Vaya buen

Seth and I drove all the students, save Ryan and Arthur to the bus station early this morning and shipped em off to the coast. Have fun! Its been real!

....that it has. Everyone is a little fried and ready for the next thing. We´ll drop the guys off tomorrow, they refuse to be hurried, but they meeting the girls in Mantenita for beach sun and partying I can only imagine. One last hurrah before they split off on their seperate paths. Wait for it....wait for it...WoooHOooo! Seth and I burst out into dog howls breaking out of the bus station. We´re free men. We did it ....and no one died!

When we pulled the trucks back into the gates Ana Luisa´s family and friends invited us over for a Sunday afternoon picnic. Last night we went out to celebrate the end of the semester and also for Bonnie´s birthday. She is 20, still just a wawita, as Dona Alicia likes to say. Apparently she had a little surprise for us last night but we were gone. Nonetheless she insisted instead that there is no better time than the present.

She made a globo for Bonnie´s birthday. If I´ve never talked about globos on blip I don´t know why. They are the best! Ecuadorian all the way. You can usually see them floating over the city nearly every other night for one occassion or another like yellow orange jellyfish bobbing to the current of the city below, lighting up the night.

Essentially they are homemade paper maiche hot air balloons. Sent out like offering to the sun god and prayer to the night sky. Night or day they are gorgeous and make me smile. And so right there with an aguardiente in hand we said felicidades! vive! and vaya buen! all at once. Send off to Bonnie, to Jessie, Hannah, Ryan, Sierra, Intefada, Arthur, Bonnie, and Sarah. Send off to the semester. To endings and beginnings.

Everyone pat themselves on the back and raise a toast to the sky. Vaya buen. Like a capsule with a part from each and every one of us our globo floats away into space. Big thanks, sunset on a great group of people, and to be honest I´ve seldom seen a sunset as brilliant as this one, and never one so odd. A straight line of shadow like a great search light or rainbow of shadow. Pot of gold at the end.

Oh, and here´s more of the story written by the students themselves along with some of my photos. Wé´ve managed to get a blog going the whole semester along with the other group over in Namibia. Our notes from the field.