Excuse me, your name is what?

So, this past weekend, while partying on the Chivas Bus in Baños, (see previous post) I met a nice Ecuadorian girl. We met on top of this mountain while drinking an alcoholic fermented sugar cane drink and gazing at the giant glowing cross of glory. Oh yeah, and there was this cool view of the town of Baños as well. To say the least, it was an interesting experience. I was drinking this exotic alcoholic beverage talking (read: flirting) with an exotic girl while viewing an exotic town all in the backdrop of a giant, glowing, Catholic religious symbol. The irony was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

This is a picture of the giant glowing cross. It was also where I met "her."

But that isn't the best part. Our conversation was pretty basic, not because I lacked the language skills, but because we were acquaintences and were doing the whole "basic shallow question thing." (Or at least that´s what i'm telling myself). We talked about Ecuador, why a white kid like me was in Ecuador, what Ecuadorians thought about white kids like me that were in Ecuador, and Ecuador. Anyways, we seemed to hit it off pretty well. So, when the Chivas bus people offered to take us to a club they just so happened to own also, me and the girl (who doesn't have a name yet) decided to go together. We met up with some of her other friends and the 4 of us went to this club. It happened to be a salsa club. salsa. I really don`t know the first thing about salsa. And she does. Apparently like 6 years of lessons or something. But she offered to teach me and my two left feet how to get down Ecuadorian style. It wasn`t too pretty, but I managed to keep her interested in me. After about a half an hour of dancing, she finally asked for my name. I told her, and she told me her name was "Nena." Cool name I thought. So, the rest of the night, I would call her "Nena" while we were dancing, drinking, or talking. I said it rather frequently and she and her friends seemed to think it was cute. Score!!
By the end of the night, we decided to exchange numbers. We both live in Quito and both wanted to hang out again. So she writes down her cell and house number and writes "Nena=Yess." Um, okay. Maybe like "Yes, i´ll call you?" She didn´t really speak english so I just excused it as a funny attempt at an English joke.
The next night at family dinner, my family asked me about my weekend. My host brother asked me what I thought about Ecuadorian girls, and I said I liked them and that I got a girls number in Baños. He said cool, and I explained how I met her. My host mom asked what her name was, and I responded "Nena." My host mom asked me to repeat myself and I said it again. Nena. My brother told me that`s not a name. Sounds normal to me, right?
Earlier that day, I called her house. An older lady answered, and I politely asked "Me gustaría hablar con Nena, por favor." (I would like to speak with Nena, please.) The woman on the other line seemed rather confused, and said somthing in spanish I didn't quite understand. I became a little discouraged, thinking she maybe gave me a fake number. (If you´d like to, put in that spanish phrase into any spanish-english translator. Or just read on)
Anyways, at family dinner, my host mom asked me to show her the paper that "Nena" wrote her name and number on. She told me, rather bluntly, that Nena is indeed not a name. She read the Nena=Yess thing and started busting up laughing. So, pensively, I asked what "Nena" meant. It means "Baby" in an endearing way. yeah. Baby. WTF!? How was I supposed to know that?! So, what was her real name then? As my host mom so eloquently described to me that "Yess" is a common abbreviation for "Yessendra." Her name is Yessendra?! How I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. I still haven't called back yet. Don't know if I will, but this Yessendra girl sure has a sense of humor. Maybe she is worth my time....