Here's the video of our incredible Thriller performance! As Miles said, this is your tax dollars at work. . . From left to right in the video are Katie, London, Miles (playing Michael Jackson), Maggie, and me.
The middle video is Maggie playing her original song, Keep On. Hopefully we'll be able to put together an omnibus 95 cd soon with original works, covers that were performed at our talent shows, songs we danced to, and other songs that were popular during our two years in Ecuador. The final video is of our bhangra dance, Mahi Ve. I'm so glad that you can see the Peace Corps banner behind the videos =)
I posted these pictures on my last day in Ecuador, and now I am finally getting around to writing in some captions. Here's a picture of the final crew, all 20 of us that were left at the end for our close of service conference. From the left top row, there's Yessary, Lindsay H., Alex, London, me, Miles, Janet, Nick, Maggie, Johnny, Sarah, Lindsay S., Lisa, and Stephanie. From the left on the bottom row, there's Katie, Ben L., Stuart, Calvin, Zoe and Ben B. We started off with 35 people in omnibus 95 and we finished up with 20 (or 21 depending on how you count).
Miles, Maggie, Benito and I wanted to have a Peace Corps talent show at our final meeting, but there wasn't really any time in the agenda during our 2 day meeting. So Maggie suggested we have "dinner theater" and perform during our lunch break while people were eating. And that's what we did! Here's the MC, Miles, telling some joke or story =)
Here's the multi-talented Maggie playing an original song for us. To quote the movie Step Up 2 the streets, Maggie is a triple threat, as she can dance, write, sing, and play many instruments. Well, I guess that would make her a quadruple threat or quintuple threat. You know what I mean.
We performed two dances, Thriller and Mahi Ve, a bhangra dance from the movie Kal Ho Naa Ho. That's London bajaring in the middle, with Maggie and I on the outskirts. I think Miles had spun out of the frame, which is why you can't seem him in this picture.
Here's my dance crew! They were a very dedicated and fun group =) Katie was in the Thriller dance, but opted out of this dance. We practiced for 3 hours the night before, in the teeny 3rd floor landing of our hotel. Maggie, Miles and I had also been practicing a bunch before that.
This is a good action shot, as you can just see Miles striding out of the photo. London has been dancing her whole life, and was able to learn all the steps in one night!
Another picture from our final fancy dinner together. They took us to an Italian restaurant and the food was so yummy! It was a nice way to finish up our time together.
Everyone looks weird in this picture because we are all trying to shake our faces for the camera. I never quite got the hang of this. I think I need to loosen my facial muscles more or something. But some people really know how to shake their faces!
I am now in my final three weeks in the Peace Corps! Although I have eagerly anticipated my return to the U.S., I am still a little shocked that the day has finally arrived. I can’t believe that I have been here for over 2 years! I am now trying to wrap things up, pack up my house, give away my things, fill out Peace Corps paperwork, and look for a job. I thought I would write a brief update about what has been going on for the past 3 weeks.
We are now in the middle of the rainy season, which means cheap, abundant mangos (hoorah!) but also lots and lots of rain, every day. There’s been a lot more rain this year than last year or my first year here. Plus, there have been some really big storms, which have caused landslides, flooding in some provinces, downed trees, and downed electrical wires. So, occasionally my power goes out at night, but it usually comes back on around 10am the next day.
You would think that I would be prepared for these power outages after living here for 2 years, but I usually am not. During the January power outage, I used up all my candles, but didn’t have the good sense to restock on candles, thinking, “What are the chances that will be another power outage during my last 3 months in site?” Well, the chances are pretty high, so I had no candles for the next blackout. That day, I had bought a giant container of yogurt. I assumed that the yogurt would go bad before the power came back on, so I had to chug the whole thing that night. I didn’t want to use up my headlamp, so I just sat at my table, in the dark, chugging yogurt. It was kindof gross, and unnecessary, since Trent informed me later that the yogurt would have been fine until the next day. Oh well, it helped me pass the time until the power came back on.
