Field Trip! and I turned 23 - 6/1/09

Well I wasnt entirely healthy by my birthday. It is amazing how much of my time traveling is occupied by pondering my stomach problems; I would estimate about 30% of it. First there was constipation, followed by one night of vomiting, then constant unfortunate trips to the toilet, and finally, obscene amounts of bloating and gas. I literally woke up and belched one morning. Im starting to understand "a day in the life of David Norman" a little more every day. And now Im getting a cold, but Im pretty sure I prefer that to the tummy troubles. Anyways, my birthday was nice but not so eventful. We went on a field trip to Ambato with the students. To be honest it was a bit strange. We came to a provincial building and were ushered into a large parking lot where the kids performed a traditional dance along with another group and then there was a group of children from a special needs school whom I guess was the audience, but we were never filled in on the details (minor or significant). THen teh children went to go watch a clown which they really enjoyed. I forgot to write before about the clown that came to the school for the kids about a week or two before; most likely because it was such a revolting experience. So this clown, who looks like one of those satirical drunken bum clowns, comes to the school and starts off by doing some sort of a skit where he is constantly hitting the kids, kind of hard, with something that looks like a large rubber whoopie cushion. This was about a third of his entire act which none of the volunteers appreciated because 1. he shouldnt be hitting children, 2. hitting should not be presented as something comical, and 3. we already have enough problems trying to keep the children form hitting eachother. Another thing he did was tuck this string of bandanas into a childs pants and then magically pull out a pair of underpants on the line of bandanas. Now, the kids reaction - "oh my god did he just pull my underpants out in front of the entire school" expression - was hilarious. But, almost all the volunteers nearly lept out of their seats when he was putting his hand in the kids pants to tuck in the bandanas. It wasnt as inappropriate as Im probably making it seem, but enough so that Ive written him off my list to invite to birthday parties involving children, or adults for that matter. The clicher though was when he had a couple of the girls "walk sexy," waving at the audience, then stop to blow a kiss. I dont know what the hell that was meant for, but it was not okay. We have all agreed that this clown will not be invited back to Escuela Katitawa and that if he happens to get mowed down by a car that he should just understand that karma is a bitch. What a freak! But, the clown on Monday was nothing like this clown and was enjoyed by all. Later that night Kristina made me a lovely birthday cake but she forgot to add the eggs so it ended up being not so fluffy. And it was kind of burnt at the bottom. So she salvaged it as much as she could; it was not beautiful but we had zero problems finishing it. Then yesterday (Friday) we had another field trip. We had little details; just a time and place where we were to show up. So as we are waiting in this rented shuttle, some of the sutdents are showing up, but adults from the community, some school parents some not, were showing up in droves. There were 39 of us and I would say about two thirds were not students. I was a little weirded out by this. So we were driving for a couple of hours and then Chimborazo (a large mountain, active volcano, and at the summit, the closes place on Earth to the Sun) came into sight. We stopped at one point to take pictures, and some of the Salasacan people went and collected "pura aguas minerales" from a place near the side of the road where the water came up. I decided to stay away from it considering the amount of stomach problems I hade been experiencing lately. Then we kept driving and arrived at the base of Chimborazo and climbed up to the first refuge. It was so incredibly beautiful and we were literally standing in the clouds. After the climb we piled back into the shuttle and drove to some hot springs. First we all sat down and ate the lunch that was assembled from the various corn, potatoe, bean, and rice dishes that people brought. It was all piled on a big bag and people just grabbed handfulls of food over and over again until it was gone. It kind of grossed me out considering there was not hand washing and, in addition to the many other sources of germs, I had defintiely seen some nose picking before hand, and not just from the children. But, it was either that or not eat lunch. I guess its no surprise that Im getting a cold. Then we went in the hot springs which were a little dodgy but nice and warm. Most of the kids dont know how to swim so it was fun trying to teach them. One mom dunked her 3 year old kid, who is in my kindergarden class and my favorite student at the school (super adorable and in the picture with a red hat and a tire), into some freezing waterso that she could pass him off to me in the hot water and he wouldnt object. Once we got playing and splashing he was all gigles and smiles; it was very cute. After the hot springs we were driving through these picturesque mountains and arrived at a tiny little house shack thing where we were going to cook dinner. So we first walked down a couple of hills that opened up to this huge view with llamas climbing the hills across from us, thatched roof farm houses, and a slope full of pretty little yellow flowers, under which we dug up our potatoes. All the volunteers kind of chimed in at the same time with, "The hills are alive with the sound of music!" We brought the potatoes back and started splitting open the bean pods. Our host, Cesar, started passing out the aguardiente which is a liquor made from sugar cane and at first it doesnt taste awful, but then feels like what I would imgaine a fireblowers act gone wrong might feel like. Then I noticed they had startede making a fire in the house so I wandered in to find the guinea pigs being prepared. Talk about graphic, holy hell! So Im not sure the exact process, but what I saw was not dead rodents being dunked in a boiling pot of water, pulled out, stretched up, put into a pile where they were still moving and squeaking, and then further dunked where I think and hope they were finally killed, de-furred, de-organed, then roasted on a stick shoved through the whole of their body. At step one I went running out of the kitchen, holding back the dry heaves. But I did go back in a couple of times to take pictures; I mean, its definitely a once in a lifetime experience. So for dinner we had soup made of the beans, portatoes, guinea pig meat, and SURPRISE guinea pig intestine! I did not eat the intestine; they looked like soggy worms. However, I did eat the meat; I was happy I tried it but its just not very tasty. Ill stick to chicken. The whole night was full of great conversation, dancing, beers and aguardiente, and ended it off with some really heartfelt and lovely speeches fromthe community and school leaders. It was one of those days that you know is incredibly special and you wont get to do anything similar again.