sicalpa to attend a special lunch given by one of the field crew. The lunch consisted of the traditional ecuadorian delicacy, guinea pig, Cuy in Spanish (pronounced kooey). Think quarter chicken on your plate except with a paw. Tastes remarkably like smoked salmon.
After the lunch we attended a "bullfight". The quotation marks are there because there wasn´t a single professional matador---a total of eight bulls were released into a ring, one at a time, while any half drunk teenage boy jumped into the ring to taunt the bull. This was a bizarre scene since at any one time there were 20-30 young males in the ring, who darted for the fence and hopped over as soon as the bull began to chase. One of our friends and house mates decided this looked like fun, so he actually went down into the ring and ran from the bull. Stupid gringo. I have a great video though. We left early as soon as someone said they would keep doing this until it got dark.
Finally, today our friend Mike had to bus up to Quito to
Ready for Anything
We prepared ourselves to eat guinea pig. In a rare moment of tact, I DIDN´T take a photo of the lunch. renew his visa. He brought all our hospital bills with him just in case of trouble...he anticipated correctly, since the official decided Mike was one day late, his 30-day visa had expired and he was to be deported unless he came up with $500. Rather astutely, Mike produced the hospital bills and claimed that his girlfriend back in Riobamba had had an accident, was stuck in the south and couldn´t speak Spanish. (Only two of those are correct). The official took pity on him and issued him the new visa. Yay leg wound!
Okay that´s all so far, update soon (seriously).
Nick
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Katie G
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Mmmmm Dinner
Aaaahhhh CUY, Dinner of champions. I remember it fondly.