I've adopted another dog! Or rather, he's adopted me. He followed Samina and I home about a month ago, and never left. I call him Buster, because the first thing I said to him was, "You'd better stay away from my dog, buster, or else!". I'm glad he didn't listen to me.
A few weeks ago I attended an "inter-parish encounter" in Quito, along with members of the local Nono government. All of the rural parishes in the Quito Canton advertised their best features for two days, with a show Saturday night involving dance numbers from each parish. About 30 people from Nono attended, which was about 15 more than were expected. We stayed at a camp run by a couple from Holland. Each parish had their own cabin. Unfortunately, we were not informed beforehand that blankets were not provided. In order not to freeze to death, we borrowed the costumes from the theater group and wore them as pj's.
We were the warmest bunnies there!
I have now experienced an authentic quincieniera, and it lived up to all of my expectations; food, drink, dogs, and dancing. The invitations stated the party would start at 6, then I found out that there was a Mass at 7 which came before the actually party. Of course, the Mass didn't start until 7:45. The ceremony was lovely, so much so that a local mutt decided to drop in. He checked out the priest, the alter, the birthday girl, then headed back out on his rounds. At one point I found myself humming "the Sound of Silence", which didn't make any sense until I realized the priest was singing a hymn (or something...) to the melody of "the Sound of Silence". Afterwards we walked the block to the community center, which was decked out in pink and white balloons and streamers. We danced, we ate, we danced some more, and sometime around 2am I decided to call it a night. A very good night.
On Nov. 2 Ecuadorians celebrate the "Dia de los Difuntos", or Day of the Dead. They eat colada morada (a hot thick drink made from rasberries with chunks of fruit- it's supposed to look like blood) and guaguas de pan ('bread babies'), and some visit the cemetery to pay respects to the deceased. My landlady's entire family visited for the weekend, and the house was overflowing with people. Her daughter made an enormous pot of colada morada, and we ate nothing but bread babies and drank colada for two days.
