Wanna bet?

Anyel and I were invited to play on a volleyball team in a tournament at USFQ, and Thursday was our second game. We won last Thursday, but this week we were pretty distracted and lazy and lost in 2 games. I still had fun, and I'm really glad we're doing it. The volleyball instructors says we're the only two foreign students in the tournament, and he's excited that we were invited and came out to play.

After school on Thursday I went with Marcelo to meet Lupe and crew at Cecilia's house for a birthday celebration for Bebita, the youngest sister. All of the sisters and spouses and kids were there, and I was in a very playful mood. They found I had tickets for the Saturday game, so most of the conversation was centered around that. They laughed at my story about standing in line, then each proceded to warn me about taking nothing but raingear to the game. I made jokes about slipping in a cerveza or two under my poncho, wearing a Venezuela jersey instead of an Ecuador jersey, storming the field if Ecuador won, and selling my tickets to various family members for double the price. We each put in a dollar to be on the final score, which is a family tradition for most of the national games. There were lots of threats, many thrown napkins, and I held my own when Marcelo tried to convince Cecilia that my dollar was actually his. F-U-N. I felt like a part of the family, and confident because I was keeping up with the cross-table humor.

After THAT, Anyel and I found a great Cuban bar/restaurant with a fabulous live band and a bit of an older crowd. We danced in peace for quite a while before a couple of guys creeped us out enough that we were ready to leave, but we had a great time dancing to a different kind of beat. It was really fun to see 30-somethings dancing and really having a good time instead of the normal 20-somethings prowling and drinking more than their fair share of alcohol. We stopped at Xocoa, our favorite chocolate place, for a milkshake before we called it a night. Anyel was in a great mood the whole night, which made it much easier for me to relax and have an equally great time.

This morning we headed to the park with a ridiculously hard volleyball and hopes to find some polite, friendly people with which to play. We watched some very athetlic gentlement play for a few minutes before somebody approached us wanting to play, and then we joined in a game. Anyel and I were playing with an older man against three boys who seemed to be younger than we are. They made a $3 bet on the game, and our team mate was sooooo excited every time we did something well. We won, he got his money, and we moved on. We walked a little farther and found an empty court to bump around in, and not long after some other men approached us wanting to play. They were very friendly, and not obviously looking for something more than a good game of volleyball, so we talked a lot during the game. Each of them spoke english well, so they spoke a mix of both while we practiced our spanish. It started to rain a little bit toward the end of the game... so cool.

I love that we can go to the park and are almost guaranteed an invite to play. There are always lots of people doing very active things and willing to play with new people. Because we're white and women we usually draw a bit of a crowd, and I suspect that's part of the reason it's so easy to find teammates, but it's fun to meet people in an athletic setting. Great start to any day.

We came back to nap and watch "Hook," and then I climbed into bed with Marcelo and Lupe to watch a Colombian comedian. Very precious bonding moments--his sketch was mostly about generational differences, so we joked about what we think we do and do not have in common with what he was proposing. Diana has some friends over tonight, so I spent some time talking to them while we made sushi. DELISH! Now, my stomach is full of good home-made sushi and I'm ready to crawl into bed with thick socks and heavy blankets. Achachai!