1 month left with my Family in Cuenca:(

I cannot believe I haven't updated this in over a week!  So little time with this new semester.  Tuesday was my Dad's birthday and he turned 60, it was a good day!  I had cooking class, so for lunch we made ensebollada, a warm fishy soup, and we made some plaintain and egg mixture, for dessert we had sweet plaintains.  This meal turned out well!  After cooking class I had to go to my teacher's condo to watch our movie and have class.  I liked having class there!  After class I went for a quick walk with Andres and back home.  I had to finish my homework that night.  Wednesday was a normal day we watched a movie about white and black priveledge and it is really oping my eyes to how Americans live.  Wednesday night we went to a concert with Calle Trece and Manu Chau!  It was very interesting!  It was a mix between reggeaton and rap and lots of hippies.  It was a crazy experience.  Thursdays are when we go out to the CEDEI school to observe and help teach.  We had to take a bus out there.  We got on what we thought was the correct bus, it was the correct line but we caught it in the wrong direction.  We took the bus to another town and the driver made us get off and on the bus going back into town.  So we eventually made it there after about an hour and fifteen minutes.  I love the teacher I am observing she is so full of energy.  The teacher I am working with in from the United States and is an Early childhood major.  I love being around the preschoolers, they are just different than the kinders.  After the CEDEI school I went home and worked on homework.  Kim came over later in the day to help me make a video for cheerleading tryouts.  I found out yesterday I will be cheerleading for Ambrose in the Fall!! I am so excited :)  Friday came slow because I thought last week took forever.  Friday I went for a run in the morning and then had spanish class.  We had a test and it was easy especially because we are just starting past tense regular verbs.  After spanish I went home for lunch, we had fish and shrimp mixture with some sauce.  I am starting to love shrimp!  I ate all the shrimp and couldn't eat the fish because they had tiny bones in.  It was good though.  I went to Supermaxi with Kim and Teresa later to get some alcohol and various goodies, I even bought apples!  After Teresa came home with me to get ready for the night and we were off to dance class.  We did salsa and reggeaton at dance!  My favorite!  After dance class we walked to Pizza Hut and later went to Zoe's house to hangout before going to the discotecca.  We got to Gabbia and immediately started dancing!  I was asked to dance by a guy and when I turned to look it was Leo!  Leo was the first guy I danced with in Ecuador!  He is awesome!  Even my friends said they would look over and I would just always be smiling and laughing because I feel comfortable dancing goofy with him.  We left around 1am because we had camping in Cajas, Saturday morning.  I had set my alarm for 6:30am, but instead of getting up, I turned it off.  Luckily Kim called me at 8 to make sure I was up and my mom came in because she thought I had to leave at 8am.  I had about 20 minutes to eat breakfast and pack for camping!  I was already dreading it before I left my house.  We get to school and we had to go pick up all of our camping equipment.  We loaded the van and had about a 30minute drive through the curvey Andes mountains.  We arrived at our location!  We got our boots on and we had to help carry all this equipment down to the camp site.  It was about a twenty minute walk and it wasn't straight and flat either.  We got to where we would be spending the night and we were taught how to put up the tents.  That was easy I could have handled ours by myself.  After setting up camp we were headed on our hike.  We were told our hike was going to be about 2-3hrs.  We just had to climb a mountain and circle it.  It was beautiful to see Cajas from different heights and being able to push myself.  However our guides got lost while hiking and we had to take a completely different route which was very dangerous!  I have never been so scared for my life.  We had mud from head to toe!  We had to grab onto plants so we wouldn't fall off the mountain.  Some plants were really sharp and my hands got all cut up. I just wanted to be back at camp!  We finally made it down our mountain and then we had to cross the lakes and go through a quicksand area and through a forest.  It was crazy what I had to do, but I did it!  We finally made it back to our camp site.  I was exhausted!  Luckily they had hot soup and tea waiting for us.  Oh yeah did I mention Cajas is in the Paramo and it is freezing.  On our hike it sleeted and hailed!  After tea we changed into dry and warm clothes for the night.  We had pasta and some canned beef soup thing.  Of course it wouldn't be camping without marshmallows and smores.  We enjoyed them and in Ecuador there is a famous warm alcoholic drink.  It is made with Zhumir a sugar cane alcohol and cinnamon and water and sugar!  It is so good and warms you right up.  I couldn't take it any longer.  I had to force myself to go to the bathroom for the first time in nature.  I was so scared an animal would attack me or I would pee on myself.  It was so weird but I had my friends with me to help me along.  Luckily I only had to go once while camping.  It was 830 and we were all tired so we went to bed.  