Carnival

The weekend of the 18/19^th February was carnival. Everyone had the Monday and Tuesday off work. The tradition, which I had been warned about, was to throw water over each other. Didn’t matter if you knew them! This tradition has been extended to spraying each other with foam from a spray can or painting each other with black, green or red paint.

I did not have any plans for carnival. I have learnt that plans never go to plan so it is better to keep an open mind!

After seeing Victoria off at the airport, I had planned to head back to Santo Domingo, on that Friday afternoon. However, most people in the Country had decided that these 4 days off work would be a good time to go to the beach. Literally everyone descended on the roads towards the coast. Buses were full and there were no free spaces back to Santo until the Sunday. I was stranded, literally, in Quito with my boss for the weekend!

It turned out to be a good time to catch up with Quito friends and to get out of the hot, humid City of Santo Domingo. Quito felt so cold at night!

I eventually got home on Sunday afternoon. I was greeted by the heat of Santo, followed by intense rain and eating sugar cane with my family. It was good to be home!

On the Tuesday I went out for the day with my family and some other young people. I had no idea where we were going. A river or the countryside had been mentioned. So,  in preparation, I packed a bag full of anything I might need… swimming things, change of clothes, bug spray etc. It was a really good day. We went to a swimming pool in the Countryside. We watched the boys play football, ate green mangos (picked from the tree) with juice from the lemons (picked from the tree) and salt (borrowed from the shop owner). We finished the day with a super long (and violent) game of water polo. It was a good, fun carnival day with my Ecuadorian family! The day was finished off with pancakes (for shrove Tuesday) with the other English missionaries.