Vamos Vamos Cuencanos

This past Friday night Leslie and I went to a Deportivo Cuenca soccer game. They're currently in the playoffs, well they're in "cuadrangulares" but the simplest we to translate the into American is playoffs. Playoffs with group play, if you follow soccer at all you'll know what that means. The game was against Deportivo Olmedo, which is a team from a city called Riobamba. I think Cuenca was expected to win, but I didn't do any research before I went to the game. I just bought a fake Deportivo Cuenca jersey for five bucks. (I promise, that's the biggest sports jersey they make south of Texas.) The game was a lot of fun. We went with Jonatan, one of the cuencano teachers at the school, and we sat in Tribuna which means we couldn't get rained on and they people were all very calm and not too excitable. It was the exact opposite experience of sitting in General at the Ecuador-Uruguay game. Still, there was some chanting and some cheering and some noise makers and things like that. They took the national chant and cuencanized it: "Vamos, Vamos Cuencanos. Esta noche, tenemos que ganar." They crazy fans, "La Cronica Roja," take up a section on the General side and do all the crazy chanting and singing and have a little parade with flags and torches (flaming newspapers) around the stadium before the game starts. Hey, if you can't really have a student section, somebody else has to set the mood.

Deportivo Cuenca won 2-1 because they played better than Olmedo. Cuenca is on a hot streak right now, best possible time to start a hot streak considering they needed it just to get into the playoffs. And now they're playing like the best club team in Ecuador. After Cuenca went up 2-1 with around 20 minutes left in the game, Olmedo started playing dirty. And when I say dirty, I mean two direct red-card fouls and around six yellow cards in the last 20 minutes of the game. All the fans in the stadium were booing the team, calling Olmedo's players things like "matón" and "negro matón." I haven't mentioned this yet, but Cuenca is a very conservative place. Not conservative the way we think of conservative in the United States, more just closed off to the idea of new things. And the majority of cuencanos are racist. They openly hate black people. Not gringos so much, and I'm not sure why, but most cuencanos hate black people. They avoid them on the street and they'll point and snicker when the see them and do several other passively mean and stupid things as well. So of course there were lots of racial slurs flying around the stadium; at least they waited until Olmedo's players actually were playing like savages, just running into Cuenca's player when they had the ball and tackling for absolutely no reason. But Deportivo Cuenca's stadium is about to get sanctioned for all the racial slurs that were going on during the final several minutes of the game. This means they probably won't get to play their next couple home games at home.

After the game, Leslie and I met up with the Wisconsin-Whitewater student teachers to go out and drink a little bit, which was fun and definitely nothing over-the-top.

Cuenca, don't be stupid. And don't be racist. Racism is stupid and if you haven't figured it out yet, your racism will cost you your soccer team.




"It comes in pints? I'm getting one."




Pilsener is the official sponsor of Deportivo Cuenca.




An Olmedo player is trying to take a free kick out of the toilet paper the fans are throwing onto the field.




We're out at a bar called ONCE (eleven) with the Whitewater girls.




La Cronica Roja
Sorry it's such a short video but you still get a taste of what they're like and it takes forever to upload videos.

Surprising Things About Life In Cuenca

1) You can get a good cheeseburger in Cuenca. Well, let me explain this because I like the burgers down here for different reasons. The meat itself isn't as good; it's not as juicy, big, or any of the qualities I look for in burger meat in the States. But all the ingredients are always fresh in a way you just can't find in the US. Even if you had your own garden with lettuce, onions and tomatoes, and you picked and cleaned it all yourself the day you served the burgers, they still wouldn't be as fresh as they are down here and I wish I had an explanation for why. Also, they do cool things to the cheese before they put it on the burger, and they always use good cheese. And finally, they uses lots of herbs, spices and sauces here with their burgers that are all new flavors to me and so far almost all of them have been phenomenal.
2) There are stray dogs everywhere, all over the city and outlying areas, and they are all gorgeous. When we take the bus to school, we have to walk a couple hundred yards on a dirt road and we can't do it without passing at least five stray dogs. And it almost seems like they're different dogs every time. Unless the gang is out. There are like eight dogs that always hang out together (and hump each other) and scare off all the other stray dogs. They don't growl or bark at Leslie and me though because the one time they did I yelled back and was louder (and bigger) than them so now they respect us.
3) You can get a pirated copy of anything here. Any movie you can imagine, you can find here for a buck fifty. Any music cd, including mp3 compilations of up to a hundred songs, one dollar. I bought a Rosetta Stone copy, which has Levels 1 & 2 of over 20 languages on it, three bucks. Halo 2 for PC was also three bucks. You can get them most updated version of PhotoShop here for thirty dollars. It's more expensive because it takes 5 cds to pirate PhotoShop. You can get a pirated copy of anything down here, and the Ecuadorian government strongly approves of the pirating practice. Something about how everybody has the right to a job.
4) There will be more as I think of them.

