Carnaval starts early...

This past weekend (Saturday) our Illinois Program group had a barbeque at one of the guy's (Pat's) houses in Cumbayá. It was really great :) We had lots of meat (steak!) and great salads, and some piña coladas. We were just hanging around and eating/listening to music when waterballoons came sailing up onto the roof where we were!

Apparently, Carnaval is not just the few days before Ash Wednesday (same as U.S. Mardi Gras)... as I thought... but it's basically the whole month of February. In Quito and all over Ecuador, the traditional Carnaval celebration includes a hardcore water fight, and in some areas they even use eggs, flour, or paint.

So what was happening at our BBQ was that the school across the street let out (not sure why they were at school on saturday... but anyways), and so the boys there started making water balloons and throwing them up at us. Of course, Pat's host family was prepared, so a bunch of us went downstairs to fill up water balloons to throw back at them. Some of them broke in the air, but it was going pretty well.

Then a bunch of the guys from our group decided to go into the kitchen and fill up buckets, and then ambush the school from outside, sneaking out the back of the house and around the wall of the school. That went pretty well, and it was hilarious to watch from on top of the roof on the other side of the street. So we proceeded to do a few more trips to attack the school with buckets of water, and I went with and got soaked! I accidentally threw some water on Pat, and when my friend Kelsey went back through the "halls" (all outdoors) of the school to get some guys, they surrounded her and soaked her with water. I also got extremely soaked, but it was definitely worth it.

That day I also met a really cool girl who graduated from Illinois, had gone to Ecuador at the same time as my friend's Liz and Murph, and now she's working in Ecuador teaching English! I had a great conversation later with her and Pat's host mom (who used to be her host mom when she was in Ecuador). We also had a great Penn State vs. U of I debate, and a 'living in Quito' vs. 'living in Cumbayá' debate. :)

I had lots of homework over the weekend so I went home at night. I had a test monday and a paper due and another test on tuesday! That all went well though. Alrighty, more later!