Thanksgiving Part 2

Before we knew we were going to have a Peace Corp Thanksgiving, Kyle and I made plans to head to Cuenca, about 4 hours away, for the weekend to have Thanksgiving dinner with Gabby, Kelsey, and Brett, 3 other girls on our program.  Kyle and I had a thrilling Friday night at Supermaxi, the Ecuadorian equivalent of Walmart, and got all of the groceries that didn't need to be refrigerated/wouldn't spill everywhere on the bus.  Saturday we hopped on a bus, and got to Cuenca midafternoon, just in time to start cooking.

Kelsey was living in some woman's guest house, so we slept and cooked there.  The house was so nice- it put Hotel Metropolitan to shame (although that isn't really saying too much).  We made a huge mess of the kitchen, and kept bothering Kelsey's host mom for things like milk and pans, but in the end we made a delicious Thanksgiving dinner.  We had turkey cutlets, stuffing (kind of), corn casserole, mashed potatoes, banana bread, guacamole and chips, banana cream pie, and apple pie that night for dinner...and then again the next day for breakfast and lunch. 

Sunday was census day here in Ecuador, so the government ordered that everyone had to stay in their house from 7am to 5 pm.  I don't know how well that would go over in the US-being ordered to stay inside by the government, but it's Ecuador and almost anything goes.  We spent census day locked in the guest house sitting at our computers writing our papers.  I finished the longest paper I have ever written in my life- 26 pages on mining in Ecuador.  What's more is that it's in Spanish.  Yikes.  It wasn't exactly a fun day, but it had to be done, and atleast we were in it together. The weekend overall was a good time- it was really good to see the three Cuenca kids, and it made me excited for next week's reunion in Quito.