Sick Day

So I wasn't able to go to work today; I have some sort of stomach bug and my head is spinning. Honestly, I think it's just that not getting enough sleep has caught up with me. I fell asleep last night before I got under the covers as well, so I woke up at like 5am really cold and needing the bathroom and I never fell back to sleep after that. Hopefully I'll be able to get some sleep today, especially because I'd hate to miss another dance class, but when I'm not able to sleep I'll be trying to post on my blog. I've decided that instead of waiting to post again until I've finished the prior posts, I'm going to go ahead and keep posting now about the things currently going on in our life here in Ecuador. Some things I should be writing about are: our new weekly routine, all of the things that have surprised me about life here, the Deportivo Cuenca game, Colada Morada and baby bread, and maybe some other things.

Oh, and I would like to mention that I made it over two weeks longer than any other international teach at the school before I had to call in sick. I feel really bad not going in to school today, but everything I'd have to teach today can be easily covered by student teachers who were probably already planning on leading my classes anyways.

Camping in Cajas

Look, I have a lot going on in my life here in Cuenca, Ecuador. I'm sorry that I can't post words as fast as I can post pictures to my blog. In fact, I have to take special time to be able to post pictures, and then as soon as I have time at home to spend hours working on writing blog posts I do it. SO I'm sorry that there are so many posts on my blog that have pictures but not words or explanations, but this is going to last for as long as my life is interesting in Ecuador. Don't get me wrong; I do take time to write on my blog, but I don't have enough time right now to keep track with all the things happening in my life. This weekend I think Leslie and I are going to just hang out in Cuenca and not do much so hopefully I can get caught up on my blog. Until then, I'm sorry it's taking me so long to post on my blog and I hope you're enjoying what I'm posting while I have the time.

What is the Greatest Sport in the World?

Not until this afternoon was I willing to say that soccer is the greatest sport in the world. And it's not because it's the most liked or the most followed or the only sport the whole world cares about. First, I'm going to explain my arguments for College Football and for Rugby, then my reasoning for calling soccer the greatest sport in the world.

Yes, I know I should be posting about Dia de la Raza and the weekend and the game in Quito but this is more important.

First, College Football. A college football game is the only game in the world at which everyone in the stadium is always standing. I have a very strong preference for standing in the stadium during the game; you feel more engaged and involved in what's going on on the field or the court. It's also an incredibly dramatic game; there are tons of tense moments that test the wills of both players and fans alike. Also, a college ballgame is a full-day event. If you're going to the game, and you're doing it right, you get to the stadium in the morning to tailgate and party and drink beer and eat grilled food all day until it's time to go find your seats in the stadium. Then, after the home team wins, the entire city celebrates until it passes out just before sunrise. Also, college football is a very momentum-driven game. And when two equally talented teams take the field together the one with more passion for the game and a greater desire to win will conquer. Even when the teams aren't evenly matched, a David can have the "want to" to take down any Goliath. For example: The USC Trojans against any other Pac-10 team. Sorry, had to be said.

Rugby. Rugby is my favorite sport to play. And momentum in rugby trumps momentum in any other sport. I also love games that require discipline and teamwork and passion and you get all three in incredible abundance with rugby. If any one of the fifteen people on the field for either team can't hold their weight, or is feeling lazy or hung over from the night before, the better disciplined team will take advantage. We say in American Football that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, talking about defense. That is so much more the case in rugby. I also love the physical nature of rugby. Granted, my favorite position is tight-head prop. I also love how raw rugby is. But unfortunately, rugby isn't for everybody. It's not any boy or girl, man or woman who can survive a rugby match. In fact, I will say this: Rugby is the greatest game in the world for the elite and for those who can take and give a hit and get up and do it even harder the next time. But that's not everybody. In fact, that's a small minority of the people of the world.

