A Teacher's Ruminations

This is a short week for schools here in the mountains of Ecuador. We just celebrated Carnival weekend, a four-day holiday that looks nothing like the famed Rio celebration or New Orleans' Mardi Gras. Even though there are parades in many cities, this is primarily a time when people head to the beach. We too made our way to the coast but rather than go straight to the beach, we stopped in the port city of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city. Although our trip got off on the wrong foot – we missed our flight and instead of the typical 6 ½ hour drive, it took us nine hours in total because there was bumper to bumper traffic on the Andes mountain range, something I’ve never experienced in all my years of living here – the rest of our time in my husband’s birth city went well. Fortunately Guayaquil was relatively empty. Driving around was a breeze. No lines for anything. Well, actually, that’s not true. There was an hour-long line for a special make-it-yourself popular ice...