Dry Weekend

Because of elections for something to do with the Andean Conference tomorrow, there is a dry law in effect in Ecuador this weekend. As a result, there isn't much to do this weekend. It's not as if life revolves around going out and drinking, but it somehow kills anything else going on. It's a shame too, because it wastes the three day weekend. I had a couple of friends visiting the last couple of days, and it was fun to walk around with them and show them the sights of the city, but they've moved on and now I'm just sitting around wondering what I can do.

Today I said goodbye to Annie, another volunteer from my program who had been living up the street from me for the last few months. Annie has already finished teaching at her institution and will go home in a couple weeks after traveling with some friends. That's one less volunteer in Cuenca now, but I've heard that a volunteer is coming down for the summer to take her place. It will be interesting to meet this new teacher and see how they do with the adjustment.

There's a possibility of going to a town called Giron tomorrow to hike to a waterfall. The only problem is that my friend Jamie lost her cell phone yesterday. Since she's the contact person on this, it could be hard to figure out where and when to meet up. So that will also have to be winged.

Since this week is the celebration of Corpus Cristi, every day and night fireworks are being set off and sweets are being sold by the cathedral. The funny thing is that no one seems to really know what it's celebrating, only that it's for a week or so and they always eat candy and cookies. It's something they've done their whole lives and never really questioned.

Meanwhile, my bed bugs continue to bite me each night, and as I lay awake thinking I'm being bitten, I wonder how many bumps I'll wake up to count. By some miracle, hopefully, they'll just decide to move on to a better host. That's all I've got right now.