List

Things That Rule in Ecuador
1) The value of the American dollar: I bought an unwrapped block of brown sugar and a little bottle of rum for 3.75, seven bananas for 35 cents total, from my friend Alonso, whose drunk friend asked me to marry him tonight and divorce him in the morning, and about a pound of butter, wrapped as a stick in a plastic bag, for 75 cents. I came home and made bananas foster for dinner.

2) Recogando las babosas: Collecting slugs. This is to be done in the morning by overturning wet planks among the beds in the garden and putting the slugs in a jar to feed to the chickens. There are these super awesome blck flat slugs that look like petroleum and move like it, too. I honestly don´t know why but it freaks m out when the slugs climb up and start coming out of the jar. Feels like an attack. Milagros helps me with slug duty.

3) Milagros: is 4. She yammers at me in completely incomprehensible 4-year-old Spanish. She also has the cutest damn outfits I´ve ever seen. And the cutest eyes. And the cutest smile. And the cutest hairdos. Today she told me she loved me and I almost cried I work with her mom in the garden.

4) All the fresh vegetables I can eat growing in my backyard: All the fresh vegetables I can eat growing in my backyard. Also fresh milk and eggs.

5) The climate: Dry, cool, cloudy.

6) The animals: There´s livestock everywhere just grazing. We have a burro who is white, takes dust baths in the road, and brays till he´s asthmatic. Also there are dogs everywhere. I mean, I went into a resteraunt and there was a dog lying under the table and no one cared.

7) Complete disregard for safety: The food vendors on the street. The people riding in the backs of pickup trucks barreling down the cliffside highway at 60mph. The dogs in resteraunts. The theifs who will rob you blind (I´ve been lucky knock wood). The five year olds walking around by themselves. Drinking on streetcorners. The men hanging out the doors of the buses yelling Quito or Otavalo to see if anyone wants to get on.

8) The buses: Super cheap, will pick you up at any point on the road, and drop you off anywhere. They also have ultra-violent movies in Spanish showing and they usually have little curtains on the windows and pictures of Che on the dash. Some play raggaeton instead of movies. At longer stops, venders get on to sell snacks and drinks.

9) The mountains: I cannot begin to say how breathtakingly unreal the Panamerican mountains are. I am in love.

10) No one is stressed: Ever.

11) Bromance: Really the only woman I have regular contact with is Gimena, whom I work with in the garden. She is the coolest ( her husband, Luis, who operates a bakery from the house, and her brothers, who come to stay with her in the weekends, are also unbelievably hospitable and kind and patient. We went to Otavalo yesterday, which has the biggest market of food, clothes, and jewelry in Ecuador. Amilca, this 21 year old guy, followed me around my shopping spree protecting the gringa so she didn´t get robbed blind). Other than Gimena and of course, Milagros, it´s me and the guys.

12) The fried chicken: rules.

13) Tabacundo: the local town, a 7-minute, 15 cent busride away, where I get internet, fruit, grains, beans, sugar, pan de coco (a doughnut sprinkled with coconut shavings. I buy it mainly for the gooey milk pudding in the center.) I am meeting shopkeepers and it is safe for me to walk around alone at night. Locals describe it as one big family (of 3,000).

Stay tuned for things that do not rule in Ecuador (preview: 1) the keyboards- my fingers are dying here!)