And now for soccer, and the reason why I've finally given in that soccer is the greatest game in the world. It's not because soccer is "The World's Sport" and that it's the only sport played on every corner of the earth. And yes, I went to a World Cup qualifying match in South America (last weekend) and the ambiance is incredible. I loved the experience of sitting in the stadium drinking beers and shouting songs with the Ecuadorians around me. But they sit during the game when their team isn't about to have a chance to score. And they're not the most sports-intelligent fans either. They shout and scream and sing and chant for their team at moments when Ecuador needs complete focus, to score on a corner kick or a free shot just outside the box. I also hate that there's so much chance involved in winning a soccer match, and that one team can play better and be better the entire game but make one small slip-up and lose (...Ecuador...). There are times when I hate soccer for being all about which team got lucky instead of which team got good. But still, there's one last argument for football that I didn't realize until today.
Everyone plays it. EVERYONE. Today, last period of the day I had the 2nd-graders for gym class and I was waiting for them to come down to the cancha to play, so I invited so guys sitting around not doing anything to come practice and goof off and take shots against me. The caretaker of the school and general handyman, a random construction worker and the company accountant all came down to play. And they were all better than me despite the fact that I play for at least an hour every day. Anywhere you go in Ecuador you'll find people who either actively play or used to play and still have most of their moves.
I was joking with somebody the other day that if you throw a soccer ball into any crowd of people, if they're nice they'll kick it right back to you and if they're mean they just juggle it and pass it amongst themselves until you go take it back from them. If you throw a frisbee into a crowd of Ecuadorians they just look at it as if it fell from Mars. They aren't even willing to touch it because they're not sure what it'll do.
But back to the story. The caretaker, random construction worker, accountant and I ended up playing soccer against the entire 20-kid 2nd-grade class. And all three of the other guys just danced around with the ball and made brilliant passes to each other while I watched.
How many American Football fans, percentage-wise, still go out and play football with their buddies? How many rugby fans actually play rugby? I'm finally willing to say that Soccer is the world's greatest sport, but not because it's the world's most popular sport. Soccer is the world's greatest sport because everywhere else in the world everyone PLAYS soccer. EVERYONE.

Vamos Ecuatorianos 3

Words are coming later. Right now I'm at the CEDEI International Programs building and I'm just trying to get all my pictures and maybe a video loaded onto my blog while I have a good internet connection.

Vamos Ecuatorianos 2

Words are coming later. Right now I'm at the CEDEI International Programs building and I'm just trying to get all my pictures and maybe a video loaded onto my blog while I have a good internet connection.

