Belts and Bagginess

I've lost a bit of weight since I arrived in Ecuador. I'm not sure how much weight, poundage-wise, because, well, one inevitably weighs less here in Quito because of being on the equator and at high altitude. Plus, I don't have a scale of my own.

However, my weight-loss isn't just about the change in altitude. Nor is it just an illusion caused by the lack of a clothes-dryer to provide the much needed service of pants-shrinkage. It's most definitely a reality, unless altitude and stretching can make me lose a third of a cup size and flatten my tummy.

Now, it's not that I object to losing a little weight, but I have to admit that the loss could have come at a better time. You see, I'm not a huge fan of the sorts of clothes available in Ecuadorian malls (really, inordinate amounts of polyester). Plus, we aren't exactly rolling in cash. So, since the majority of this weight loss took place at the very beginning of my trip, I've been walking around for going on four months now looking very much like a pre-growth-spurt kid in her older sister's hand-me-downs.

Anna found the situation pretty amusing when she was here. And really, there is just something basically ridiculous about having to belt a pair of pants (admittedly, already a bit baggy before I left the states) until the fabric buckles in order to keep them up.

This morning, the baggy clothes situation reached a new low. Faced with the alternative of hitching my black dress pants up every two steps or pairing my nice-ish pants with my decidedly worn belt, I chose the belt. The result was, um, rather silly looking. Still, losing my pants in the middle of a Quito intersection seemed comparatively more silly.