Still almost time for vacation...

While my teachers have long since vacated the school for their trips to the beach, I still spend hours a day in my office. Yet I´m not complaining - free internet and air conditioning motivate me to come in, and I´m thisclose to getting taxes and FAFSA done. My sister and parents' endless generosity in receiving, scanning, and emailing tax documents and healthcare bills makes process possible, and I take this opportunity to publicly thank them for helping me wade through confusion. I´ll pay it forward.

I mentioned that the professional fate of a few teachers was hanging uncertainly, but it looks like Ecuadorian laws and precarious financial situations made the decsions for us. Our president, Rafael Correa, is in the process of pushing for education reform, including some changes that will undermine private schools. Correa is a strongly leftist thinker and has passed several laws in his first and now second term that chip away the strength of schools like Nuevo Mundo. For example, private schools are no longer able to remove children from class or from the school if they don´t pay their tuition. For Mundo, this meant a deficit of over $400,000 in January 2010. Thankfully, we are allowed to prevent kids from taking finals exams and thus passing on to the next year if they haven´t paid. In the week before finals, the endless line trailing out of the administration office testified that people do have the money to pay that $5,000 debt they owe the school - they just don´t pay until they have to. We ended the year just barely in the black, but are also losing a lot of students due to their families´ financial constraints. Fewer students means fewer staff, and this year we cut a whopping 8% of faculty and staff.

I lost a few teachers in my department, but we didn´t downsize so I´m one of the lucky few still at school interviewing new candidates. What a job - I´m learning that writing ''Fluent in English'' on your resume does very little to attest to one's actual skills. Yikes. I did have one candidate who is fluent in English, Spanish, and Gaelic, and conversational in Thai and Khmer. Very impressive. Anyways, I should be done in a few more days - then vacation!

For the two weeks I have off, Jake and I were planning a trip to Peru to visit Machu Picchu. Unfortunately winter rains caused major mudslides in the Peruvian mountains and destroyed the train tracks from Cuzco to Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of Machu Picchu National Park. With no way in or out (the train is the only transport to Aguas Calientes), the Peruvian government airlifted travelers out of danger and closed both the park and the town to tourists until April 1. Looks like we´ll stay in Ecuador.

Last week was Carnaval, the Latin American version of Mardi Gras that lasts for the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday and is celebrated from coast to coast (coast to jungle, I guess). People celebrate differently in different regions, but here on the coast the big tradition is playing with water and paint. Jake ''celebrated'' Carnaval with the neighborhood boys by joining in their battle. The most common defenses appear on street corners a few days before the holiday: squirt guns, aerosol canisters of foam, bags of tempera paint to put in balloons or smear on people with your hands. When I came home, Jake was covered in red and purple paint - the true sign of a successful Carnaval. I escaped the termpera, but did get nailed with a few buckets of water.

Reserving water balloons only for friends and family is a foreign concept - children and adults alike throw buckets of water and water balloons at passing buses and I was christened more than once during a bus ride in those few days. I gave the Ecuadorians a bit of entertainment when I jumped from my seat after a water balloon exploding on my neck awoke me from a daze. The man in front of me saw it happen and started cracking up good-naturedly. He apologized ''for his people'' and gave me a good smile.

In other news, I got in to law school! Loyola Chicago and Ohio State both accepted me and Marquette sent me an email suggesting that I'm in - I'm hoping their letter just hasn´t made it through international post yet. Vanderbilt and BC are up in the air and I should hear in the next few weeks. To answer the obvious question, I don't know which is my top choice. All have their pros and cons, but I'll keep you posted.

Thanks to those who have written lately - please keep it coming and I´ll keep posting!