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On Saturday, my host brother, Jordi, who was home for the weekend from the military, took us into Guayaquil. Guayaquil is the largest city in Ecuador and it´s about a 20 min bus ride away from our neighboorhood. It´s very different from Duran, very metropolitan.
July is the ¨Festival of Guayaquil.¨ Yes, the entire month is the festival. Our host mom said there would be parties every day. As soon as we got into town, we happened upon a parade and our host brother realized it was the beginning of the festival. We had no idea.
We walked to ¨Malecón 2000¨which is a waterfront restoration project. It´s like a boardwalk on the riverbank of Guayaquil. It was very nice and modern. We came across something of a children´s exercise class and they were dressed as fruit and dancing. It was really cute. A little further down the boards, we saw a dance show with typical dances of Guayaquil. Later we found ¨Water Balls¨which was hysterical. You have to see the pictures, but basically there are these huge balls that they fill with air and a child and then push out into the water. The kids were so funny in
them.
After Malecón, we walked to a place for lunch. An entire normal lunch, with soup, rice, meat and veggies was $2 and it was pretty yummy. Then we walked to Las Peñas, a neighborhood on the hillside. There were more than 400 numbered steps to the top but it was beautiful. Along the steps there were tons of restaurants and bars.
On Saturday night we went with our host mom to a Baptism. In true Ecuadorian style, it was running late. There was a wedding at the church earlier and the bride was late, which made everything else late. After the church service we went to the grandmother´s house for the party. The grandmother is a friend of my host mom´s. The party was on the rooftop and it was really nice out. There was loud music and snacks and lots of talking. The hostess of the party invited us into her house with the words ¨We are poor and we don´t have much, but what we have is yours.¨ She was so sweet. I can´t say enough how kind the people here are towards us. The woman invited us to another party there at the end
of July before we leave. The phrase ¨mi casa es su casa¨is so true here, with almost everyone. 😊
I hope you enjoy the pictures! There are 6, be sure to scroll all the way down!
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Loora
Laura Oxenreiter
Awesome!
Thanks for writing so often--it's good to hear that things are going well! It's great that you're getting out and about and being invited to family functions. Can't wait to hear more stories!