let's do the time warp again

As I passed the calendar in my classroom today, I did sort of a double-take--is it really October? Then I resolved to make sure the next place I call home has four seasons not including dry, fake-rainy, rainy, and unpredictable.

the replacement

Last June I wrote about a rather important document that I had lost, my Ecuadorian residency card, and how I worried about leaving the country without it. I finally got around to replacing said document last week--I'm not leaving the country anytime soon, so it wasn't high on my list of priorities. But with last weekend's trip to the beach, I felt like I should replace my card so that I could carry it instead of my passport.

Replacing a document (or doing anything semi-important for that matter) is rather complicated here. Last Wednesday, I went to the police station and stood in line in a small back room to make a denuncio--an announcement--that my card was lost. This involved me being given a form that I had to take to the copy stand in the entry and pay to have two copies made, then returning and filling out the form with the exact events of the lost document. I started to write the wrong date on the top of the form, scratched it out, and then was told to take the mistake-free copy back to the copy stand and ask for yet another copy. (Mistakes--not even scratch-outs--are not allowed.) Then I had to present my correctly-filled-out form to another person at another desk, and wait for them to stamp my paper.

Thursday afternoon, I took my passport and my denuncio to the Office of Immigration, where I was given a number corresponding to the document I needed. I made a copy of my visa and the first page of my passport at yet another copy stand, and finally my number was called. After all the runaround, the actual replacing of the residency card was fairly easy. After two days, five copies, a lot of waiting in line, and one very unflattering photo, I finally had my new residency card.

I guess I can leave the country now.

beach take two

Yet again, we went to the beach for a three-day weekend.

I really wanted to go back to the beach we visited over girls' weekend last June, and so three friends and I spent the weekend in Santa Marianita, a small beach village just outside of Manta. The beach is famous for kite surfing, in which we did not partake, but we did have beautiful weather and really nice accommodations (hostel with a pool and restaurant right on the beach.) We read, walked the beach, swam a bit, ate lots of fried seafood, and played cards. It was a wonderfully relaxing weekend.

Erica, Hannah, and Marjorie in the midst of our euchre playing

our hostel

Erica and Marjorie watching the sunsetHannah at sunset

snacktime

I know, I've been a delinquent blogger. Here's a new tidbit for your reading enjoyment:

Students at my school don't eat lunch. Lunch, here in Ecuador, is the main meal of the day, and is eaten in the middle of the afternoon, usually when students return home from school. Therefore, my students snack a LOT all throughout the day, especially during recesses. Snacks can be anything from a sandwich to fruit or a salad, or the little containers of beans that are mixed with dried crunchy corn kernels (think Corn-Nuts.) Today, as I passed a group of my eighth grade students seated at a picnic table in front of the music building, I stopped to say hello and noticed they had a more unusual snack. When I asked what was in the package, they told me, "hosts"--as in communion hosts. They told me they could be purchased at the big chain supermarket (Supermaxi) but that they were better with Nutella or Arequipe (a type of caramel sauce.)

Perhaps I could petition the Pope to consider changing from communion wine to communion Nutella?