Back at the Arupo, I unpacked everything I had carted from San Miguel as well as the Quito bag and scattered it the length of the room. I spent hours crisply packing a bag of items selected to stay in Quito and a trunk of items to come with me to El Tambo. I took an antihistamine for the mysterious allergy that had sprung up in me immediately upon arrival in Quito. The antihistamine didn't make me sleepy, but it completely erased my mind of all thoughts. Around 7:30, I left with Ela to stroll Mariscol reading menus in front of the multitudinous restaurants while nearly 100% of the other PCT's went bar hopping in large disorganized groups where they presumably exercised mob mentality and were irritating beyond belief

      I was chagrined to find that everyone at the Arupo was getting very dressed up for the proceedings. I hadn't brought anything that dressy and didn't expect anyone else to take a pointless formality like 'swearing in' so seriously. Actually, I don't really understand getting “dressed up”. It struck me as absurd to see all these people that had been kicking around together in the humblest of settings for the past 3 months, talking about their loose bowl movements while marinating in their own lack of hygiene, now taking a single symbolic event and donning costumes for it without any sense of irony to speak of. The event was attended only by ourselves plus the ambassador, which we had all met before- so who were we getting dressed up for? Is this another chromosome I'm missing that all you humans have? I like nice clothes; I'll be the first to admit it. My closet at home would give Imelda Marcos pause. But those things are me. I wear them when kicking around the house alone, I wear them when going out to eat. I do not break out a special superman costume complete with cape and show up to 'special' events saying, “Ha! You didn't know I was super, DID you? That's right! Secretly, while I was complaining about how much work driving out to pick up fast food is, and yes, even while I was forgetting my computer was still on line all day and sometimes completely misunderstanding things people say and occasionally tripping up the stairs at the mall and going through check out lines without my credit cards- YES! all this time I was secretly super. VERY super you might say. Do non super people wear costumes like this?” Oh c'mon, you've got to admit that's sort of the mentality at work here. And why does being super usually employ some kind of a cape? Doesn't anyone question anything.

      So I did the best I could with the few nice clothes I had on hand and attempted to at least blend in. Peace Corps vans then came and picked the PCTs up in installments from their respective hostels and dropped them off at the ambassadors ridiculously phat-assed pad.

      The swearing-in proceedings took place in an area of folding chairs beneath a tent-like covering in the yard. There were a few speeches made by an assortment of speech makers and then David Lewis played and sang a Spanish song on his guitar that had nothing at all to do with anything but was killer in the extreme and I think all would agree was the highlight of the day. Then we were each called by name to walk up to the front to receive a certificate from the Ambassador and have our pictures taken with her. Um… a certificate? Where do you people come up with this stuff? The certificate reads that I have successfully completed 12 weeks of training in Animal Production. Then, as if in anticipation of skeptics refusing to believe I had actually achieved such soaring heights, there are 3 signatures at the bottom. Are these intended to communicate “Oh yes, dear nay sayer. You may be thinking he just went out and had this certificate made up, but we 3 total strangers declare, by the authority of our completely unforgable signatures, that not only did he complete 12 weeks of training, but he is super, as well.” I suppose I am supposed to hang this up in my house and hope people ask me about it or something? Hey, can I get a certificate that says I successfully completed a year's worth of crappy paperwork and jumping through hoops to get into the Peace Corps?

      After the ceremony, fresh brewed coffee washed away my every last irritation with mankind. We were served juice and some kind of tamale looking thing. All of it was good. As there were no tables to eat at and only 2 arms standardly equipped on the human body standing around talking and eating became something of a freak show. The event ended abruptly and we were all taken back to our hostels.

      Later there was a cookout at the Peace Corps headquarters that was attended by a bunch of PCVs (uh, actually by this point we were all PCVs) that had shown up to hang out with us. As I am antisocial and had other dinner plans, I showed up very late. Not long after I arrived, the not-recently-sworn-in-volunteers interrupted everyone's games and conversations in order to arrange an impromptu meeting. They just couldn't resist. The Peace Corps loves to arrange meetings. Micah, well warmed up and thoroughly involved in hackysacking said, “What the hell are they doing? This is a picnic?” I looked at Micah with a big grin and asked him if he wanted to take a walk. Hell yeah he did. And with that, we left the picnic and didn't return until after it was over.

