Rootless, Rutless. Sept 20

Ok, I guess I've been in a bit of a funk lately. Yesterday, I spent the better part of the day waiting for and dealing with some guy from the cable company to try to set up a wireless network so that we can share our broadband internet access with others in the apartment building. I waited for him for an hour and a half on Friday, and he never showed up, then on Sat. he came, pretty much on time, but with no equipment. When he went for equipment, I asked him to bring both a low end and a mid-range router, and of course, he came back with only a high end one. It didn't work however, so he went back for the mid range one. Whatever..., same type of BS that one deals with in the states, probably not worth blogging about.

Anyway, more funk-inducing is that I still am not gainfully employed, nor do I seem to be moving in that direction. Pichi, the son-in-law of Jaime and Rita, who is well connected politically, helped me last Sunday, at the end of the birthday parties, to translate my resume into Spanish, and after he finished he called up his friend, who is the right hand man to the Mayor of Cuenca, and told him about me, and that I was interested in helping out. Since Xavier did not have his calendar with him (it was Sunday evening), they agreed to touch base during the week to set up a time. So I was pretty jazzed, and on Monday I finalized and printed out my resume (a bit more complicated than it should have been, since everyone uses A4 paper size here, and I needed to reformat the resume, then reset all the print settings on our computer). But by Thursday, I hadn't heard anything from Pichi, and even sent him a text message asking what's up, but still nothing. I don't want to offend him, but I think I need to explore some other routes.

So I guess the lack of getting out, and the lack of apparent progress has been bringing me down. Although, (if you'll pardon this tangent) having time this week has actually been a blessing, as we had to deal with some school issues. We had known that the girls were the oldest kids in their classrooms, although we hadn't realized that the reason for that is that in Ecuador, the grade after kindergarten, what we call "1st Grade," they call "segundo basico" ("2nd basic"). So since our kids were in 4th and 6th grade last year, we assumed that they should be in 5th and 7th this year. However, they really should be in 6th and 8th. So we switched them. But 7th grade is the last year of "basico" and so we had to move Mia to the Colegio, which is a different schedule, slightly different uniform, different bus; and of course, for both of them, different books and supplies. So lots of running around this week, and there will be a bit more of it to come.

But, (back to the point of this post) Sundy started out as a beautiful sunny day, and so I went out for a run. Since Cesar, the emoliente guy, wasn't out today, I decided to take a different route, starting out running in the opposite direction. I crossed a bridge I hadn't crossed before, and discovered some new things. Along the route I saw a sign for the "lavadores de Monay" and shortly thereafter, saw a bunch of buses and trucks getting hosed down, and some interesting platforms near the river for additional washing. After I crossed the next bridge, the route back wasn't along the river, but on the other side of the road (that's along the river), and I discovered that the trail follows some abandoned railroad tracks, with asphalt trials on each side of the tracks. So, lots more to learn about, lots more to see.

We saw a movie called "Home" yesterday - sort of a cross between the Discovery Channel's "Planet Earth" and "An Inconvenient Truth". A bit of a downer, but but also an impetus to continue to try to do something. The type of work that I'd like to do with transit, etc., is right up the alley of trying to do something to save the planet. So I've got some new ideas about how to get involved, and I'll keep plugging away. Most likely the Pichi connection will actually work out eventually.

I know there are always emotional ups and downs to resettling like we have, so I try to cut myself some slack. Exercise is important to my frame of mind, and running is great, because, quite literally, there is no need to stay in the same "rut" (or route) A change of scenery can help change my attitude.