On Tuesday, Luz, Sra. Silvia from Tarapoa and I traveled from Jipijapa to Portoviejo. Upon arrival, I headed for the bach to leave off my things and do a little laundry.
Looks familiar!
Back to washing clothes the "handy" way!
At lunchtime, I headed to La Carreta, a popular restaurant across from the bus terminal to have lunch with don Augusto, one of our elderly friends in town. This was the first time I had been back through the center of Portoviejo since the earthquake back in April. I'm very sorry that I didn't take any pictures. Life continues as "normal" but parts of the downtown area look rather like a war zone. There are still streets blocked off due to piles of rubble, and many buildings are at least damaged, if not completely destroyed. When I arrived at the restaurant, I found don Augusto, Luz and Sra. Silvia waiting for me. We went through the buffet line, since that's much faster than ordering off the menu. There were three choices of soup. I wasn't keen on one of the options. The second option looked okay, and the third option was a soup I had never heard of. I opted for that one. Since I do speak the language, I suppose I should have paid a bit more "conscious attention" to the name of the soup, written out above the serving tureen. Its translation is "hose soup." So, possibly you can imagine which animal part(s) this soup contained. I actually found the broth to be quite tasty but didn't manage to consume the entire bowl of soup.
After lunch, I paid a visit to two of my little friends on the other side of town, Zulema and Sheila. Their mommy informed me that she had been given strict orders not to bother us. "She's coming to play with us!"
In addition to most of our Portoviejo friends, we had LeRoy, Kenion Coleman, Lorraine Lerwick, Marsha and Damaris in the midweek Bible study at don Ignacio and Sra. Livia's that evening.