I guess the other three girls in my tent couldn't sleep well and would wake up every hour.  I slept like a rock until 430 am rolled in!  I woke up with my eye swollen shut and puffed up the size of a golf ball.  I had the other girls look at it.  I took two benedryl and went back to sleep hoping it was just a nightmare and would get better.  Woke up again around 8am when everyone else was getting up and the guides were making breakfast.  My eye had gotton worse.  I could even see and I looked horrible!  The guides didn't seem to care that I had a slight problem.  We were suppose to go for an hour hike but because I had an emergency we packed up and left.  My depth perception was really bad.  I would take a step and fall over.  I would think a step was shorter than it really was and vice versa.  Needless to say I was struggling.  I had no option but to go to the doctor, I had homework I needed to do.  We got back and I walked into my house and my dad thought I got mugged or beaten up,  he was freaking out, which made hysterical I couldn't even talk, so he called down my sister who speaks english and asked what was going on.  I just said I woke up from camping like this.  I HATE CAMPING!  MY mom made me put ice on it and then I took a shower and brushed my teeth.  I had to go to the doctor with one of the coordinators.  I got ot meet a new Doctor in Ecuador, Dr. Martinez, luckily he spoke fluent english.  He was shocked when he saw me!  He examined my head and in the mean time the swelling had moved to my right eye as well.  He thinks that a spider had bite me and I had an allergic reaction to it or it was poisonous.  I have many little bumps on my left temple which feel like I have little rocks under my skin.  I looked like I had a bad plastic surgery.  The Doctor prescribed me some medicine and then I had to go to the ER to get a cortozon shot.  After all of this hassle I am so exhausted from the medicine, not being able to see and looking scary!  I get home and my dad is having his 60th birthday party not only is my family here the whole extended family on both sides were over.  Some I have only met once and others I have never met.  I told my mom I was sorry for the interuption and I just wanted to sleep.  Right outside my room were all these people and I could hear them talking about what had happened to me.  My family know I understand what they are saying but I don't think the rest knew how much I understood because I could hear and understand everything.  Luckily the shot kicked in and I passed out.  I woke up and my mom brought dinner into me.  No wine for me today.  My dad came in with her to make sure I was okay, which I wasn't.  I finished my plate and my dad came in with my mom's brother who is a cardiologist.  I didn't have anything wrong with my heart?  But my mom wanted to make sure the medicine was okay and to see if I needed to do anything else.  He was as shocked as I was I think.  I went into the house to get more water and all the old ladies looked a me with disbelief and said they felt sorry for me.  My mom gave me more ice and I fell asleep again.  Monday morning sure came fast.  I had already done my assignment for Monday so I had no reason not to go to class other than I only had one eye.  I was so tired mentally and physically.  I didn't want to have this happen to me but there is a postive that came with it.  Walking to school, I never got so many stares.  Usually it is cat calls and Monday people looked at me like I was deformed and looked like this my whole life.  I seriously got to live the life of how some people have to live everyday.  It made me realize they are normal too and not defined by their appearance.  I made it to class and could barely read my homework.  We had a group meeting and I was off to my house.  I slept more until I was called in for lunch.  My eye seemed top improve the most with ice.  I woke up from the nap exhausted and knew I was unable to walk back to my next class.  I hate missing class but I had to miss it because I needed my eye to walk.  I slept more and more.  I couldn't even look in the mirror without crying because I was so embarrassed because of what I looked like.  My eye started to open a little Monday night and I woke up this morning with my eye mostly open and almost back to normal.  The doctor told me it would be up and down for five to ten days.  I struggled a lot without my eye, I fell trying to put pants on, I couldn't do my hair, wear contacts, or makeup, I couldn't tell when there was a slope in the sidewalk and instead I would just trip over myself.  I learned a lot about myself and others throughout this experience.  Today I woke up with a lot of pain.  I ate breakfast took my pills and went back to bed until I had to get ready for class.  I only had a two minute walk to the Condo to watch a movie.  we watch Evida a movie on Eva a first lady married to Perron of Argentina.  It was interesitng.  I went home for lunch and then met up with Teresa and went to scope out some more souvenirs.  I am trying to decide what is perfect for each person.  After we went and got ice cream and I bought some movies and went home.  I worked on homwork the rest of the night and had dinner with my family.  I don't think anything else could go wrong, especially now that I took off that darn bracelet that was suppose to ward off evil spirits.  It just made things worse.  So it is now in the trash.  I hope everything is uphill form here and I am able to enjoy my last month in Cuenca.  Chau for now :)