Hey, site

So I found out where I'll be living and working for the next two years. Look out Macas, Morona Santiago! I'm really excited about where I'll be. It's actually a town in the jungle and it looks beautiful. The weather is hotter than here, but on average should be in the 70s which is awesome. Plus, I'll be able to hang out in the rainforest with monkeys whenever I want.

As far as work goes, I'll be doing a lot GPS and GIS stuff for the people that live there. Mapping, zoning, and all that fun jazz. I still need to get a lot of training for everything, but I'm really excited about heading down there. We'll be done with training in April and then we'll be sworn in to start our official work.

As far as everything else goes, Ecuador is still fantastic! I'm having a blast with everyone in our group, and although my host family hasn't dressed me up anymore in traditional Ecuadorian clothes, they're still a blast to be around. Hope everyone is doing well!!

Haircuts and such

So, I decided to brave the language barriers and get my hair cut this week. As most of you know (or have seen in pics) my hair is relatively short, so I wasn't looking for too much of a cut. Just a trim to keep things manageable. Being a relatively simple person who doesn't put a lot of thought into my appearance (as can also be seen in the pics), I didn't do any research on hair cutting places. Rather, I just walked around town until I saw a place that was open where someone inside was holding hairspray and/or scissors. So I walked in and told the lady that I would like a "corta de pelo." She asked me how I wanted it cut, and I told her just a tiny bit. She nodded in what I thought was understanding and started cutting away (my hair was dry the entire time - wetting and shampooing hair before getting it cut really isn't heard of here). I'm pretty sure she had never cut curly, red hair before because she seemed a little puzzled. The entire time, she kept trying to comb my hair straight as she cut. As I saw the mountain of red hair beside me growing bigger, I decided to tell her that I was happy and she could stop. I'm positive that if I hadn't of stopped her, I would have ended up with a bowl cut. So needless to say, my hair is consideribly shorter. Luckily nobody here cares and it's super easy to deal with. It just goes to show you that no matter how well you think someone understands you, chances are they probably don't.