I am reading Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, about 100 pages from the end and good ol’ Robert M. Pirsig started talking about “gumption”. I got super intrigued by the word and how it relates to my life, the more I read the more I realized I need to work on my amount of gumption but it gave me great inspiration to sit down and write a long delayed blog so thank you Robert and your almost intolerable way of writing about the most simple ideas in life.
You know when you start to read a book cause all your friends/more intellectual peers, that you are insanely jealous of, told you they loved the book, and you read and keep reading it, and even after the last page look for more clues of what the hell everyone is talking about. Well that’s me and this zen philosophy long as shit, need every piece of your brain to pay attention or you have to read the page all over again, book. Though I still have another 100 pages so I will keep giving it that chance to blow my mind but so far I think this Robert guy needs a slap back into reality and/or needs to lay off the weed. If you don’t agree with me let me put it this way, who can write 540 pages with the intention of defining a single word but never actually doing it, the dictionary is not even that long.
In other news, I am currently doing a trash brigade of San Pablo. Meaning I am giving lessons to all the school kids in the town and trying to get a town-wide trash pick up day for next Sunday. The kicker is, though I am a volunteer, volunteerism is a very foreign topic, the only way I can get my community members to participate is to reward them with food. So this lovely trash pick up day needs heavy financial support, of which most of you know I don’t have. So I put together a raffle, two prizes, first: 100 pounds of rice; second: a new DVD player. And would you believe that almost no one was interested in the DVD player, but super excited about the rice. Could you even imagine if someone raffled off 100 pounds of spaghetti in the states, I am pretty sure you would get more donations than bought raffle tickets. Its like the simple buying of a raffle ticket should put you on the dangerously obese list of the national institute of health. I am pretty sure the purchase would make your health insurance rate go up. Anyway I had about 250 tickets to sell costing $1 each. The prizes were going to cost $60 leaving me with a small pot to buy some sandwiches to supply the trash pickers. I delegated the work by handing out sheets of 12 numbers each to friends for them to sell. I had a meeting in Quito so had to leave site and when I got back 5 days later I had found out that out of 21 sheets 3 and a half had been sold. I went on a raffle selling rampage, selling 6 sheets in three days. Bribing the town drinkers to sell a sheet for free beer (which worked much better than expected). In the end I made about $70 much less than expected with only a week to pull off some miracles. Hey at least I made $70.
They made me go to the dentist, I really went in with high spirits, thinking I had gotten over my little girlish freight of all those big bad spinny tools and stainless shiny steel. Within 5 minutes of sitting in the newly bought chair I was quickly reminded that all that fear is definitely still there and my teeth have not gotten any less sensitive. I tried meditating, which I think is a practiced sport, on the bright side I have a whole other year to hone in on those skills. She had to put two novicane shots in both sides since of course I had cavities (I really like sugar, stop yelling at me at least I don’t really like crack, think about those teeth problems) Once I could no longer feel my nose let alone my teeth I let her start the drilling and I swear after like 15 minutes I could already start feeling it again. I think my relationship with Novocain is synonymous with alcohol, I am just too strong for that shit… And this is not even getting into the nurse lady in charge of the spit sucker thing, she was letting it rest under the tongue around those really sensitive bone bumps that have like minus two layers of skin over them. After I started to wine about that she let it slide into my throat, when I started choking they decided I was too sensitive to handle the spit sucker thing and deduced to just let me spit, me, cant feel my nose let alone handle the functions of my mouth, spitting. An hour later I was out and not talking, those dentists are possibly the only people that can really get me to shut up, and when I get back to the states, am going to look for the first dentist that has no quams about putting me under for a simple teeth cleaning.
In case you did not know I made it through my first year which means I only have one year left, its like shit I got to start doing something. Saving the world might take more than two years in the middle of no where. Especially at this “its too damn hot to walk so I think I will just stroll” pace of my Ecuadorian life. On the bright side I am filling up daily with more and more gumption, at night time I sleep with a blanket comfortably. Next time you see the map look at the equator and all the countries around it, yep all “I want a 100 pounds of rice” poor. It’s just too hot not to sleep, I went to cold quito for a week and did not take a single nap in 5 days, did not even drink coffee woke up at 6:30 every day and not once felt my eyelids sliding closed, it was like I was a whole new gumption filled person.
Finally, I got to see an Ecuadorian rugby game, mens, to put it short they have many years of development ahead. I was begging them to let me play, I really hate this machismo culture, I really could have shown them a few tricks/rules/general rugby ideas. But it was great to see the game expanding to such places as Ecuador, I just feel bad that they are being taught by gringos from the states, who in the scheme of things suck at the game as well and not by some beefy Samoan from new Zealand who could really teach a thing or two. I am going to the local university to see if I can start a team, hopefully behind all those whispy hair surfer guys there are 15 bad asses that want to play in some dirt. I need rugby in my life
