Weekend Update

Friday the Teen Center hosted its first movie night, screening I Am Legend, or Soy Leyenda in Spanish. We ended up with 7 kids, which was a little disappointing, but much of that was probably due to the early time and the rain that began as the kids were supposed to arrive at the library (which means they still had about 30 minutes to travel). Hopefully our next movie night, in two weeks on the 16th, will benefit from a later start time and more attendance.

Saturday Chet and I went to our first soccer (futból) game. We are now proud members of the Ruminhaui Sports Club (RSC) football team. The game was just up the road from out house, between Puentes 3 & 4 (all the bridges are numbered; we live close to Puente 7). After a slow start, RSC pulled out a 3-2 win over the blue and grey Hyundai (??) team. I know some of you are surprised to hear I'm on a soccer team, especially since I've only played on an intramural team in college (bet you didn't know that either), but rest assured I didn't play this past weekend, only watched, as the place that was supposed to make our uniforms ran out of material (white and blue, basic, no?). Instead, Chet and I cheered from the sides, thanking God that we got to see what we're getting ourselves into for the next 4 months. After watching the whole game, we feel good about our ability to hang in with the Ecuadorians.

In addition to Chet and me, Sarah, Krysta, Haley, and Jackie are joining the women's RSC team. They had a practice Sunday: it lasted 3 hours, complete with yelling from their coach to one of the new players to "just stand there be big!" and a visual uniform fitting that resulted in two of the women being told they should wear the same uniform sizes as Chet (just plain wrong). Luckily, the women's coach, Patricia, is the wife of Raul, our contact for the team, and always goes to our game, so I'm sure any advice will get passes on to us, in one form or another.

I fared much better Sunday, reading The Godfather (I've been trying for 4+ years) and meeting our neighbor one street up. Marcia has 4 kids in their 20s or early 30s, of which we got to meet 3; she also has a basset named Paco. After a hot fruit drink and bread (during which more and more people showed up), the all of us played Jenga, during which time we had lots of conversations in Spanglish and were invited to Byron's (a boyfriend) 25th birthday celebration in Quito Wednesday. Hooray for networking! (With Guayaquil's Independence Day Friday and Ecuador's World Cup qualifier game Saturday, this week looks to be a good one.) The evening ended with all of them (Marcia's 3 children and their 2 friends) walking us home, kissing cheeks, and giggling about our new friends.