los zapatos

I was so distracted yesterday by my MORTAL ENEMY that I forgot I was supposed to be writing about the shoes in my Ecuador picture.

Here they are:

When I first arrived in Ecuador I quickly found I was unprepared in the "shoe department". Knowing that Ecuador was a tropical country, (the name "equator" was my first clue), I arrived with a couple of pairs of sandals and a couple of pairs of dress shoes for Sunday. Right off the bat I was sent to a town up in the mountains. As in hilly, cold, wet, cold, wet, did I mention cold(?) mountains. The sandals clearly weren't gonna cut it. My trainer had a fashion forward fabulous pair of men's leather shoes that proved rugged enough for the climate, so I followed her lead and bought some too.

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I wore them during all my times in the mountains and they proved rugged and suitable, although not that good looking.

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One day a different companion and I were standing in a Pharmacy waiting for something. She had also acquired the requisite "men's wear shoes". Suddenly, we heard behind us, some women talking in a decidedly foreign tongue. English! We were not only shocked to be hearing "the language of the Gods" but to also hear ourselves being berated due to our fashion forward fabulous shoes. Something about "shoes and socks and skirts being sooooo last year...." We turned around to see to American Jehovah's Witness women missionaries standing there. They were dressed to the T's in heels and all.

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We then proceeded to stomp out of there without saying a word to these women. Once outside and out of earshot, we really let them have it, hurling all kinds of accusations about how "the true servants of the Lord have to wear ugly man shoes because we work up in the hills, the muddy muddy hills!" And that "we're not sissy missionaries that just stay in the city and can wear heels"

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So we stomped away, back up into the muddy, muddy hills in our ugly man shoes, knowing that we were NOT sissys.

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And we felt much better.

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!Viva los zapatos de los hombres!