After looking in my nifty Lonely Planet Guide for about 20 minutes and not finding really any place close by I wanted to head to this weekend I, and eventually practically everyone else I ever do anything with decided to stick around Quito and entertain ourselves that way. Actually, it didn’t prove to be too hard. Thursday night we all went out to the Mariscal and played cards for about 2 hours (2 hours only because we found a place where you paid $5 for 2 hours of beer from a keg under the table… and popcorn.) Devan and Cait came out with us which of course always makes things more fun I think and Adolfo (another one of our Keene State-Baños friends) joined us part way through the night as well. Being as none of us had really seen him for about at least a month and a half (if not more) it was quite a nice surprise to have him out. We finished up the night with dancing and meeting a few new people which over all made for a pretty fun night.
Friday morning Lacy and I decided to go back to ABEI (even though it wasn’t our normal day for trabajo social) because a bunch of volunteers were coming to make gua guas de pan (little bread men with jam inside) with the patients. They were all very excited to have us there helping and interested in how to make the bread. I helped one man make three different gua guas (which is a Quetchua word for little kids) and one of them came out pretty well. :p It’s harder than you’d think to make sure the jam doesn’t overflow. We had a ridiculous amount of dough so we made at least 50 gua guas, flowers, and other creatures (easily more), of which the volunteers themselves were very excited to try and have us try once they came out of the oven. They were very good actually. Very rich and carby 
I could feel myself getting fatter with every bite, but I guess I didn’t mind too much. 
There was also a cook from Italy who traveled as a volunteer throughout all of South America who came and made pan pizza (basically just pizza crust with tomatoes) for the patients as well. This was also very yummy, and overall together the bread and pizza was probably better than the lunch the patients usually receive. It was in fact probably the most fun I have had at ABEI yet just because the atmosphere was so much lighter and friendlier than usual. (Much better than the day of the watermelon incident.) Because we had so many gua guas left over we spent the last 5 or 10 minutes running around the facility giving out the rest to the people who worked there. The women who came to make them were seriously too cute. Lacy and I convinced the man from Italy to come back next week on Wednesday instead of Tuesday to make pasta, so our next work day of trabajo social should be fun too. And then after that I should actually be close to my totally number of hours and maybe I can get a jump start on my 10-12 page essay… but probably not.
In the afternoon, after lunch of course, I went to the other Univeristy in Quito, Catolica, where all the Keene state kids go, to meet up with Adolfo and shoot around and play some basketball for a while. Sadly enough, probably one of the most fun hours I’ve had in Ecuador… (haha, ok maybe that’s a lie- but it was amazing how great it really felt.) Basketball is just my zone and I felt so alive and happy and me when we were playing. It was great just to get back on a real court again. Unfortunately, Adolfo beat me 21 to 16 but… I like to blame that one the fact that I haven’t really played much in the past 3 months. I also apparently impressed some of his friends and the guy who runs the gym and they thought I should play for their girls’ team there. I laughed. :p Adolfo plays for the school team so after we were done playing we headed to the South of Quito where he had a game at 8:30 at a gym conveniently located right across the street from Marco’s parents’ house. So we stopped in to chat for a little while (Adolfo visits them practically every day so he is a regular) but both Marco’s parents we excited to see me and asked where I’d been and if I was ready for the race (which Adolfo is also going to run with us.) It was very cute. Adolfo and I walked across the street to watch the girls’ game that was going on before his and it was actually quite fun to watch. The girls were good! They were not school teams but rather composite teams of women of all ages- apparently one woman had played in the US on some team before. We sat in front of Adolfo’s coach (who happened to be a woman and the coach of the girls’ school team as well) and he kept telling her that I was gonna come to practice with them. Thanks kid. Alicia, Marco’s mom, walked over to watch Adolfo’s game as well, and later Pete and Tristan joined us, but it was fun just sitting and talking to her. We talked again about the plan for the weekend of the race and that she hoped I’d come back to visit them in Ecuador sometime in the future and when we left she asked me when I was going to come see her again (it was pretty much one of the cutest things ever). She was also fun to watch the basketball game with. I love when people swear in a language that is not their first. I had to smile every time she said “shit!” I wonder if that’s how people feel here when we do it in Spanish. 
[Completely unimportant because I had such a good time for other reasons that night, Adolfo’s team lost as they were playing a team with at least 4 players over or at about 6’5.] In any case, it was fun just to get to hang out with him and play ball- he’s a pretty unique kid and I’m definitely glad to have met him.