      Upon my return, a number of us walked to a nearby movie theater where we bought tickets to see X-men 2. Then, with the 10 minutes we had to kill, ran over to the nearby globalized fast food restaurant (which shall not receive publicity on this site) where we stuffed ourselves into divine delirium.

      After the movie, I and another volunteer went price shopping for appliances. From atop a catwalk over the street, we saw a gang of youths (all of whom were wearing various articles of orange clothing, for some reason) attempting to mug a woman. I thought they were just playing around until someone began yelling for help. The gang scattered. They headed in the direction of the catwalk's staircase but then also began scattering into the street just before disappearing beneath the catwalk. We couldn't tell if they were coming up to where we were or if we would run right into them if we headed down the opposite staircase, or both. We opted to head down the opposite staircase, arriving at the other side with the gang, but they were headed away from us about 70 feet distant. We then went to a nearby mall but it closed 10 minutes later. Bah! We cabbed back to the Arupo.

      But I had no idea any of this was going on at the time. I took the trolley back to the Arupo and joined everyone in front of the TV to watch the movie gladiator for the 10th time, but then the power went out and the house emptied as people sought entertainment elsewhere. Why , you may ask, was a house full of PCVs “seeking entertainment elsewhere” when they were supposed to be heading to their sites? Because no one was particularly pressed about getting to their sites on time because there was no point in doing so. A few people were doing the same thing I was doing and traveling to other people's sites to help with bags or just to check the place out for kicks.

      A few hours later, Ela and 2 others showed up at the Arupo and we piled all our stuff into 2 cabs which then caravanned to the bus terminal. We were all headed pretty much to the same place and so wanted to make sure we all got on the same bus together. But the 2 cabs got separated in traffic and Ela and I wound up dropped off directly at the busses themselves while the other people were dropped off at the front door. Our taxi driver flagged down a bus that was leaving and we loaded all the baggage directly from the cab to the bus. We didn't even have to cart all the baggage through the bus terminal. We were pretty pleased with our luck. However, this was not the same bus the others would be taking. Unbeknownst to us, they would be waiting for us, rather worried, in the bus terminal for the next hour.

      I had been to Baeza on my tech trip, but the scenery along the way was no less stellar than it had been the first time. Long waterfalls fell from great heights, clouds did strange and animated things among the mountains, everything was green and eerie and as beautiful as anyplace could be. We decide along the way that after we dropped her stuff off in Baeza, she would ride out with me out to my site to help carry stuff and check out the beach.

      After we got all of her stuff into her kick-ass, already furnished little wooden cabin with a ridiculous view of surrounding mountains- so filling me with envy that I wanted to puke- we pulled out the map. W noticed that we could take the fast way (back out of the mountains and straight south down the flat “costa” to Guayaquil) or the incredibly beautiful way (straight south down the Andes popping out at Guayaquil). We opted for route 2. Then we decided that as long as we were already passing through Riobamba, we would be fools not to at least spend a day there and check the place out. I picked up the phone to call Julio to tell him I would now be 2 days “late”.

      Spanish, when your comprehension sucks, is very difficult over the phone. I think it must be because you cant lip read and follow facial expressions. Anyway I couldn't understand much of what Julio was saying, but I got that he had been confused and had called my APCD (my boss) who now knew I was missing, was worried and wanted me to give her a call. I told Julio I would call him back in 5 minutes. I hung up and told Ela I was nabbed and to try to think of a way out of this jam. It was 9pm and I was 13 hours away from my site. There was no way to slip into my site before calling my APCD and if I tried to wait until I did arrive at my site to call, she surely would have called back to see if I had turned up, at which time she would learn that I was still missing. I also couldn't co-orchestrate a scam with Julio because we couldn't communicate, which for us is nothing new.

