What Happened to March?

So it appears that the month of March was an epic fail for regular blog updates. April will be better, I swear! The last few weeks have been flying by…here’s a recap:

I was invited to the home of one of the senoras who volunteers at FUDIS for the weekend in mid-March – at first I was dreading the 48 hours, since the main topic of conversation between myself and the senoras is my love life and how to find an Ecuadorian boyfriend. I was anticipating a matchmaking weekend, but instead was pleasantly surprised by my warm welcome into Marina’s family. She runs a cultural exchange between Ecuadorian high school students and kids in Montana, so the whole family was used to having an American around. Marina took me to an interesting exhibit of Ecuador’s biodiversity at a museum, I went on a little road trip with her daughter and discovered the joys of biscoche and homemade cheese in Cayambe, and attended a family party that rivaled those of the Hantz family variety. It was such a treat to be surrounded by aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews for the weekend, though it did make me miss my own family.

Luckily, I didn’t have to miss them for long because Sophie and her boyfriend Hunter came to visit last week! We had a blast touring Quito and spending an evening with my volunteer friends for the first few days, and then the three of us headed to the coast for some beach time. We stayed in Canoa, which is a tiny little surf town filled with cabanas and bamboo huts; shoes and shirts not required. Since the sun is so strong we spent most of our time in the shade – Jorge the cabana guy was kind enough to set up an extra-large structure for us each day once he saw how white we were – happily reading and playing cards. My one appointment was to watch the sunset in a hammock each evening, which was easily kept. It was hard to come back to Quito after such a relaxing few days, but it felt good to be back in the mountains with no mosquitoes in sight!