Looking for a job

Hi everyone,
Yay, finally back with another post! I didn´t realize it had been so long since I last wrote...but I´ve been back in Quito for over a week! The rest of our Loja trip was great; we had fun exploring the little town of Catacocha, which is much more beautiful than Paty had ever made it sound. Nearly all of its buildings are historical and it has beautiful views into the valleys all around the town. The only bad part was the bus ride--two and a half hours each way, with scary roads and extremely loud Japanese action films blasting inside the bus. But it was worth it! Seeing Nick and Phoebe´s NGO office was also really cool, although the morning we went in there, this woman who works there got her laptop stolen out of the office...and apparently Gabriel saw the culprit as he walked in the door, but, of course not realizing that he was a bad guy who was about to steal a laptop, didn´t give him a second thought until this woman discovered her laptop was gone. So Gabriel got to go on a little tour of the rest of the building and the street outside, in the hopes that he would spot the thief, but no such luck. Besides that, though, it was a rewarding day...we finished compiling this entire booklet, with photos and instructions, on how to construct a wood-burning stove. Nick and Phoebe think it´ll be a big help to pass out once they can get it published, so that was a satisfying way to thank them for their week of taking us around and showing us what they do.

We flew back to Quito the next morning, bright and early, and got back to Gabriel´s house by 10. I stayed on at Gabriel´s house until last Saturday morning, because his birthday was on Friday. We all went out to lunch--his whole family, me, and Lily. That was fun. Then the next morning was his MOM´S birthday, so I gave her my present (a little plastic man from CVS, who grows grass out of his head that looks like green hair...it might sound weird but I was sure she would like it and she did!!!) And then they took me and all my stuff over to the apartment.

It took a few days to totally get the routine over there. It´s unpredictable; some days the house will be full of people until past midnight, and other nights I´ll get home and nobody´ll be there, or if they´re there, they´re already asleep. But I really like everyone there. It´s two Ecuadorian guys, Daniel and Francisco (nickname Lobo), and one Czech girl, Pavla. They´re a little more laidback than what I´m used to, but that´s fine; it´s also relaxing in some ways to go home at night without feeling obligated to start up excited conversations with everyone who´s there. My room is really nice, with huge windows looking out over the city and a private bathroom and shower (which now and then, like this morning, decides not to provide hot water... but in general it´s fine). The neighborhood is really nice and quiet, and there´s also a patio up on top of the apartment where we can go any time to read or write or whatever.

Most of all, it is great starting my own life here and not feeling dependent on Gabriel to figure out how my day´s going to go. I love leaving the house in the morning and making up my own mind about everything I want to do (maybe this seems obvious, but after spending a lot of time staying at Gabriel´s house over the last year, I had sort of forgotten that I could in fact negotiate Quito on my own). Either way I´ve been seeing Gabriel a lot, but I´ve also had time to do other stuff. The night before last I went out to dinner with Nicole (Macalester), who´s in Quito until mid-August, and that was great!

So that´s about it. Mom´s been asking me to take pictures of my apartment and my roommates, so I´ll do that soon and get them up here! In the meantime email me and let me know how you are! Take care

PS--Haha, okay, well I just realized I hadn´t even mentioned the title of this post. I´ve been looking for a job!!!! Looking really really hard!!! And I´m sure that something will eventually pan out, but it´s been a little hard in the last few days--I´ve left my resume in maybe 10 places--travel agencies, restaurants, cafes, bars--and am just waiting to get some calls back. Hopefully it´ll happen before too long.. Okay, more later.