Thanksgiving...Arbolito Style

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Or in Spanish, feliz día de acción de gracias. I hope everyone had a safe and relaxing holiday back in the US. Although Thanksgiving isn't really celebrated here, the other volunteers and I were still able to stuff ourselves in true American fashion. Last Thursday we were invited to the house of the directors of the high school where many of us teach English. It was a very cross-culture event as about half the guests were Americans and the other half were Ecuadorians. For dinner, we had about every kind of meat imaginable, except turkey. There was definitely stuffing, cranberry sauce, and a large amount of desserts so we didn't really mind too much. It was a great night and there were about 30 guests, one of which was our own founder, Father Jim. He made the trip all the way from Boston to be with us, and we were very grateful to have him.

In addition to last Thursday, following the suggestion of our in-country director, Kevin, we had a real Thanksgiving celebration for community night last night. And just to make it interesting, it was a surprise! So last night, the Arbolito house plus Kevin surprised the AJS house with a true Thanksgiving dinner, complete with the turkey! They had absolutely no idea about the dinner, and all the food turned out great, especially the cranberry sauce which I 'made' by taking it out of the can. And then to make it complete, we were even able to watch Monday Night Football. How, you might ask, do poor volunteers in South America get programming options like that? Well, we don't have a dish or cable. For some reason, ESPN Latin America is broadcasted here like a regular network. Although most of the time, it's all about soccer. Either way, it was a very nice conclusion to the evening and we were all reminded a little bit of home.

So that's all the exciting news. Not much has changed since my last update as far as my work goes. My physics and English students seem tobe doing pretty well. We'll see in about a month or two when grades are finalized though. And if you've been to Durán before you might find it interesting to know that Arbolito is getting more curbs and sidewalks installed. The path that was behind the house next to the river that leads to the tech school has been flattened out like it is going to be made into a street some day! We also got another small road where a ditch was filled in if you walk to the tech school the other way. We're all very excited when we see the trucks out working. All this work though, doesn't necessarily mean that paved roads are around the corner. In fact, if things in Arbolito go like they do in the rest of Durán, it will be years before most of the roads get paved. But we take things here one step at a time, poco a poco.

Thanks for reading. Happy Thanksgiving again and Happy Holidays! Christmas is starting to sneak up on us, although when the weather is in the 80s and 90s, it doesn't exactly feel like back home.

Peace,
Jason