Making the Most of Life

Making the Most of Life

7/16/12

            On Thursday after my last post, Santiago and I spent mostly the whole day watching my church’s service on the internet. I translated for him, but it took a long time to get through the whole thing.

            On Friday Santiago and I started our Bible study. We started reading Colossians. Santiago made me read in Spanish, while he read in English. We basically talked about what it looked like in our relationship to be what Paul was telling the Colossians to be.

Later on we watched Seven Pounds (Siete Almas) on the computer. Santiago searched it on Youtube in Spanish and found it right away. Unfortunately, I searched for it in English to no avail and could not find it. Finally after at least twenty minutes of searching, I found a website that I could watch it on. So we had two computers and two sets of headphones. Santiago watched it in Spanish while I watched in English, both playing at the same time. It was interesting, to say the least, but I do love that movie!

            On Saturday I had to wake up early to get ready for the Calacali party. I went to Santiago’s at like 8:30 and slept for a bit after he left for his practice. Then his brother and I went to see him play. We watched Santiago in his band, as well as several other bands, “queens” of Calacali, and many people dressed in traditional clothing. It was like a parade as each group went by, and when they arrived finally in front of the stage, each group did a performance. My favorite was the children dressed in traditional clothing, which represented different parts of Ecuador. There were elementary school kids dressed in those cowboy pants (the ones with the fur) and girls dressed in colorful dresses. Schools, as well as cities, were represented in the fiesta, and everyone who performed was dressed up. One band even had pink and blue smoke that they used in their performance. What probably struck me the most were the “grades” of these queens. There were the high school looking ones, middle school ones, and even elementary and preschool “queens” with dresses that had to be on the back of this car for hours. Oh, and TONS of people were selling things everywhere. The parties are definitely a good marketing opportunity for Ecuadorians.

            After three hours, I had just about enough of the hot sun, so I went back to Santiago’s. I basically took naps, went on the computer, watched The Avengers with Santiago, and just hung out until the night. At night we went to go see the bulls. We saw Kevin and the American group, which was cool. Then Cristian (Santiago’s cousin), Santiago, and I went and sat down. I had a conversation with Cristian about his life before the event started. There were, again, people selling things with their little cartons of snacks and a candle lit. Then they brought out the bull, which had fire on his horns. It was crazy! People were all around the ring, and whenever he started to run in one direction, they started to climb the gates. He would come so close to the gate, and I was scared he’d burn people’s feet. He knocked one person to the ground and hit them in the face with fire; it was super dangerous.

            Once I saw the American group from El Refugio went into the ring for a good ten minutes, I told Santiago I wanted to go in just to be able to say I did it! For about twenty minutes I badgered him, but he kept saying no. Finally he agreed to go in with me, and I kept waiting for the opportunity to actually make it over the fence. Once I went in, I kept getting scared and almost going back over, but I stayed in there for a bit. Santiago tried to pull me closer to the middle, and when I saw the bull running, I ran right back over to the fence.

            Towards the end, when they were trying to get the bull back into the truck, he came over to the fence where I was. I was behind the fence and against a wall, but it was only a distance of maybe two feet, so I was freaking out that he kept putting his fired up horns against the fence. Still, it was an interesting night!

            Afterwards we went to the party in the street, where there were tons of drunken people that literally stayed out until the early hours of the morning. We only danced for a little bit then headed back home.

            On Sunday Santiago made me wonderful eggs before we went to church. We stayed for a bit then went to El Refugio to say bye to Juan Carlos and his family, who I said earlier, are leaving for America for a year. Then we went back to Santiago’s. He then left to pick his mom up from the hospital (she’s going through chemo right now), which took a super long time, so I just napped for a good amount of time. When I got back, I Skyped with my parents for a bit then went back home.

            We got back home early, so I hung out with my family for a bit. Santiago made me macaroni, and we sat down and ate with them. I brought up the subject of sizes because here is yet another cultural thing. Not only are Ecuadorians pretty tiny in height, but their feet are small, too! Santiago’s feet are as big as mine, and my feet are pretty small. Same goes for my host dad! Plus if you’ve seen the pictures, I’m like twice the size of Angelica.

            So, funny enough, Holger brought out the measuring tape and measured everyone to compare heights. Santiago is only a few inches taller than me, which is definitely a difference from a lot of my friends back at home. He’s about 5’8, though, which is pretty average for an American guy.

            After dinner, Santiago and I watched “Little Miss Sunshine”, which is also a good movie. Then today we are going to the movies to see what’s playing and possibly do some shopping. I’m excited to leave for the beach on Friday, and I know that’ll be an experience. I’ll be in a room with my Ecuadorian girl friends, but in this, I know I can ONLY speak Spanish while in the room! Oh, and not to mention that we leave at 12am and get there around 6am. Yeah, I’m pretty excited!

            Within these last two weeks I have left, as I wrote in my last entry, I’m trying to make the most of the time I have here. We are doing lots of fun things, and I have so much planned. I’m doing and trying things here I would have never done in America. My parents were so shocked that I now like fish because my whole life I wouldn’t touch it. They were also shocked to hear that I, Allie Pisarro, scared of everything (especially fire) went into a ring with a bull with fire on its head. Yet these experiences are what have helped me to make the most of my time here. After all, that’s what life is all about: making the most of what we have!