      Just as my bus was getting ready to leave, I called Julio back to tell him I was leaving Quito. He told me if I was just now leaving Quito at 3:15pm, I would be arriving in Guayaquil too late to catch another bus out of the city. He asked why I didn't take a direct bus from Quito to Salinas. I told him the tickets were already bought and I wasn't going to waste the money I had paid for them. I would just have to get a hotel in Guayaquil.

      Guayaquil is currently off limits to PCVs because it is considered so dangerous. I imagine that if just being in Guayaquil doesn't sit well with the Peace Corps, they probably wouldn't much like to find out I was staying the night there. In light of what I just said, I should probably not even tell you guys that after checking into a $10.50 hotel room, we walked all around downtown Guayaquil after midnight looking for a phone to call Julio from. And for that reason, it shall remain my little secret.

The bus we found dropped Ela, my trunk and I off in a cloud of dust on the side of the road in El Tambo. I knew I was supposed to stay with an old woman named Irsi upon my arrival, but that since I only knew Julio in town, had to go there first to learn more. We hoisted up the trunk and headed in the direction of Julio's.

      The sun was blazing hot and it was difficult even to keep one's squint open. We rounded the corner onto Julio's street and found it abandoned, as one was likely to find it when the sun was high. I indicated to Ela which house we were headed to. A minute later, a squinting kid moseyed around the corner of that house. I told Ela to get ready because the kid was about to sound the alarm. The kid took off running back the way he had come. An instant later, a different person came running out of the front door, hit the brakes when he saw us and ran back in. Then various people ran in and out of the house with more people running up from around the side of the house. Eventually, all were gathered outside around the front door in a state of great agitation. They were waiting for Julio. Julio came walking directly out of the front of the house, through the crowd and across the stretch of sandy street still separating us. I dropped the trunk and shook his hand with an ear to ear grin. He grabbed Ela's side of the trunk and we walked towards the house. Everyone came running off the porch and gathered around. Kids were jumping up and down. I shook everyone's hand and we all smiled and talked simultaneously. It was quite the homecoming and I was glad someone else was there to witness it. Julio announced that when he talked to my boss she said I could stay with him upon my arrival if I wanted to. The decision was easy. We carried my bag into his house. Inside, Julio produced a fax that my counterpart had received from the Peace Corps. It was in English. He handed it over and waited for me to announce what it said. I told him it said I was in trouble for not showing up on time and that it said I was not allowed to leave my site for 3 months except to buy things I needed in neighboring cities. Then Julio, Ela and I sat down to eat. Julio asked Ela point blank where she was born as part of the first sentence he said to her. She said her parents were from India, but she was born in the States. Julio was delighted with this and said he had never met anyone from that part of the world and the 2 proceeded to monopolize the whole conversation throughout lunch. Then we took the obligatory tour of the town with Julio and then made our escape to Libertad, using a weak excuse about needing to talk with the other volunteers there. We bussed straight to the mall. After touring the mall and grocery shopping, we walked to the beach to eat our freshly purchased Cocoa Pebbles. Then we cabbed to the TransEsmereldas bus terminal and put Ela on the overnight bus back to Quito for 9 bucks.

      Suddenly shopping in Libertad sounded like a really good idea. I hosed myself off and headed towards the bus stop. En route, a porch full of borrachos intercepted me and I took my place among the senselessness. A few a nearly fell off the porch when I could not only understand what they said, but also respond in shakey Spanish. They yelled “He understands! He understands!” Then they would stop and listen theatrically to my responses and once more begin roaring. This I found very amusing. The tattered plastic cup passed my way. Everyone competed for my attention and the porch thundered with high-spiritedness. An hour or so later, I stumbled off the porch completely borrachoed and caught a blurry bus that ground to a halt in font of me. On the bus, I ran directly into the town president, who shook my hand, no doubt noted my condition at 9am and then hopped himself off the bus.