Twenty-eighth day- fiction.
Thursday was a day of realization. It seems like this realization should have come to me a long time ago, and it did, partially. But everything hit me like a brick wall on Thursday. It was only a couple things. In the morning, I got to the school and the kids were eating cookies for breakfast. It bothered me, not because kids shouldn't eat cookies for breakfast, but more because I knew that a lot of these kids probably couldn't afford a healthy breakfast. Later that day, I was startled once more by the fact that the custodian, Jesus, was pestering kids in order to take their lunch. There are a few factors here: 1) a lot of the kids don't get other food in the day, and if they do, it's probably not nutritious. 2) We hired a cook for the summer so that the kids could get food. 3) Jesus had "borrowed" money from some of the tutors before. 4) Jesus gets paid by us. This really got under my skin. And then the other tutors were sharing stories of getting hit on by the director of the school. At this point I was just plain disappointed. I was here, to try and help the lives of these kids. But what will happen when we leave? It's not like they have great mentors to look up to. They have little money, parents who have worries other than school, and adults who could care less about education. All of this I had somewhat known. But the fact that it was happening, right before my very eyes, to the kids I cared so much about. That killed me. But it also made me want to work harder. I had 2 more weeks to try and make positive, lasting impressions on their lives.Friday was a little more uplifting. We had class as usual, and then had a garbage clean up competition to show the kids the importance of cleaning. The kids climbed walls, fences, and jumped about in order to get the most amount of garbage. After the chaotic blur, we were dismissed from school early. When we left the school, 5 of us got ready to go on the bus for Quilotoa. The rest of our group decided to come in the morning. The bus ride was a fun talkative session until the last 30 minutes when I started to get carsick, but it wasn't too terrible. We got to the bus stop at Zumbahua, which is when our adventures really took off. A guy was waiting for us when we got out of the bus, and asked if we wanted to ride on the back of his pickup truck to get to a hostal in Quilotoa. With Bri feeling nauseous and the rest of us feeling cold and tired, we didn't have the energy to think about whether this decision was the best one. We got to the hostal, and after dropping our stuff off, went to dinner. The restaurant-esque place by the hostal was so quaint and lovely, and swarming with other gringos. This made us feel a little better about the way in which we got to the hostal. We ate, but couldn't muster up enough energy to be social with others except for Alex, who ended up sitting at a different table and making new friends. Not having enough energy to enjoy the live music playing in the restaurant, we walked back to our room, where we all came to the realization that we did not bring enough warm clothes. Everyone ended up making a fire and cuddling up in order to keep warm. It was so cold that we had to take blankets from the other beds, and cuddle up on 2 beds out of the 9 we had in our room. That night, our fire went out, our water went out, our light went out, and we were freezing. A lady came in and grabbed Alex, who had to climb a fence in order to turn on the electricity in our room. Even though none of us got comfortable sleep, it was a great adventure...one to remember and laugh about later.
The next morning, all of us awoke with a sore throat and little sleep. We woke up pretty much at the same time and decided to go to breakfast. All of us had trouble getting up, but we got out of bed, with the exception of Henry, who felt nauseous and sickly. We all ate a whole bunch, knowing we would have to hike for the rest of the day. After breakfast, Henry decided he was too sick to walk the loop, and decided to stay in. The 4 of us finally went to walk around the lake in the volcanic crater. The walk was windy and chilly, but totally worth it. The view was breathtaking. It is impossible to describe how fake everything looked around me. In the middle of cliffs and jagged edges sat this beautiful blue lake. We probably hiked about half of the loop and walked back. We went back to the hostal in order to get Henry. On the way we saw a mattress fall out of the back of a truck, which was pretty normal in comparison to everything that had happened in the last 24 hours. We got Henry, who was still feeling miserable, and went to lunch. We saw the rest of our TQP group there, but Caitlin was missing, due to the fact that she felt sick on the bus ride and had to stay at a hostal in Zumbahua. We ate our lunch, shared some stories, and then were on our way to Zumbahua. There, Henry decided to stay with Caitlin in the hostal because he felt sick. The 4 of us continued on our way to Latacunga, and then back to Quito. In a sleepy haze, we got back to our home, and had yummy leftover dinner.
This morning, I felt really energized due to the 11 hours of sleep I got. I relaxed and skyped with my mom and sister on the roof, showing off the beautiful weather and view here. I watched some True Blood with the others and relaxed some more. It is only 3 right now, but it looks like we will have a relaxing day at home today.
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