As I might have mentioned before, most Peace Corps volunteers have at least one admirer/stalker at their site. Perhaps the best term for it is a “bugaboo”, someone who will not stop texting or calling and won’t leave you alone even though you have shown no interest in them. I had to deal with two bugaboos last month, which was rather annoying. One guy was telling me that, apparently, there has been someone in my site who has been secretly in love with me these past two years. Really? Do you really expect me to believe that? Has that line ever worked on anyone? I told him that I didn’t believe his interest was genuine, and that most of the male attention I get here is based solely on the fact that I am a gringa from the United States, which makes me exotic and different. Plus, there is always the possibility that I will marry a local and take them back to the states with me. Telling people that I have a fiancé back in the states doesn’t seem to make much of a difference here, which is why I started saying that Trent is my husband. Anyway, this guy wasn’t too bad, he only texted me once and then stopped after I didn’t respond.
The other kid was really annoying though, and was texting me 5-6 times a day. He was ending his messages with "Te quiero mucho" (I love you), which I don´t not think you should say to people you barely know, ie. acquaintances. There is nothing worse than hearing that little beep from your cell phone and thinking that you have a message from one of your friends and realizing that it is only another message from your stalker! I finally asked Trent to help me write him a message so he would leave me alone. That worked, though now I feel very uncomfortable around this kid. Oh well, at least I don´t have to turn off my phone every night now, so I don´t get woken up early in the morning from another bugaboo message!
Rakhi agreed to teach Miles and I how to do a bhangra dance. We, in turn, were supposed to teach her the Thriller dance. But then we only watched Thriller once and got distracted by the other Michael Jackson videos and didn´t teach her anything. But, I think Miles and I mastered the bhangra dance, though we still need some practice. Hopefully I´ll be able to get a good video of us performing, and then I´ll post it on my blog =)
After Rakhi left, I went back to Santo Domingo to prepare for the Academy Awards! I don´t think I´ve ever been more prepared for the Oscars in my life! I´ve watched 15 of the movies nominated. My dad called me that Sunday and asked me what I was doing. I told him "Well, it’s 3 pm and the Oscars start at 8pm, and I have 4 movies to watch, so I can’t really talk now." My dad laughed and said "That’s the kind of Peace Corps experience I wanted my daughter to have!" I kicked ass in our Peace Corps/Gage/Bull/Rickard Oscar pool, so now 3 of my Peace Corps colleagues owe me a milkshake.
The final thing worth mentioning is my terrible illness last week. I had a headache, chills, fever, and aches all over on Sunday, but I thought maybe it was just the climate difference between Quito and Santo Domingo, or maybe exhaustion from traveling around too much. I felt a little better on Monday, but still feverish. Then I woke up at 5:30 am on Tuesday morning with a terrible fever. I was sweating profusely, my face was flushed, and I could not fall back asleep. So I got up, found my copy of “Where there is no doctor” (a hypochondriac’s dream come true!) and started looking up my symptoms to diagnose myself. All the Peace Corps volunteers are given that book to help us diagnose ourselves when we are out at our site. The book said that you should treat a patient with a high fever by having them remove all their clothes. So I decided to do that. Then I went back to reading the book, and decided that I must have malaria, given all my other symptoms. I called the Peace Corps nurses a few hours later, and they did not think that I had malaria. The nurse told me to get some Cipro, so I did that and after I took it, I did start to feel better.
Later that day, I called Trent to try to get some sympathy. I said: “I’m on death’s door.” “You’re on death’s door?” “Yes, I’m very sick. I have a very high fever and chills.” “Well, you don’t sound very sick.” So, he was no help at all, and I called some other people for pity. Fortunately, Maggie, Megan, and Pierre came through for that, and did give me lots of sympathy. I´m feeling fine now. It figures that I would get deathly ill during my last weeks in Ecuador!
I am going to try to be good about posting during my last days here, because I figure my life will probably not be as interesting when I´m living back in the U.S. =) I´ll probably mostly be posting pictures of babies!