Vamos Ecuatorianos 1

So the story of our trip to Quito really begins with the ending of the Dia de la Raza presentation in Parque Calderon (Central Park). Leslie and I decided to go to lunch with some of the national staff and we ended up at a place all Cuencanos call “Café Francés” and Leslie of course got coffee because the people who make it are French and they make it in the French style. Well, it turns out they use coffee beans from an Ecuadorian company called “El Cubanito” who toasts their beans with sugar and toasts them too long to make the sugar turn brown. It turns out this process puts cancerous properties into the beans and almost every time you drink El Cubanito coffee, if you're not already accustomed to it (and getting cancer) you get really sick with terrible stomach pains that make you not want to eat even when you're hungry, which makes you really fatigued. This is the same place we went to right before we got sick the first time, when we first arrived to Cuenca. Fortunately, I didn't get sick this time because I didn't have any coffee. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case for Leslie. She was crazy sick until we woke up Sunday morning to come home and then she was just crazy fatigued. So I spent the rest of Thursday and most of Friday taking care of her, which included making chicken noodle soup from scratch (you can't buy soup in the store because it's just assumed that since you're Ecuadorian you already make incredible soups at home), several trips down the hill to the grocery store and other things I don't feel like listing because this is the story of our experience of Ecuadorian culture and not of Leslie getting sick. But either way I did almost all of the buying things and almost all of the packing and almost all of the getting ready for the trip. We had plenty of food and water to last the weekend and I had plenty of alcohol for the occasions when I needed it.
So we were told to be at the park where the buses were picking us up at 9:30pm so that the buses could leave town at 10. Well apparently everyone else was told it was leaving at 9 because when we showed up at 9:15 (gringos that we are) everyone was not only there but getting mad that they were still there. But once we got on the bus and Leslie could start falling asleep everything was incredible for the rest of the weekend. If you want a story about being sick and hot and tired and miserable in Quito at a soccer game you're not getting it on my blog I had an awesome weekend. Before I comment on some peculiar and unexpected differences between Latin American culture and US culture I would like to say that we got lucky in that on the bus into Quito everybody sitting around us spoke good English. They of course preferred that we speak Spanish, but it was very welcoming that they were willing to speak English with us. Very, very welcoming.
Okay, so differences between Latin American culture and US culture. The big one I want to comment on is that everybody in Cuenca drinks. Apparently, in 2003 they were named the drunkest city in South America, second in all of Latin America only to Guadalajara, Mexico. But the best part was that as soon as the guys around us realized that we weren't just tourists, and that we were in Ecuador to experience and live the culture and we were on the bus to go cheer and shout and cry with Ecuador and her soccer team, we officially had enough in common that everyone was willing to share their drinks with us. And everybody had drinks. If I ever get to do something like this again, I'm taking at least 6 liters of cuba libre with me for anybody on the bus that wants some.
N.B. Cuba Libre is what the hispanic world calls rum and coke, because the rum comes from Cuba and the Coke comes from the free world.
I ended up drinking a couple canelasos, gin and tonic, whiskey and sparkling water, and something else I don't remember (but not because I was too drunk to remember) and I said no to the “traditional mixing” of wine, beer, rum and aguardiente that somebody had. That was a crazy chuchaqui just waiting to happen.
So eventually we finally left the city, and I stayed alert for a while just to listen to the trash talking and general drunkenness going on on the bus and laugh until people started quieting down a couple hours into the bus ride. Eventually, I started listening to music to try to fall asleep myself. But the ride was too bumpy and it turns out that a “bus de lujo” means a shitty bus on United States terms so it would have been difficult to fall asleep for me even if it weren't so bumpy and turn-y. After a couple hours of listening to music o try to fall asleep, and realizing by ancient i-pod's battery was fading for no reason, I changed strategies. I had bought three big flask size bottles of zhumir, in the sweet less-alcoholic flavors so that they could be taken without a mixer (21% abv), so I downed one in about three minutes (you should know that first I wrote ten, then erased it, then wrote five, then erased it too because I realize now it was that I downed that zhumir way faster than I thought I did). Within thirty minutes I was asleep. Which was incredible, especially considering that my strategy had no side-effects.
And I only woke up once before sunrise (at like 5:30 as always here in Ecuador), and that was because we had changed altitude so much that I was soaking wet with sweat by the time I woke up while when we were leaving Cuenca I had to put on my hoodie to stay in my comfort zone, which is considerably colder than that of most people. No, that doesn't do it justice I love the cold I love playing sports in weather cold enough that you can feel your bones every time you get hit and I can't sleep unless it's cold and love eating cold food so for me it's pretty damn serious if I need a hoodie to stay comfortable. It was an incredibly drastic change in temperature, enough to wake a drunken sleeping traveler from the middle of his deep slumber. It was an incredibly intense change in temperature and air pressure but as soon as we started climbing into the mountains again I was OUT.
I woke up at 5:30 Saturday morning when the sun came up and we were almost in Quito. The view of the landscape and the mountains was incredible but nothing like the bus ride on the way home so you'll get plenty of photos in Vamos 3. As we rolled down the mountain leading into the valley that is Quito I tried waking Leslie up to let her catch a glimpse of the city but it was happening. And there's a picture of Quito from the moutains on the bus in Vamos 3 as well.
At some point, after entering the city, the bus randomly stopped on the side of a main road and nobody had any idea what was going on. Until a film crew goton the bus and explained to us that they had chosen our group to be filmed for a tv special about the people who rode in buses all night to come see their national team play in a World Cup Qualifying match. All of a sudden everybody was awake and crazy excited (except the sick one of course) and there was a great atmosphere on the bus and people were singing their Ecuador fight songs which I thought was cool until we got on the bus after stopping at the hotel when people really got into it and that was where it's at but we're not there yet in our story. So we ended up getting to the hotel some time around 7:45 in the morning, after leaving Cuenca at 10pm, and as soon as we had a key Leslie went straight to the room to sleep and I scoped out the breakfast that was included in our package. It turned out to take too long, though I appreciated the juice, coffee and rolls while I waited for the eggs that never came. I went and got Leslie, who fortunately got a little more sleep though her stomach still wouldn't let her eat. We waited for a few minutes outside the hotel waiting for everybody to get outside so that we could have a mini pep-rally for the cameras before we got back on the bus to go to the stadium. That's when the singing really started.


