Sunday, November 20, 2011

The past few days and the Baptism

Thursday and Friday I took over one of the sections of the chemistry class. They are one of the better sections I think so they did pretty well so far. Tomorrow I take over another one and by the end of the week I'll have them all so I'm looking forward to that. This week is only a four day week because we have Friday off for Thanksgiving. This is the first time the school has given them a day off for it and we are pretty much the only school that does it because no one here celebrates Thanksgiving, unless some of the family is from the States or something. My family isn't going to do anything but for Meghans family its still a big deal.. so it just depends I guess. They are having a big potluck lunch for us on Thursday at the school for Thanksgiving. I think they give us the day off because half the staff is American. Last Thursday me and Peter played basketball with some of them again and then Friday we went out bowling with a bunch of them and their spouses so that was fun. They are all really easy to get along with and are a good time. The place we went was interesting.. it had like 10 lanes and then a room of pool tables and ping pong tables and was kinda in the middle of no where but with all of us there it was fine. Saturday was the baptism. There were people here flying around getting everything prepared at like 7 am. The food that was catered in had to be prepared yet so they just took over the kitchen and garage to make everything. The church was in the compound where we live and we went there at like 1130. It started at 12 and pretty much the priest just starts talking otherwise I wouldn't have known it was starting because some people sit, some stand, and some sit or stand on the sides of the church instead of the pughs. The church is really small and there were only probably 30 people there.. the rest came later. The service was about an hour, I didnt understand much of it and its a little different than a baptism in the States. The priest talks and some other people talked. We sang one song. Sometimes the priest kneels, sometimes we had to kneel.. even though not everyone did. About halfway through we had to shake peoples hands and say something and Alba came around to give everyone a hug. Thats when I thought it was done but it wasnt.. so not really sure what happened. They covered Rafiella's head in water and she didnt really like it.. but only cried for a couple minutes and then was fine again. Afterwards we went back to the house for the food. I sat with Juanfrancisco, their cousin Michelle who knows English really good which was nice, two of their other cousins, and an uncle who also knew English pretty good. First they came around with bread, sausage, champagne, and some other drink that I forget what it was called but it had some chopped up fruit in in some sort of sweet corn I guess.. they served everything to you. Then they came with a plate for dinner. On one plate it was a pork chop, chicken leg, two different sausages.. one wasnt very good.. and a potato. There was also salad and some sort of cheese sauce to put on the potato and a really good hot sauce to put on everything. Then they came around with a small steak and more sausage if you wanted it. It was all really good and had a lot of flavor. After that they brought the cake out which was carrot cake and was really good along with ice cream with strawberries. I was soo full afterwards. We got done eating at like 330 or something and then just hung out the rest of the day. Some people stayed until 10. It got kinda boring towards the end because everyone just sat around and talked and I couldnt understand most of them so me and David and some of the cousins played XBox for a while which helped pass the time. Overall it was good though. Today everyone was pretty lazy and I slept in which was nice because I kinda have a cold. I went with Juanfrancisco and Santiago to the mall later in the afternoon because they needed something and then we got something to eat and just drove around for a little bit. Then Santiagos brother aunt and mom came over like they did last Sunday and we got Papa Johns pizza. After they left Juanfrancisco took me to get some tea that is supposed to make you feel better because he kinda has a cold to but everywhere we went was closed. Annd we stopped by the place where David was playing soccer just for a second because Juanfrancisco thought it would embarrass him and be funny.
The pictures of the baptism are not very good... Im not much of a photographer.. which is also probably why a lot of them are blurry.  But their cousin Michelle took a lot of good ones I think so I'll try to get them from her soon and put them up. There are not many pictures of the game because only Meghan took her camera. Next week Friday we are leaving for Banos over Thanksgiving break... its a small town to the South of Quito but there are a lot of things to do there I guess. There's an active volcano, some cool mountain biking trails, rafting, waterfalls, and hot spring pools so that should be fun... even though I will miss the turkey, family, and Zeeland West at Ford Field! Go Dux!

Heres the link to the pictures.
http://s1185.photobucket.com/albums/z347/cooperky/soccer%20game%20and%20some%20of%20baptism/

2 comments:

  1. Hi buddy,
    What a beautiful baby. Can't wait to meet her. Your picturs turned out fine. So proud of you.
    Love ya,
    Mom

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  2. Hi Kyle,
    I'm a friend of your mom's and I work with Rhonda Wilson. I teach Spanish and I've traveled in South America before but I think it's so cool that you're student teaching in Ecuador! Hope you have a great experience!! :)

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