I got a visitor :)

Joey! After not being sure for a while if he´d be able to make the trip to Guayaquil and Duran, Joey was able to make his rotation schedule work out so that he could come!

One hour after he landed, Joey was being subjected to your typical Ecuadorian birthday party, which equates to lots of people, food, and dancing. I had figured that he only had four days here, so why waste any time getting out into the community? Poor kid. He was such a good sport though haha I think he enjoyed himself. Kika got ahold of him, which is hilarious and terrifying at the same time. Kika is one of our neighbors who lives out near Sector 4. She has four daughters, all of which attend Nuevo Mundo, and she is absolutely wild. She always has so much energy and never stops laughing; she is a wonderful human being. Perfect example of Kika´s personality: she found out that Joey works in finance, so she started rubbing his stomach because apparently if you rub Buddha´s belly you get money? And then she told Joey that unless he was dying, he had to continue dancing. Talk about a warm welcome to Ecuador.

Sunday morning we went to mass in the community, and everyone was staring, which is pretty normal, but a bit more than usual, wondering who the new gringo was. Joey got introduced to about a million curious neighbors before meeting all the people in Nueva Generacion, which is the music group that Aide, Ricardo, and Frixon all play in. We headed over to Francisca´s quickly to say bye to Joseph before he goes off to the army (fun fact: he still hasn´t been deployed) and then over to Jenny and Oscar´s house to play with the kids for a bit before Oscar drove us to the terminal to go to Montañita for a few days.

Montañita is absolutely awesome. It´s this bumpin surf town with lots of night life, beach, and expatriates running around. It was hilarious. The first afternoon/night we hung out on the beach and then grabbed dinner in the main part of town. I had ceviche and Joey had a crepe (looks like his phobia of strange foods or just plain vegetables hasn´t changed in the last seven months...hahaha). Stores and bars can´t sell alcohol after four o´clock on Sundays in Ecuador, so all the discotecas turned into movie theaters for Sunday night. We hung around outside one and listened to a reggae band for the night.

The next day we rented an umbrella and chairs on the beach for the day and basically got roasted (oh yeah, remember Ecuador is on the EQUATOR and therefore, reapplying is more than a good idea...). I had a meeting the next morning for work, so we had bought tickets on the last bus out of Montañita to make sure we got back to Guayaquil in time for my meeting the next morning. Unfortunately the last bus left at five o´clock in the afternoon, so our beach time was going to get cut shorter than we otherwise would have liked. At about four, we decided to count our money to see if we could actually stay another night and then take the 5am bus out the next morning. We ran around looking for a hostel that was cheap enough but still inhabitable (found a great one) and then went to the bus terminal and sold our tickets so that we could use that money to buy our new tickets for the next morning. We didn´t have enough money to just buy new ones, and we ended up selling ours to this younger boy, who turned out to be one of my graduated septimos at Santa Marianita. His eye balls almost popped out of his head when he realized who I was (apparently I must look extremely different when I don´t wear my Rostro polo?). We got some great dinner crashed for about an hour before we could get on the bus back to Guayaquil. It was just good, clean, fun.

For the rest of Joey´s time in Duran, we went to Semillas twice (kids were wild, per usual) and Joey came with me to my morning work site on Wednesday. Everyone at the soup kitchen and school and clinic wanted to meet him. I´m pretty sure he´s now facebook friends with one of the doctors (they were chanting YANKEES, YANKEES at me at one point during their conversation...) and we went with Don Juan and Juan Jose (soup kitchen family) to the big market to get the goods for the week. I love these big markets, so it was really fun that Joey got to come and see it too.

I would say that having people visit from home is more than worth it. It was so great to share in something that is so extremely difficult to put into words. It can feel kind of weird at first to have both ¨worlds¨merging, like the life you had before with the new life you have started here, but it was so fun to introduce Joey to everyone and for him to see what I do everyday (let´s be honest, Montañita was pretty fun too). Get ready Mom, Dad, and Tim. You guys are next.

Paz, Amor, y Ecuador