The mini pep-rally outside the hotel

The reason why these blog posts are called “Vamos Ecuatorianos” is because that's to only song we both learned that was appropriate for putting on a blog. It goes like this: “Vamos Ecuatorianos. Esta tarde, tenemos que ganar.” It's a lot more fun than it looks, especially when everybody you can see, including yourself, is shouting it as loud as they possibly can. On the way to the stadium, there was a camera man on our bus and also one riding around on the back of a pickup following our bus around the city so people were going nuts on the bus the whole way to the game, partying in the aisle and sticking their flags out the windows and getting all the people on the sidewalks and in the cars and buses around us to sing along with us. We had to get out of the bus several blocks away from the stadium, but the camera man stayed with us and did things like have us run to them and sing and shout as loud as we could and everybody else was just eating it all up trying to get on tv. Leslie and I found a guy named Nelson who ended up being way nicer than we ever expected. While everybody else was going ga-ga over the video cameras, we cut over to our side of the stadium with he and his son Nelson (strong tradition here, giving you first-born son your name) to get in line to get better seats than the 5-minutes-of-fame people (they only say 5 here instead of 15).


Nelson (dad) took a picture with us just before the mini pep-rally.

We were firmly positioned in line outside the stadium at 10:00am, waiting for a game that would start at 5:00pm to make sure we got at least half-decent seats.


The lines waiting to get into the stadium, 7 hours before the game started.

Fortunately, my full-size fake Ecuadorian flag was keeping my neck and arms from the crazy hot and bright sun that forced Leslie to make me buy her sunglasses, because she had just recentley lost her (second) pair at school and Nelson and the others laughed at me for paying too much but I said very surely that if Leslie needed sunglasses, she was getting sunglasses and the difference between eleven dollars and eight dollars was worth her feeling better. Then another guy our age in our cuencano group immediately said (in Spanish) “Yeah my girlfriend doesn't want sunglasses” then his girlfriend hit him and laughed with the rest of us. About fifteen minutes into waiting for the stadium to open its doors we got the great news that the doors were going to open at eleven instead of noon. That's great news because Nelson (dad Nelson not son Nelson) had already explained to me that beer and water and food inside Ecuadorian stadiums isn't as ridiculously priced as it is in US stadiums. In fact, the beer and water and food is reasonably pricedinside the staiums; it's cheaper than oustide the stadiums where people walk from line to line trying to rip anybody off that is desperate enough to buy something outside like we were with the sunglasses. At one point, Leslie left the line to go sit in the shade of a building next to the stadium, which ended up being alright because we didn't have a problem geting her back in front of me in line when the doors opened. And entering the stadium will be the beginning of the next blog post, which I will hopefully write in the next couple days.

El Dia de la Raza

Dia de la Raza doesn't really translate well into English. And really, it's a pretty terrible holiday. It translates literally to "Race Day" so the CEDEI School took it as an opportunity to march in Central Park in the name of racial equality. What el Dia de la Raza actually celebrates is the day Christopher Colombus "discovered" the Americas, beginning a still unending racism, discrimination and general bias based on skin color for all the hispanic people of the world. It celebrates the day that began the eventual enslavement of entire peoples of whom almost all of South and Central Americans still consider themselves. So they call it Race Day and celebrate it. They used to get the day off from work, because it's a national holiday, but the indigenous peoples of Ecuador protested and now you still have to work even though it's still a national holiday. But either way, the kids dressed up and we had a march and presentations on the central square and in a building just off the square. Here are some cute pictures.

