On Friday night, Feb. 26 Bill made his performing debut in S. America. He was joined by a five other talented musicians and they played or sang literally from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Bill sang 60's folk songs badly, but no one cared because they remembered them all from their youth. He was joined by a Flamingo classical guitar player who is an America, very young and very accomplished. A young very handsome latin tenor dressed in a tux made a big impression on the full house at the Sankt Florian Restaurant/Bar. Roland who is a keyboardist extraordinaire was another welcome performer as well as a guitarist who sang several Johnny Cash numbers. I attempted to take photos but the venue was very dark and I have only managed one of Bill, which is acceptable. I hate that you can't see the latin tenor, a feast for the eyes. Young enought to be my son.
Yesterday, Saturday Feb. 27, we entertained calls and emails from friends and family in the States who were worried that we were perhaps feeling tremors as a result of the Chilean Quake. We did not, however we had a thunder storm of major proportions where first it rained torrents then it hailed so much that it accumulalted on roof tops and did not melt for some hours. Here is a pic that Bill took out the front door of our building at the height of the storm.
We have several commercial stores on the ground level of our building, they were badly flooded and Bill helped the Kalido shop, which is an Interior Design Studio with putting bolts of fabric on higher ground since the water was rushing in the back door through the entire shop and exiting at the front door, like a small water fall. Bill said the water was 2 inches deep in the floor of the shop. He was not taking photos at that point.
Guess what this is a photo of ?
It is a pile of hail that accumulated at an edge of a sidewalk. Of course, after everything had settled down, lots of Ecuadorian families emerged to play in the hail and make "hail balls".
To close up the storm story this is a photo of our normal tranquil Tomebamba River at the height of the storm.
This morning, Sunday we started early with a group of new friends to walk to town and have breakfast. Along the way we spotted a crew of men removing a tile roof from a building and carefully recycling the tiles. These are beautifully aged tiles that should be loved and cared for. I am so delighted that they are reusing them to make another beautiful tile roof.
We also are featuring some local residents near the site of the new roof.........
as well as the sidewalk display from a local florist which was nearby
The next picture is too much fun. On the left is Nancy W., on the right is Nancy of Nancy and Rich, soon to be our next door neighbors. And I am on the right.
Here is a street vendor just outside a very nice public market where we shopped on our way back home.
So now we are at the Kookaberra Cafe, which is run by an charming Aussie couple named Chris and Jenny. The food was a wonderful variety and we all enjoyed a leisurely breakfast as we continued to meet new friends who arrived and departed the Cafe. I think it might become one of my favorite cafes, so far. Food good, atmosphere good and the renovation of the building is top notch. The proprietors live on premises, in the upper stories of the building. So as we left we headed to Calderon Parque, to meet Shelly and Brian who make a habit of doing this downtown outing every Sunday morning, they have a cute dog named Freddie, however she is a female. We all look like a bunch of old gringos in this photo. We have picked up another couple Rhonda and her husband, again I am without name. But, they are lovely too, so we hung out in the parque for awhile along with lots of the locals.
From there we split and Bill and I went with Shelly and Brian, because they were going back to the market to get fresh roasted pork and I was interested to see it and see what $3.00 would buy.
In addition, to the meat I picked up 10 tomatoes, 12 red onions, 10 avocadoes and a pineapple along with the meat and only spent $6.00.
So after we returned home we rested a little and then went to a neighbors house, who we had met on Friday night. Sandee is going to look up lyrics on the internet and print them for Bill's next gig.
So you can see we are having too much fun and meeting lots of wonderful expats.
All for now, Dean and Bill
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