While I was elsewhere testing, our odd and regularly infuriating Spanish teacher made Grace storm out of class, just as I had a few days earlier. Grace brashly returned a while later and asked me if I wanted to ditch the class I was sitting in to go to Santo Domingo. The teacher paused class while we abruptly walked out.

      We bussed into Santo Domingo and went straight to a restaurant Grace favors. Later, we bought a bunch of snacks at a store because I had skipped lunch due to the fact that I had found the Spanish teacher, 2 language testers and their driver sitting at my table when I came home to eat. I spotted a new tablecloth and knew fancy food was on the way. I pondered the conversations that might take place over lunch, and then turned on my heel and left the house hungry, vowing never to be caught without back up snacks again.

      Afterward, Grace, Sara, Talwaza Jason and I went into Santo Domingo to internet for an hour. Then Sara and I broke away to buy 3 more baby chicks and feed. Our intention had been to catch Grace and Jason on the bus home, but we missed them by mere minutes and ended up taking the bus from hell, whose unexplained dinkin' around made the bus ride home take 1.5 hours.

      Because the Peace Corps brass is heading to Quito today, Spanish class ended at 11:30am. The teacher caught a bus out of San Miguel and I went home to pack. A long while later, I emerged from my room, much to the surprise of EcuaMom and her daughter-in-law. They hadn't realized I was around and they immediately wanted to feed me lunch. I said that would be fine, but when they plunked a big bowl of soup down on the table, I made up an excuse about needing to check first with Grace to see if we were going to eat in town. I came back and told her we were, in fact, eating in town, even though there were no such plans.

      Around 2:30 pm, we bussed back to Santo Domingo. We ran into EcuaMom's kids and rode in their pickup truck all the way to my front door. EcuaMom was not at home. The EcuaKids had been on their way to feed EcuaDad and so they added me to the menu as well. We were fed giant empanadas.

      San Miguel was partying down. There had evidently been a cockfight earlier and now 2 large separate parties were in progress -one next door and one in the school. The crowd in front of the tienda was unusually large and boisterous (tip: if you do not learn a little profanity and/or the whorehouse lexicon, you will never know what the crowd of men in front of the tienda is talking about).

      Little Jaime from next door came over because when he had told me a few days earlier that the woman that had given birth to him and his 2 siblings was coming for a visit, I had told him I wanted to meet her. She was now here. Jaime's house was packed with partygoers. It was mayhem. A moment after I met his mom, she was absorbed back into the multitude. Jaime's grandma extended me an invitation to the party across the street, which had now grown incredibly festive. I accepted just to have an excuse to leave.

      Grace and I were washed out of the house in a torrent of excited kids but detoured sharply into my house without explanation. Grace soon left and I crashed out. A few hours later, I awoke when a large cockroach walked across my face. We had a vicious fight on my bed, but the perpetrator escaped unharmed. He was hiding out beneath my bed where I could neither kill him nor consider him safely out of the picture. I stood in the center of my room furious.