This Past Weekend

Leslie and I had a lot of fun this past weekend. It really started on Thursday night, even though we had to teach on Friday. Thursday night we went out with the other international teachers and some of the national teachers to a bar/club called “Once” downtown. It's definitely not the nicest of the clubs here, but the drinks are good (the mojitos had lots of real mint in them) and resonably priced and they play good music. I didn't drink enough to ever feel the effects of the alcohol, and neither did Leslie really, but that can't be said for a few of the people who were with us. After chatting with everybody for around an hour-and-a-half or two and trying a cheeseburger (first time I had let myself try a burger down here. From what I hear, it was a pretty good burger for Ecuador. I'd put it somewhere between Applebees and Dairy Queen, Applebees being the better of the two.) we ended up dancing. I wasn't really feeling it, especially because all the music was latina so all the nationals knew what to do and I didn't. That and I just really wasn't feeling it for some reason. Leslie and I left early at around 10:30, “early” considering that we normally go to bed at 10 to get up at 6 in the morning for work.

Friday we didn't really do much of anything. We had gone out the night before, even though we cut the night short because we had to work the next day. We just lounged around at home, I think Leslie might have made something for dinner and I just wasted time on my computer, might have played poker or something.

Saturday the Razorbacks hogwolloped the Texas A&M Aggies in Dallas at the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium. The best part of it all was that we won by playing great DEFENSE. Yes, the Aggies hadn't really been tested yet this year so their statistics were a little on the higher-than-real side but we still did a great job of, well, gimme a minute to think of the right word, I don't like “bottling up” or “bewildering” because they don't really describe how pysically we dominated their offense. “Dominated” is too generic. “Jackhammered” would be good except that normally refers to a great rushing offense. I'm not really a big fan of the word “decimated,” especially after learning what it really means in Latin class in high school. “Rampaged” is a good word, but it also sounds more like offense than defense. How about this: Our defense built a concrete wall and when they tried to break it down, we beat them back like a pack of powerful and handsome sheepdogs herd sheep. Except they were a pack of powerful handsome Razorbacks.
On the Ecuadorian-side of things, we went out with Pepe Luna, the music teacher at our school and his friend Juan who is a tour guide here in Cuenca. They're both great guys, especially considering that they're willing to hang out around town with a couple of gringos. We eat at a nice vegetarian restaurant on the east (far) side of town and had some really good conversation, mostly in English. Juan is completely fluent and Pepe is trying to get better. We also spoke a little bit in Spanish, giving Leslie and me a chance to get some practice in as well. Then we went up to Turi, Juan practicing his tour-guideiness on us as we went through the city to the south-end of the valley. Cuenca calls Turi its balcony. Turi is a church up the side of a mountain on the south side of town, which has developed into an observation area both for tourists and for cuencanos (some cuencano took his girlfriend up there to be romantic, and Juan and Pepe both love showing off their city). It's really more of a cuencano spot than a tourist spot, even though any good city tour will take you up there at some point. Juan, Pepe, Leslie and I had a beer up there, looked over the city and talked about the bad words in both English and Spanish. When Juan asked me what happens when you say “nigger” in the United States I told him he'd get shot. And depending on where you are, that's pretty much what happens. He thought that was a bit much, but Leslie and I explained that most people won't even say that word in conversation among friends or when discussing racism because of how powerful it is here; we all just say the N-word. Most people probably wouldn't write it in their blogs, either, but I refuse to let any word hold ground over any human being and everyone who reads this blog knows that I would never use it in reference to a person. Like I said, Saturday was an incredible day. Did I mention the Razorbacks beat the Aggies 47-19? That's a thromping. Even moreso because we started out terribly, going down 10-0, then resurging and scoring 30 unscored points before halftime. I'm glad Caldwell DVRed it at home from his Ipod Touch, because when I get home I'm gonna want to watch it.

