Angie got in last night. Our landlords were kind enough to take us to the airport to pick her up. When we got there at 11:45, however, to our horror, she was waiting in the international arrivals area. Her plane had arrived 20 minutes early. Who´d have known? We fit the four of us – Will, Eileen, Angie, and me – into the landlords´ toyota camry. Marlene and Luis both came along for the ride, so on the way home, six of us were stuffed into the car, a number disorienting enough to cause Eileen to get her fingers caught in between the door and the dashboard when I closed it.

We of course didn´t get to bed very early, and consequently, we were all suffering when we had to get up at 6:00 this morning to go to the airport for our Galapagos flight. Everything went smoothly, but in Quito, we discovered that we´d be on the tour with about 15 – 20 5th-grade kids — kids who proved to be pretty obnoxious when, for example, we were getting off the bus that had taken us from the airport to the ferry, and one of the overanxious little tykes exclaimed,”Chuta! Por esa mochila!” (roughly, “geez, this backpack is in the way!”) He continued trying to push by us in the two-foot wide bus aisle after I had picked up the backpack in question.

Our guides here don´t speak much English; Angie and Will are pretty much the only ones who don´t understand Spanish — though Will´s doing pretty good actually. I´ve been translating for Angie whenever I can afford to stop concentrating fully on the understanding the guides myself. At lunch today, which immediately followed our arrival in Puerto Ayora, the guides gave us an exhaustive list of rules to follow (thanks 5th graders) and told us about our schedule for the day. We´d be going to the Charles Darwin Research Station.

Once there, we saw some iguanas and baby tortoises in zoo-like open-air enclosures and we saw some massive tortoises more or less roaming free. It´s true, you can go right up to them and pretty much touch them, though you´re not supposed to. You´re also not supposed to take pictures with a flash. Nonetheless, one gringo-looking woman, taking pictures just before our tour arrived, violated the rule. Our guide said, “no flash!” to which she replied, “there is no flash!” and then she proceeded to take a picture with her flash. She and her husband were pretty salty about being reprimanded. “That´s why people don´t like Americans,” Angie observed. Exactly.

After the tour of the research station, we stopped at a small rocky beach for an optional hour of swimming and/or relaxing in the shade. Will and I went in; Will brought his snorkeling mask. I tried it out – a little reluctantly – but fell in love. There were so many fish, and they too, like all the animals in the Galapagos, were pretty unafraid of humans. It made the ocean much less intimidating.

Well, we’re in the Galapagos. I plan on posting several days’ worth of blogs when we get back to Quito. The trip has been great so far, though it just took a turn for the strange. You’ll have to wait, though, to hear all the news. This place is very cool, but very expensive, and we’re gonna get off the internet before our money runs out. Will and Angie are enjoying themselves. They’ve been a lot of fun. Today, we’re gonna go on another yacht tour; we’ll be able to do some kayaking and snorkeling on a different island. We’re taking tons of pictures and we’ll be posting those as soon as we sift through and decide on the most post-worthy. We’ll be back in Quito either tomorrow or on Wednesday. Apparently, it’s very easy (and free) to change your flight from the Galapagos, so we have some flexibility. In the meantime, sorry for the delay. There’s lots to say, just no time or money to say it.

On Tuesday, I was at the Plaza de las Americas trying to do some internet stuff. Unfortunately, their network wasn’t working too well, so I ended up spending about an hour and a half getting nothing done. I wanted to post some pictures and load several web pages to read later at home, but all I was able to do was post a blog. I was ready to throw chairs.

Last weekend, when Eileen and I were at the Plaza, we witnessed a young boy carrying a balloon. He must have been two or three. And out of nowhere, the balloon popped in his face. The acoustics in the plaza are such that a balloon pop is a very loud sound. We watched as the boy, pretty much reactionless, waited for his father to give him another balloon. There were no tears, no scream, no whining. It was amazing. “That wouldn’t happen in America,” Eileen said. I nodded.

Tuesday’s frustration with the Plaza network made me think back to this boy. And then I looked around on my walk to the metrobus. I observed the woman who gave me my metro ticket. I observed the people on the bus. I shuffled through my memories of Ecuadorian transactions in restaurants, shops, markets. And set against the backdrop of my own seething anger, the Ecuadorian culture’s lack of anger was even more pronounced.

Later on Tuesday, I witnessed a man on a bus eating an apple. He had it cut in two, and he dropped one half of it on the disgusting bus floor. The way he picked it up and brushed it off, I thought for sure he was going to eat it. It was so nonchalant and reactionless. But he just held on to it until he was finished with the clean half and then he threw the dirty half into a little plastic bag and took it with him off the bus. I assumed he was going to throw it out. He certainly wasn’t about to eat it as is.

“What causes that?” I said to Eileen later, when I was sharing some of these thoughts with her. What aspect of the culture is it that makes people so much less reactionary and angry with one another? On busses I have clocked people in the head multiple times with my backpack. I don’t hear any hey watch its or excuse me’s even.

Our one theory is that the worldview down here is more one of pre-determination, so they don’t waste emotion on things that are meant to happen. But I don’t know if I fully buy that theory. Maybe it has something to do with the community-oriented culture. After all, anger is a selfish emotion. What if you’re simply not as self-involved and absorbed?

Well, Will got here last night, but due to some unforeseen circumstances, Angie changed her flight to Thursday. So she’ll be getting in sometime Thursday night. In the meantime, we’ve shown Will around just a bit and I’ve tried to shake the increased stomach discomfort I felt this morning as a consequence of my short night of sleep.

In the busses, I’ve been noticing just how ridiculous Will looks with his excessive height. He doesn’t fit in the chairs; his head is almost touching the ceiling. It’s nice to have company.

Yesterday, we had some pretty cold weather and a hail storm. Here’s a picture of me holding a handful of hail, which was pretty cold.

Eileen and I are both feeling a little yucky. I woke up yesterday with an actual headache. I never get headaches, and if I do, the cure is simply to drink lots of water. Works every time. Except yesterday. Man, my sympathies go out to people who regularly suffer headaches. They are not pleasant. Of course, they’re better than throwing up, but still. I’m really glad I am fortunate enough to not have to deal with them often. I taught class yesterday morning, but pretty much suffered through it. This is “semana santa” in Ecuador and the kids are on vacation, which gives the entire city an air of hope; everyone will be off work beginning mid-day Thursday, and there’s a lot less traffic without all the kids being bussed to school. It’s nice. Having a glimmer of hope makes suffering through teaching a two-hour class more tolerable.

My sister Angie and brother Will are flying in tonight, which is an even stronger source of hope. So despite Eileen’s daily stomach discomfort and my – well, I don’t know what exactly I have – we’re doing just fine. We’ll be going to the Galapagos on Friday with the siblings; it’s a five day/four night trip. So we’ll be in the Galapagos for Easter.

Yesterday, I took it pretty easy. I finished Kavalier and Clay, which is probably on the top ten list for “best books I’ve read.” I also started on my new book, Oracle Night by Paul Auster. And between reading sessions, I wasted a lot of time playing Fable, a video game with very sparse “save” points, so when your character dies, you have to repeat 20 – 30 minutes of gameplay. I was just about to punch the concrete wall and then the hail started. It was really noisy.

I looked at it in the same way I was looking at the day overall; on the one hand, it brought with it some hope – hope in that it reminded us of home in its snow-like appearance, hope that maybe no one would show up to my night class because of it, hope that maybe Quito would look snow-covered – but on the other hand, it brought with it some despair. I would have to get to class in spite of the flooding, icy streets. And since it is March, back home snow is not quite the source of joy it was in December. In fact, it kinda sucks. Amen?