Corporal Birthday Punishment

Okay, finally a real update not involving tennis or celebrities. The family and I went to a double birthday party this past weekend for 2 of Alejandro´s cousins, and I got to witness firsthand another Ecuadorian tradition that I had no idea about. Okay, so you know how in the states a birthday ¨tradition¨ supposedly is to hit/punch someone the number of times of their new age. However, no one seems to actually do this. Maybe the US has become too PC. Anyway, the tradition here is for all the family to line up and hit the birthday person in the BUTT with a BELT. Birthday asswhippings! Yesss. So anyway, the poor girls were turning 36 and 38. I felt for them, I really did. But I gave the beltwhippings anyway. Okay, it sounds a lot worse than it is. First of all, pretty much every woman and most of the guys gave soft taps, I guess because we were all feeling somewhat sympathetic or something. And only a few people really wound up and gave a big slap (including one little girl--she wound up like she was swinging a baseball bat, haha). Plus, to get from hit 20 to hit 3o, there are lots of little taps. So all in all, it´s not so bad. Although there were some resounding slaps. I guess that´s what I have to look forward to shortly...

As I´m writing this, it´s soo overcast and rainy--and it´s been raining for 3 days. Good for the plants, bad for my trying-to-.stay-awake efforts. Hopefully I can manage to stay indoors allll day today, and maybe even snag a rainy day nap. Those are the best.