Carnaval 2/18/12-2/21/12

Carnaval, known in the States as Mardi Gras, lasts 4 days here.  We began celebrating on Saturday and festivities continue through this evening.  It is really interesting to see some of the different customs.  One is that each town has a ‘Reina’ (queen) of Carnaval and they compete as the weekend goes on to eventually be the Reina of the nearest city (here, for example, La Chorrera).  It is essentially a beauty pageant, from what I can tell.  Another is that the kids run around with buckets of water and try to dump it on as many people as possible.  There are also culecos (big trucks full of water that spray people) and bailes (dances).  These last two are often simultaneous or at least related, which is nice because then you don’t get too hot while you’re dancing.

As PCT’s, our celebration of Carnaval was limited to the nearest surrounding towns due to our lack of actual identification (they are getting our more permanent visas and foreign ministry ID’s, which requires our passports…).  I just hung out on Saturday and did a lot of reading.  Sunday, I went to Los Mortales (where the CEC trainees are) with some other people from Santa Rita for the culecos and some music.  It was pretty fun, but I got pretty sunburned (although not my worst ever).  Yesterday, a group of us went up to the lake in Arenosa (not too far, but it takes about an hour in a chiva).  It was absolutely beautiful, and really nice to swim.  I didn’t get too much more sunburned (I was much more diligent about the sunscreen).  We also ate at a restaurant up there that served only fish...  Needless to say, I just ordered French Fries and Patacones, which were also much cheaper than fish.  I was so tired when we got back that I went to bed at a little after 8!  Today has been another lazy day.  I have done some reading, played in the kiddie pool with Alison and Yuri, and typed a couple blogs and e-mails.  It will be nice to get back to a more normal schedule tomorrow.

An update on Alicia’s mom: she is still in the hospital but is doing pretty well.  She needs a pacemaker and they are waiting for the shipment to arrive from the US.  It is supposed to be here on Thursday.  They said she got out of bed today, which is a good sign.  Continued prayers would be appreciated.

I guess that’s all for now.  The next couple weeks are going to be super busy: we have tech week in local schools (in La Chorrera), then the Community Entry Conference where we meet our counterpart, and then our 6-day site visit.  After that, we have less than 2 weeks left of training!  I can’t believe how fast it has actually gone!

Until next time!
Ally

P.S. Happy Birthday, Daddy J