Saturday morning I got up and went running again- 63 minutes and right about 10.2 km, and felt pretty good. After coming home and showering I went out and spent most of the day with my family which actually proceeded very nicely. We, my parents and niece, went out for breakfast and coffee (which of course consisted of bread) and then headed to a small shopping center that is I guess only for military members where things are supposedly cheaper to look for shoes (which turned into quite a lot of other things) for my niece. At the end of the day (a couple hours later) my mom charged her card for $130 and had quite a plethora of stuff. Although everyone seemed to be lighthearted about it. My dad left with a box of about 8 or 10 bottles of liquor. Guess tastes differ a little bit. After the shopping expedition we went to get Chinese food which wasn’t bad, but overall a little bland (although I didn’t expect much since we were told before hand Chinese food in Ecuador wasn’t very good). At this point I was thoroughly exhausted and when we got back to the house finally I crashed for about a 2 hour nap. Well needed. After being refreshed I went with Cassie and Hilary to make a quick stop for ice cream and then headed out back to the Mariscal to meet up with Adolfo again for a chill night of just hanging out. Because it was just the four of us it was really a fun night and we all agreed afterwards that it was a well spent night and we were glad we did it. There is something to be said about just spending quality time with friends…talking. And, even though it wasn’t exactly what they had in mind when they said to make friends in Ecuador, with Cait, Devan, and Adolfo I definitely have made friends that I never would have made otherwise, so I like to think it worked out.
Sunday I decided to skip the run because I was going to meet up with Adolfo again (yup- this was a weekend of Adolfo after not seeing him for about 2 months) to play ball but upon arriving up at his school at about 10 am and having forgotten it was a catholic school (and country) we discovered everything as closed so we spent about an hour wondering around looking for/thinking of a place to go play before Adolfo’s game at 1:00. We eventually met up with Cassie and Hilary again in the Centro Historico and we all walked up a very steep hill to where his game was going to be played and we managed to get on the court for about half an hour or so before the game before his started. We played 2 on 2 with a couple who were not quite at our level of playing, but still fun nonetheless. They were both really nice people too. Although Adolfo did get “yelled” at by his coach for playing before the game, she did tell him I should come by practices… Didn’t feel like telling her I didn’t really like playing with girls (and from watching her girls’ team play before Adolfo’s I wasn’t any more inclined to join…) Oh well, I appreciated the compliment.
One of the other players from Adolfo’s team who was not signed up for the tournament they were playing in came by just to watch the game and sat with us during the game which was really fun as he was a really sweet kid and very easy to talk to. He had studied abroad in Germany for 6 months and also was/had taken English before and although he only ever said a few brief things in English he said he understood almost everything we said when we did speak in English. So it was fun to meet another person from Ecuador AND to practice Spanish on a day when (to be entirely honest) we didn’t really expect to speak much Spanish amongst ourselves. :p After the game, because they won, we went to a restaurant called “Hunters” which was a playoff of Hooters in the US, so Adolfo could get some hot wings. It was a bit pricey ($10 for me in total), but worth it. I got fajitas which actually weren’t too bad, although I was probably just most excited to have a tortilla. Paul, Adolfo’s teammate came with us as well, and actually took us since he had a car (plus 2 points), and after going for ice cream- where Adolfo bought a little girl begging on the street an ice cream and told her he wouldn’t give her money but would buy her food (he stole my heart right then and there) :p –Paul drove us back to our houses, or at least to Quicentro so we could walk about 3 blocks to get home. He was really a pretty legit Ecuadorian- and he took my rant about the men whistling and making cat-calls and such on the streets very well. (Hey, I can rant in Spanish now- that should be a good sign of the learning process right?)
Hilary came back to my house and watched Office Space while we waited for the afternoon rainstorm to pass, which is always good times, and after chatting a little more with the family I sat down to do a little homework, check my email, and then called it a night after a long day of eating, playing basketball, and walking up hills- along with ranting in Spanish. Really not a bad weekend at all for sticking around Quito. Of course I have to give some of that credit to Adolfo for being the main source of my entertainment this weekend but still, I like to think that part of it was my mentality getting aligned into a little better place too. And now, I only have 4 more days until our trip to Cuenca to try guinea pig and see my Ecuadorian ñaño Marco-all of which should be a great time! :]
[Side Note]
I went running again this morning (Monday), and had a woman doing her power walking wag her finger at me when I turned to spit off the track. It was hilarious and probably gave me an extra little boost, not gonna lie. Just thought I couldn’t go without sharing that one too.
