No...More...Cerveza....

The three day mayhem that is Carnaval just ended. And thank the Lord. I don´t think my liver could take anymore Pilsener. Here are some bullet points to sum up quite an eventful (and sadly, last) Carnaval 2010.

- Friday: The school decided it would be an excellent idea to have all the girls go up to this little tourist spot and play carnaval (shoot foam and throw water balloons, generally soak as many as fast as you can). I went up on a whim, opting not to go to the basketball game the other girls were playing in. Good thing, as there were about 5 adults to 40 kids...only two of which were actually WATCHING the water. It was at this place called Las Burbujas (The Bubbles) and it´s a break in the river, so there are little streams and mini waterfalls...geez, I can´t even describe it in English. Anyway...there´s water. And they had the scooper trucks out digging the stream deeper. Bad idea. I basically had to save three people from drowning since no one can swim here. I was like a very untoned, pasty Pam Anderson running to save a little boy and then a PROFESSOR! who was trying to save a girl. The girl was in the worst shape, I couldn´t find her dark little head that was barely bobbing above the surface. All the while, other girls were yelling at me that my sandals were floating away. A girl is drowning people! My $3 sandals don´t make a difference! Gracias a Dios, everyone was fine. And I made everyone GET OUT OF THE POOL! If only I had brought my whistle...

-Sunday: Valentine´s Day. I decided to go to Zumbi and meet up with Grigs. It was an absolutely GORGEOUS day...strong sun, perfect blue skies, great pool weather. We took a dip in the pool, went down the waterslide. Then headed over to a nice table and got beers served to us all afternoon. Even got some empanadas thrown in! As the sun was setting we had enough beer flowing through our veins to dance a dance or two. Then I decided to get up and participate in a ¨women´s contest.¨ I jumped up on stage...turns out I was a candidate for Miss San Valentín! I was representing the good ol´ US of A. Out of nine women, I made it to the top two!!! Basically had to shake my butt the whole time and blow kisses in the crowd. Unfortunately, I lost. It was a close race...the girl beat me in salsa...which was totally unfair since they are basically BORN to dance salsa here. Oh well. I got two beers and a chance to dance with the single mayor (which was brought to my attention several times).

-Monday: A moto cross race was down the road, so Grigs and I went with my friend Rumi and then Jason from Loja met up with us. We then decided to go to Chicaña, the most well known place around here for Carnaval. It was fun...a LOT of people. And very trashy, we noted. It was weird, like it´s hard to describe but it was just gross the people that were there. Everyone was like super mis-matched, all wet and stinky and drunk. Like state fair type times 10. And all playing¨cholo music (hick-like). We danced around...watched one of my STUDENTS participate in the wet t-shirt contest. Thank god she didn´t win....

-Tuesday: Tried to sleep in, but the music and hot air made it impossible. So Jason and his friend Oswaldo and I went to Zumbi to get one last whiff of Carnaval. It was really cloudy and a little chilly, so we tried not to get wet (basically impossible...). Didn´t spend a lot of time there, saw the rain clouds coming so we skadaddled. Made sure to get some empanadas de verde from the black folk before we peaced out. Then as I got back to Yantzaza around 8 or so, all nice and dry, two guys carried me into the fountain in the parque. Just great.

Well, it´s all over. But today start the fiestas in Yantzaza! Need to rest up this weekend. I slept 12 hours last night and I still need to catch up.