Homework and Corn

What a great day! First day of classes went by super quickly - 5 hours of Spanish, but it felt like 2. Lots of homework, but also lots of time, yeah? After class, I met up with some of my friends in Santa Rosa, Sangolquí, where all of them live. Except me... :( I walked to Lisa's house and met her sister, and from there, the three of us walked to where Keely, Laura W, and Laura's brother was. The six of us walked all around Sangolquí.

We went to an outdoor market that looked like a typical outdoor market that sells all kinds of goods. Usually, Sundays and Thursdays are the golden days, where most of the people go to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. So we didn't get to see the market busy, but that's okay, because I wanted to take pictures; and with too many people, it's too dangerous to take pictures. All the girls from the group bought rain boots for our excursions to the Amazon Rain Forest and the Coast! I got really simple yellow rubber ones that I am in LOVE with. Me encantan las botas!! Hehe. We also bought this really good bread with chocolate swirls inside for 50 cents - almost everything you eat on the streets is that cheap. It's awesome.

We then went to this small area where there were painters and other artisans in front of this large Catholic church. The day was so gorgeous. The sun was shining, but there was a cool breeze once in a while so we weren't too hot or cold. It was the perfect day. We also visited the Monument of Rumiñahui, who was an Incan warrior/general that maintained the struggle against the Spanish conquerors during the Battle of Pichincha even after the death of Tupac Hualpa. Hehe this is actually very interesting to me because I learned about this in Spanish class last semester!! Sweet. Well, we took many pictures in a variety of combinations haha. And now I'm doing my Spanish homework. One of the assignments is to make up a story, and mine is so good that I really had to share it :) I'll write it in English for all y'all.

One day many years before the civilization and modernization of the U.S. Midwest, there was a family called Malloíz that consisted of a dad, a mom, and a beautiful daughter whose name was Amarí. Now this family was super poor; thus the father needed to work away from home in a small town in Hawaii. So only the mom and Amarí lived in their small house with almost always nothing to eat. A few miles from their town, there was a famous witch known to make people become super rich after following her advice. So one gloomy day, the mom left her house to go see the witch in order to receive some "words of wisdom." The witch told her that in order to become rich, she needs to cut off all her daughter's hair and sell it. Oh, good God - this was a big problem because Amarí's hair was the most beautiful thing anyone has ever seen. It was a bright yellow that shone like gold both in and out of the sun; and it was really long and luscious - so great that it could be on those Garnier Fructis commercials (I didn't write that in my homework haha). Everyone who saw her hair, both men and women, were jealous of her gorgeous, amazing hair. You get the point. The following night, Amarí's mother drank a lot of alcoholic beverages, and when she because super drunk, she slowly and silently stumbled into her daughter's bedroom. As she was sobbing to herself, she cut off all of Amarí's golden hair, and early the next morning, the mother left the house to sell her daughter's hair at the market. When Amarí work up, she was really surprised that she had no hair and began to weep. So devastated and depressed, she cried and cried everyday, covering herself up with one of her thin green blankets. Each following day, she would add another thin green blanket to cover her newfound "ugliness." And this is how corn was born.

The end!

With love from Selva Alegre,
Gina :)

PS: smugmug.com is updated! Link is now in the "About Me" section, too!!