Día 144 | Sábado, 23 de Mayo | 2009

Calle San Salvador...

Last night's goodbye dinner was truly great.  They fed us so well (all you can eat buffet) and it was just very calming to be able to feel the accomplishment of finishing the quarter.  My Andean Literature class performed a traditional Kichwa song, I played guitar as one of my mates read the Kichwa version of Dust in the Wind, and I also performed Nuestro Juramento (a song by Julio Jaramillo) solo. 

Today was the first day of sleeping in since I don't know when.  Slept until about 8 or 9 and then got some breakfast (the typical mandarin orange, two mini-bananas, and a cup of tea) and then I went up to my room to work on my book report that is due on Monday. 

The day passed on pretty lazily – I ended up taking a nap after lunch from 2 until about almost five.  I woke up on my own and then went out on the street to take this picture.  Here is a picture of my street here.  This is the view I saw everyday when I would go out to walk to class.  In the distance you can see the Coliseo – the main sport / political / musical venue in Cuenca.  Some nights, if there was a big concert or if Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa was in town, you could hear the shrills and shouts of the crowd from our house. 

Today was the first day I have started to realize that I will be leaving here in couple days.  The truth is that I feel so many emotions, I can't say clearly how I feel about it.  I will miss my family for sure though.  They have been really nice to me and I am so thankful.

My family invited me to a first communion party and I said yes.  The party started around 8:30PM and lasted until about 3:30AM.  It was held in a banquet hall that kind of reminded me of a YMCA except everything was decorated very nicely.  I danced Salsa and Merengue with quite a few little old ladies and then later I was asked to play some songs on the guitar.  At first I was really nervous playing for about 150 foreigners that I had never met, but after I thought about it for five minutes or so, I wasn't so afraid.  I played Stand by Me, Nuestro Juramento, Black Bird, and Cucurrucucu Paloma.  Everybody seemed to like it – it is weird that in South America the audience starts to applaud randomly in the middle of the song if they like what they are hearing – and I left the stage feeling nice and warm. 

After the songs, I danced with my sister Verónica.  It was a fun little Russian number called Moscow.  There were a lot of folded arms and choppy leg kicks.