Sunday, two very blogworthy things happened. First, Angel took Leslie and me up to Cajas to try trucha. Cajas is the national park just beside Cuenca and is considered the most important and most beautiful national park in Ecuador The drive up was marvelous. The road goes up a ravine in between two stretches of mountains that are simply gorgeous. And on the way back down, you can see Cuenca in her valley and the peaks of several mountain ranges behind her. Gorgeous. The trip itself is worth the trip. And the trucha was amazing as well. Trucha is either the Spanish or Quechua word for trout. Quechua was the language of the Incas before the Spaniards showed up. Almost all Ecuadorians (and Peruvians and other South-Americans, I would think) blend some quechua words into their Spanish, and most of the time don't realize the difference. The restaurant we went to is called “Restaurante Guevara” because a man named Guevara used to catch all of the trout serrved at the restaurant. He was a simbol of “the old ways” in Cuenca; he only used the most traditional methods for catching his fish. The trucha is served whole, with a few slits cut into each side to make sure it cooks thoroughly. I'm not going to upload the picture of her trucha that Leslie took, because I think the eyes of the fish may be looking up at the camera. But the meat came right off the bone and was delicious. We also tried horchata and canelaso, which I'm going to put on the “Strange New Fruits” list when I'm done with this post. Unless you can't handle your food looking back up at you, I'd definitely recommend going to this restaurant. There are several trucha restaurants along the road that leads into Cajas, and they're all aesthetically more pleasing than Guevara's, but any Cuencano will tell you that Guevara's has the best-tasting trucha. However, if your Spanish isn't all that good and you ever want to order trucha anywhere, I strongly recommend that you let an hispanohablante order it for you because "chucha" means "pussy" and that's a mixup you definitely want to avoid.

There's more to come, including our trip to WalMart and the dinner Leslie made and a couple of things from Monday, but Leslie and I need to go shopping right now so I'll post about them when I get back. I hope she's not mad that I let her nap for an extra 30 minutes.

Sorry I didn't end up finishing this post yesterday evening; I was too tired when I got home from running errands. I ended up letting Leslie stay home and just did it all myself. Which is for the better considering how much walking I had to do, and how much Leslie hates how fast I walk when I have to get somewhere.

We ended up doing some shopping when we got back into town, the usual grocery stuff and then we head over to WalMart. Technically, it's called an hipermercado (hyper-market) and it's the Avda. Las Americas version of the Coral in the Mall del Rio. It was packed. I mean, it was a Sunday afternoon, but I think we had to wait 30 minutes in the checkout line. Another interesting thing is that if you want something expensive, they put it in an airtight bag and bring it to you when you're checking out. You just tell the person at the register your name and your item comes up and they send for it. I guess it cuts down on theft.
But two important things happened. The first, and quite possibly most important, is that I saw an all-glass chess set that cost fourteen dollars, and all the pieces were shot glasses. When I buy it I'm going to call it "Gentleman's Chess," but that won't be until I'm in the mood for an impulse purchase (another impulse purchase will be the Simpsons poster where all the characters are drunk and wearing Real Madrid jerseys, I need that poster). The second most important thing that happened was that we bought a scale for weighing ourselves to see our progress. First, and this sucks, we had to buy the expensive one because my weight doesn't gauge on the cheap ones. Second, I've lost over 10 kilos since I've been here. I was around, probably a little under, 315 when we arrived in Ecuador and now I'm just under 285. My current goal is to get under 120 kilos, which would mean weighing less than 265.

Monday the mother of one of Leslie's and my students brought us home from school, which was really nice of her. A couple of our co-workers think we should try to get a ride with her every afternoon, but I'm not going to press her for more favors. At least not yet. Also, I was supposed to have my first saxophone lesson, but the guy (Gregorio Romero) canceled on me. I had that lesson today, and it was good I think. Though I'm not sure this guy is actually a saxophone teacher, just a really good saxophone player. But I'm gonna be able to learn from him, and at two lessons a week for $40 a month I'm certainly not going to complain.

We also got paid on Monday, cashed our checks on Tuesday. That's pretty exciting in itself: no real need to explain. It was kind of interesting though, to get an entire paycheck cashed in ten dollar bills.