T-minus one week

This post is mostly for me to look at in a week, when it's Saturday night and I'm wondering why in the world I'd decided to spend 4 months in Spanish-speaking developing countries when I don't actually know any Spanish. It happens every time I go away - right beforehand, I get very nervous and wish I was just staying wherever I am (usually home). NOT because home is so exciting (because it is decidedly not) but because the known is less intimidating than the unknown.

But for today, with the cushion of a week before I actually dive in, I'm incredibly excited. There's nothing I'd rather be doing for the next four months. I'm even very happy with my choice of where to go. Spain would have been great in terms of traveling (for anyone interested in going in the future, it really seems like Sevilla would be an ideal location to be based), but not as much the different cultural experience for which I'm looking. I've never found Europe to be that different from the U.S. Sure they take naps in the afternoon and eat dinner later, but that doesn't speak cultural difference to me the way other places do. Guatemala for more than a few weeks, when I don't know enough Spanish to do some interesting volunteering, would also not have been ideal. My only dilemna right now, really, is how much to pack. At the risk of putting in minute, boring details of my life (as I think some other bloggers might do) I won't go through the positives and negatives of bringing a lot versus a little, etc. Let's just say that while I hope to stay in Cuenca for a long time, I won't know until I get there if I'm actually going to do that or not, and that does impact the amount and size of the bags I take.

I know there's always markets where I can pick things up, but after markets in Egypt, Southeast Asia and Africa, I know one thing for sure: I really don't like shopping in markets. At least, not in tourist-oriented markets. I do remember a market in Chiang Mai that had lots of fruits and other strange foods, and that was interesting. And then there was the market we stopped at outside of Chiang Mai, to pick up things for the children we were going to see on our hilltribe trek. There we were, 12 people wandering around trying to find presents for children that a) weren't candy b) weren't gum c) weren't going to choke them. It was actually a surprisingly difficult task. Before leaving for our trek, we'd been given a piece of paper with some rules and tips. They included not giving the children sweets (there aren't a lot of dentists in rural Thailand), and not drinking soda or beer in front of the tribespeople (they look up to us and will want to emulate us). And then our guide sat us down to talk to us about the three day trek. "You'll want to have candy for the kids because they'll expect it...you can buy soda and beers from the tribespeople and it helps them to get a little money." "But it says here on the sheet that we shouldn't!" we all protested. It seems there's a little disconnect between the way one ought to do a hilltribe trek and the way we're expected to. In the end, we wandered around the market for a good while trying not to buy sweets (which as a group we'd decided we wanted to avoid), but there weren't a lot of options. At the villages, the kids did ask for treats, but they also were incredibly excited about the stickers one girl had brought from Canada (as were the adults, who wanted the stickers too). Here are some pictures of the kids with their spoils: