The past 2 weeks

Hey so I am not going to write too much right now because I feel rushed to get out of this hostal in Latacunga and be on my way. I´m off to another hostal tonight so maybe I can write more then. I just wanted to see if these pictures would load. The only one I´m posting right now is of the piss pot in my room: its our little bathroom there with the toilet paper, hand sanitizer and the pot of course! Overall it has been a mixed bag of being in Malingua Pamba on my own for the past two weeks. Im glad for the change but know I will miss some of the kids and the community. Last weekend I made the 3 hour¨"easy walk" to Isinlivi where there was this beautiful hostal I stayed in for Sunday night. It was refreshing to be around other travelers. I hope to upload more pics later, I just have to find another person with a Nikon camera so I can use their plug to upload. I have been pretty homesick somedays but am hoping the change in environment and people will make me enjoy the moment more. I know I need to wait it out, even if I wish I could be home enjoying summer vacation instead of on my own. Today I´m making a bus trip for a few hours, not sure how many, because I´m going from Latacunga to RioBamba or Cuenca. My final destination is further south past Loja, in southern Ecuador if you want to check it on the map (mom!). OK write more later! XO

Hey, So this was an ingenious idea of mine: to write a blog entry while at Malingua Pamba (MP). I am writing it on one of their computers in the computer lab, saving it onto my flash drive along with some of my pictures (because Paulino has a Nikon camera like I do so I can download them onto the flashdrive and hopefully upload them onto my blog) and am hoping to then copy and paste this sometime soon online. It feels like forever since I´ve written or been on the computer, even though it has probably been only about two weeks. But when youŕe not writing or communicating at all, 2 weeks seems like an awfully long time. Let me see how much I can write right now!

Starting with most recently, I have just been dropped back off at MP after being at a party for four babyś baptisms. It was up inthe hills about a 15 to 20 minute drive away. I was hesitant about going but decided I should do it because, well, I had no other choice. Josafina, the grandmother, insisted I go so I felt obligated and have never felt up to saying no to her. It was so much fun I am very glad I went, but I'm also glad I had the chance to return early because supposedly the party is going to go on until tomorrow morning, something I don't care to see considering how tired and cold I already am. Elvia and Paulino are the god parents to one of the little boys so they were something special today...although I think Paulino is someone special all the time considering he's the president of the community and very involved in many different activities. As much fun as I had, I have to owe it all to William, Aucedes' eldest 16 year old son, who hung out with me the entire time. I'm sure if I had stayed he would have looked after me all night, but I don't know how much more I could have enjoyed myself considering it is already approaching my bedtime and it has been foggy all day! (By the way my bedtime has been somewhere between 7:30 and 9:30 since I've been here!).

William and I had a fabulous conversation with another friend of his about MP and all the changes Pamelita has made. For example, prior to Pam's visits, no one here used condoms! They thought they were balloons that could be blown up to incredible sizes! I couldn't believe it. They told me how the amount of young girls with babies has decreased along with the overall amount of babies in the population. The older generation still doesn't know about condoms, but I guess it doesn't matter since they are no longer reproducing? They also told me how she brought them water, the high school, and so much more including technology—prior to her visits they didn't have computers or cell phones, while now almost every person over the age of 14 or so has a cell phone.

Besides the interesting conversations, there was also a TON of food! We were served two meals while we were there, both consisting of cuy (guinea pig) and chicken in a broth. The first time we were served I wasn't too hot on the whole guinea pig thing since I already tried it and felt it was too tough to enjoy. However, the afternoon meal included cuy cooked differently and I enjoyed it much more, much juicier and tender than I had expected. Oh and I forgot that both included egg that was cooked kinda like a thin omellete draped over the meat soup. And of course there was the ceremony in this very small church that held a surprising amount of people. Something I've realized is how much I like mass in Spanish, especially with the priest of this community since he speaks slow enough I can usually understand him. The surprising thing was how at the end he mentioned a cemetary and I didn't follow his thought. I asked William afterwards and he told me that the community's cemetary is on a woman's property who now wants to use it for gardening so the people either need to give her some money or move the burried remains...kinda weird but I guess that is how things go here.

Overall the day was great and I definitely ended up feeling so much more at ease here than I have for a long time. I think it also helped to have a pall with me all day who wasn't too busy working in the fields or with his family, as he usually is. I am getting a bit freaked out being in the computer lab on my own right now so I'm hopefuly going to write more tomorrow before leaving!

First week in Malingua Pamba

Wow I feel like it has been SO LONG since I´ve been online and written on this blog, even though it´s really only been a week. I´m actually sitting in the exact same hostal at the exact same computer as I was last Friday, Suzal once again besides me typing away at her computer. She is back in Latacunga today because tomorrow she has a flight out of Quito back to the USA :( I´m here for the day and will get a ride back up with the family I´m staying with later this afternoon. On Fridays they come down to the city to buy things that they use all week long. Let me see how much I can explain about life in Malingua Pamba. Right now I´m in Latacunga, a city that is 2.5 hours south east of Quito. 2 hours further out into the Andes is a very small community called Malingua Pamba. It is a fairly new community because the current president´s dad started the community himself. There are about 35 people who voted for the president, which gives you an idea of the size of the voting populace. But there are SO many kids in the community that it is much larger than 35. Plus everyone lives scattered in the mountains so it´s not like a very close side-by-side neighbor like we´re used to in the states. Here´s a break down of who I´m staying with:
1. Paulino: he´s the current president of the community, he also teaches computer classes to the high school students on Saturdays, and I´m staying in his house (he constructed a second story on his house to hold volunteers like a hostal).
2. Elvia: Paulino´s wife who is about 25-30ish, has 3 boys, cooks for us and makes AMAZING food with lots of veggies, fruit and fresh tea
3. Bolivar, Roberto, Hugo: Paulino and Elvia´s 3 kids ages 7, 5, 3
4. Alcedes: Paulino´s older brother (there are 4 brothers in their family) who lives right in the same area as Paulino, as in on the school´s campus, he has a small shop next door to his house where he sells soda and soap and other small things
5. Aurora: Alcedes´ wife and a very warm-hearted woman
6. William, Patricio, Wilmer, Edison, Hernan: Alcedes and Aurora´s 5 sons ages 17, 14, 12, 8, 6--which means that there are 8 young boys running around the school campus all the time because they live right on campus with their parents
7. Josafina: Paulino and Alcedes mother, the wife of the first president of Malingua Pamba (who died in a tragic accident several years ago), who lives right across the way in what they call the Sacred Place
8. Enma, Blanca and Sonia: Josafina´s daughters, all under the age of 21, all attending high school, all living with Josafina because they are unmarried

OK so that list might not mean much to you, but it´s good for me to have it written down and it also gives you an idea of one important thing to this community: family. It is great how the boys can play soccer with their cousins and aunts every day of the week, something that constrasts starkly with my anual visit with some aunts and cousins.

We arrived on Friday in the afternoon. This included me and Suzal, Pam (nicknamed Pamelita in MP (malinga pamba) who is the director of the school there, Pam´s boyfriend, Pam´s brother and his 2 teenage kids, Pam´s sister in law and our 2 guids. When we arrived we got a little tour of the grounds from Pam and then had some dinner. That night Pam´s boyfriend Richard has snuck some elk into his suitcase and cooked it up for us all to eat. I thought that was going to be all and I was still starving. Luckily that was only the beginning. One of the guides, Jean, who knows EVERYTHING there is to know about Ecuador, was with us and had brought up 3 pizzas, which we heated up and ate. Following that was the more traditional meal of some delicious veggie soup and then a plate of potatoes and a over-easy egg. This whole meal was finished off by some hot tea that was made from herbs in the back yard, don´t ask me what type because I don´t know what the translation for the Spanish herbs are in English!
The next day was Saturday and that is the day the colegio is in school (colegio is high school in Spanish). The colegio is only on Saturdays while the escuela (elementary and middle school combined) is in session Mondays-Fridays 7:30-2 with an hour lunch break. As the colegio students studied away, Suzal, Coco (Pam´s sister in law) and I sorted fabric in one of the classrooms and chatted about Coco´s involvement in different worldwide programs, such as the school in MP. A while later we had lunch (both lunch and dinner include delicious veggie soup and a plate of something that usually has potatoes and sometimes egg and/or avocado and then either super freshly made juice or hot tea). After lunch we hung out and I spoke to some of the little kids and high schoolers in Spanish. That night we had beer-cooked chicken and all the volunteers hung out in the big dining room portion of Paulino´s downstairs. Elvia brings our food out from the kitchen and serves us all 3 meals.

Sunday was the big celebration. The latest construction had been completed a few months prior and this was the inauguration of the edificio grande (big building). We started the day with some great fresh fruit, yogurt, granola and popcorn, an essential part of a well-balanced breakfast (which I must say they make WONDERFUL popcorn here freshly popped without much salt and no butter, yummm!). Then we were off to the games with the kids. All the volunteers had been assigned an activity so I worked with Coco to get a few games of sillas musicales (musical chairs) going, followed by hop scotch. The day before hop scotch had been a huge hit but Sunday it wasn´t as popular. Luckily Josafina´s older daughters joined in so there were a few people I could hang out with while hop scotching. After a short round of Simon dice (Simon Says) it was time for church. There is an iglesia (church) on the school campus but the padre (Catholic priest/father) is a traveling priest that only comes every few Sundays. Since last Sunday was such a big celebration there was church on campus and Josafina´s daughters invited me to go, which I wasn´t planning on doing considering I´m not Catholic and I felt a bit uncomfortable going in. However, since I was invited I decided to see what it was like and I am very glad I did. We walked into this very small building and sat on the right side (I guess the left side is for younger kids). The girls sat on either side of me and kept asking if I was bored, they definitely seemed bored as do most kids in weekly church services. However I was extremeley surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Not only was I observing their community rituals and feeling very much a part of the community, but I also had the chance to practice my Spanish comprehension. Plus I actually enjoyed with the priest was talking about because he discussed how Pam had brought education and peace to the MP community and now it was their time to spread that peace to others around them. Bottom line: I´m not turning Catholic but if I were invited to church again I would probably go (however usually the kids of a certain age are the only ones who attend weekly services in a town about 2 hours away walking distance, and they have to leave at like 5:30 or so).

After church was the big celebration program. Pam gave this nice speech about the importance of education and community. There were several awards handed out and then we got to eat. What did we eat, you may be wondering? Guinea pig! Yup, I watched tons of little guinea pigs get boiled the day before so they could pull off their hair and then they were served on Sunday deep fried along side a dish of tender potatoes in a peanut sauce. I´ll say that the guinea pig was extremeley tough and hard to chew, it was very salty and had very little meat on it. It was compared to rabbit, but either the way in which it was cooked or the fact that guinea pigs are such small animals there just wasn´t much there to eat. Needless to say, I was happy to pass it on to another family who really wanted to eat it after I tried my one bite. Following lunch it was time for more kid games so we did some more rounds of musical chairs, which the kids were SO into and we even had them playing to a live band that kept playing the same song over and over :) To top the kid games off we did a trash round up where they scattered around the premises picking up trash, and if they participated they received a little prize. The volunteers were pretty pooped by this time so we headed back to Paulino´s house and chatted around the table for the rest of the evening. We had some very vegetable-full dishes, thankfully since we´d had that guinea pig for lunch, and Pam was great to even share some bars of chocolate she´d brought (the first bit of chocolate/dessert all week...a record for me lately!). Before heading to bed, however, Suzal, Coco and I had to stop by the new building to see the fiesta going on there: dancing, live music and alcohol to the max. On top of all that, older women and little kids were sleeping along the walls because they had to wait for their families to be ready before they could head home. We dance a bit but it was so hot in there that after like 30 minutes we were ready for bed.

Monday morning came and that was the final morning with Pam and her group of family, friends and volunteers. She made her famous sourdough, banana pancakes (YUMMY!) and then we took our volunteer group picture that will be framed and added to the other volunteer pictures hung up along the wall of the big new building. We then all made our way to this little market that is in another town about 20 minutes away before saying goodbye. Some of us walked partway there which was great to see a bit more of the beautiful surroundings, and then Jean picked us up in her car so we didn´t have to hike the last uphill climb. At the market we see lots of veggies, pastries and clothes before parting ways. Suzal and I grabbed a ride back with Aurora and Paulino who were selling veggies at the market. Once we got back to MP, Suzal and I were the only volunteers left. It was time to start the murals.

As I may have already told you, Suzal is a retired high school art teacher. She wanted to volunteer at MP and Pam asked if Suzal could help with a new mural on the new big building just constructed and inaugurated. Suzal was happy to help, but didn´t realize what she was getting herself in to. Instead of it being 1 mural, it ended up being 8 murals that were to describe how Pam got the school started in MP. I quickly became Suzal´s personal assistant as we tried to gather a few kids to help us paint and get the murals on the way. We worked diligently for the rest of Monday, all of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and we didn´t finish the murals. We tried really hard, got a bit stressed, used a lot of help from the older boys who live near campus (since the younger ones make a huge mess and were in school from 7:30-2). I tried to get as much done with Suzal yesterday as possible because it is now my responsiblitiy to finish them and as much as I love to do art, this is a little different project. However, regardless of the stress and dirty clothes, the murals look awesome so far and we did make a significant amount of progress. Several of them are almost done and a few just need some final details added. Therefore I have my work cut out for me during the next two weeks (I´m planning on leaving MP 2 Fridays from today so that I can catch the same ride down to Latacunga with Paulino and his family in order to continue my journey).

In addition to finishing the murals, I also want to help the kids out a bit academically. On the way down to Latacunga today, Paulino asked me if I could help teach him some English. I think I´ll be busy teaching English and maybe doing some computer tutoring too. There is a computer lab with several computers in it, but most of them don´t work. Pam brought some new harddrives and keyboards to the school, but nobody has hooked them up. The other day I worked with Wilmer, the 9 year old, to hook up between 5 or 6 computers. Unfortunately, they use a different program the kids aren´t used to PLUS the kids don´t get much time on the computer so they type with their right index finger extremeley slowly. Also, there isn´t internet so the most I can do is help them with typing, powerpoint, etc. We´ll see what they want to do, what the teachers think is most helpful and what I´m able to do.

So a bit more description of MP. There is a compostable toilet on campus that is a huge accomplishment here. While it is nice to have a toilet available for the students, it sure doesn´t smell good and I´ve had to use it a few times while several flies and even a bee or 2 were flying around the small room. To limit the amount of times Suzal and I have to go downstairs to use the bathroom, we´ve put a big multi-use bucket in our room that is nicely called our piss pot. We have the goal of keeping it as clear as possible, which will now be just my goal since it is now just my piss pot (she leaves tomorrow for Colorado). Oh yeah and speaking of Colorado: several of my new friends including both Suzal and Pam live in Boulder, Colorado, just 30 minutes from my new home in Denver! Back to MP though: I´ve been trying to take a shower every 2 days but I´ve slipped into about every 3 which is pretty gross since I can smell myself right now and my hair is pretty greasy. I don´t wash my hands all that much but luckily Suzal brought baby wipes that I can use when I can´t wash my hands or face (I don´t wash my face here unless I´m taking a shower). For laundry we´ve been rinsing our clothes out in the shower and then hanging them up on a line in our room, making our room look very decorated with our clothes hanging up there all the time. We stopped hanging them up outside because most afternoons it starts raining and that doesn´t help them dry. Fortunately these past 3 days it hasn´t rained in the afternoon, which has let us continue painting later than usual.

When I´m not painting in the afternoon though, I have played futbol (aka soccer) with some of the boys on the field which is just dirt and 2 small goals on either end. It is very tiring running around at such high altitude (10,000 feet at least) and my fingers get swollen after a bit, but it´s fun and a different type of exercise so that´s good. I am so thankful for my sleeping bag because I have not been cold whatsoever and have even woken up in the middle of the night to take of clothes. I know I must belong here because we go to bed around 8:30 or 9 and stay in bed until around 7, 7:30, which means we get A LOT of sleep and/or relaxation. I´ve been journaling since I can´t blog and have also started reading a bit. This long amount of time in bed is great because the days are extremeley long and every minute seems to be filled with something, so after a nice long night I feel ready to start another day. Also, with so much sleep, I´ve been having very very vivid dreams, which is good and bad: they make me feel weird in the morning but I get to hang out with friends from home while sleeping :)

As I´ve kinda already mentioned, I now have 2 weeks in MP by myself, as in no other volunteers. I´m excited to continue working on my Spanish, further my relationships with the friends and kids I´ve met already and see what help I can do while staying here. I´m a bit nervous to not have anyone to share my room with, speak English with or share my foreigner experience with. However my main goals of going abroad included working on my Spanish, working with kids and getting to be part of a community, rather than just being a tourist. All of these goals are being accomplished while staying in MP so I am going to keep an open mind and heart for the next 2 weeks here. Plus I know that all the time I spend worrying about being alone, I am not enjoying spending in MP, but before I know it I will be moving on to my next destination and then will be back in California before I can blink my eyes! As a heads-up, today was a surprise to come to Latacunga and get access to the internet, but I may not have access until I leave, which is in 2 more weeks. If I can I will update, otherwise hasta luego!! XO

Latacunga with Suzal!

Hey there! I didn´t get a chance to write about my adventures yesterday so I´m going to try and catch up today. I don´t know how much more I´ll be able to write in the next few days because I´m going to the school today so I probably won´t have unlimited computer access as I have had at the hostals. Anyways...so I left you on Wednesday night as I waited for Suzal to arrive in Quito. I tried to stay up but by 9:30 I was too tired and cold to keep my eyes open, so I went to bed and hoped she would be there in the morning. Fortunately my sleeping bag is wonderful and my little travel pillow isn´t too bad, so I haven´t had any comfort issues while sleeping. However that night I was a bit stressed about trying to find Suzal the next day because I didn´t even know if she had flown in as scheduled. Also I´ve found myself thinking up sentences in Spanish as I lay in bed, either before going to sleep or as I wake up--maybe it is a kind of rehearsal for when I may actually need to say something in Spanish. Nevertheless I slept that night a nice long sleep, about 10 hours or so (I´ve been needing a lot of sleep here I´ve noticed) and in the morning as I went downstairs for breakfast I ran into this blonde-haired woman who asked ¨is that you?¨to which I responded ¨Yes!¨ so I met Suzal right there at breakfast. We had a nice meal talking to this German university student who had spent the last month of his summer vacation in the Galapagos building showers there. He told us about this couple who retired, bought a boat and had been sailing around the world for the past few years, pretty crazy what people do! After breakfast Suzal and I packed our bags, checked out of the hostal and grabbed a taxi to the bus station. As inexperienced travelers often do, we had to learn through our mistakes, one of which was getting the first taxi that passed by us, which just happened to be more of a bus-taxi. This meant that our almost 1 hour taxi ride cost each of us $15! Yeah that is a very pricey taxi ride here, but I chalked it up to a learning experience. Plus the driver was super nice and told us about certain things in Quito as we drove through the city. I got to practice my Spanish and even felt like a bit of an expert/translator because Suzal knows very little Spanish. I learned about how the city is broken into three parts and that Ecuador is broken into provinces that are named after the volcanos in that area. There is a huge volcano, Cotopaxi, that goes off with such a huge explosion that it can run into Quito at times. All sorts of Trivia was shared with us as we looked out the windows and made our way to this huge bus terminal in the southern region of Quito. This bus terminal was the nicest terminal I have ever seen for busses, not that I´ve really seen all that many bus terminals anyways! The bus was a 2 hour trip that cost each of us $1.50! See how that compares with the pricey taxi ride? I was super lucky to meet such a wonderful travel partner as Suzal because she is so excited to see everything around Ecuador and to talk and keep me entertained on the bus ride and throughout our travels. So we drove on the bus for two hours and looked at the countryside. When we go to Latacunga we took another taxi to the next hostal we had reservations at, Hostal Tiana. We got our room, put our luggage away and then we tried to get to this big outdoor market in the town nextdoor, about 20 miles away. But since we got to Latacunga at 11:30, we were too late to make it to the market because most of the vendors would have already packed up their things. I asked the employee at the front desk about activities to do around Latacunga and she gave me a packet that had a walking tour of the city outlined. Suzal, easy going as always, took it in stride and was ready to start the walking tour. It took us to this church we tried to get into, but couldn´t and ended up walking around the rooms I think the fathers live in, so we were asked to leave haha. Then we went through the main shopping center that had a lot of little stores selling things that were probably fake (like not ¨real¨ brands), but we weren´t in for shopping at that time anyways. After walking a few streets through the shopping town, we went into this marvelous graveyard. Because of how religious Ecuadorians are, mostly Roman Catholic, their cemeteries are extremely intricate and elaborate. Huge plots of land were taken for families with empty spots still waiting and others full of flowers and pictures. We walked around there for a bit, it was a very beautiful experience and we took a few pictures. There were lots of palm trees lining the walk way with birds chirping, which was cool considering how right outside the doors of the cemetery was a busy and buzzing street. We continued our tour on the streets to this museum that had some furniture and pieces of machines that used to make clothes before a volcano erupted and covered most of the factory. We jumped into a tour, in Spanish, of a room of paintings, which was kind of cool considering how my Spanish is still a work in progress. I grabbed bits and pieces of what the man described and tried to translate and share it with Suzal. We continued on to this outdoor market that is in town I think everyday with lots of fruits and veggies and also some stalls of meals (meat, soup, etc). We were thinking of getting some food there but were concerned that it might upset our stomaches so we decided to try to find a restaurant instead. Suzal is such a generous and giving person, she gave a dollar or two to a few different women wondering the streets who looked like they could use some food. After a bit of restaurant-shopping, we decided on this clean-looking restaurant and then had to decipher the menu. Once again I went with the almuerzo, or lunch, that includes soup, beans, rice, a piece of meat/chicken and juice. It was fabulous as was the lunch in Quito, with a different well-seasoned soup and some wonderfully grilled chicken (yes, I´m eating meat here which is kinda weird but if I didn´t I would have had a pretty small lunch). It also came with some really tasty lime-aide that I was scared to drink but wanted to so badly that I had about 1/2 the cup. Suzal ordered arroz con camarones, rice with shrimp, which was a huge dish of shrimp, rice and 2 plantains, which I ate some of course because I love plantains. We sat and talked and ate for quite awhile and then we had them pack up her leftovers and continued our journey. We made our way to la casa de cultura, house of culture, that was right next to a river and used to be where a mill was located before something ruined it, maybe a volcano I can´t remember. It was like a little outside garden with pieces of the mill lying around and then inside there were masks, paintings and other pieces of art we could look at. The museum was fun to explore and a good get away from the hussle and bussle of the busy street. I was starting to get tired but we still had more to explore! We found our way to the central square of Latacunga which included a beautiful park and then their city hall, a jail and a big bank. The city hall was open to the public and we walked inside to take a peek; it was like a square of outdoor garden surrounded by buildings around the garden, which made it a very pretty city hall. After our time there we decided to find this one street that would give us a great view of the city. As we made our way there, I learned that my map reading skills are pretty poor, but we eventually got our way to the street we were looking for. On our way we also used a few public restrooms that I was surprised to see around the city. Suzal was even allowed to use a restroom in a hotel for free, which is a pretty big no-no in American hotels at times. So after our bathroom stops and turn-arounds due to my mis-reading of the map, we found our way up Calle Oriente, a street that goes steeply up hill and gives you a beautiful look at Latacunga. The sky was gorgeous with some huge clouds above the mountains and colorful houses. Luckily the way home was much quicker and we got to the hostal in time to get some wine :) Oh let me tell you a bit about the streets we walked on: lots of quick moving cars and taxis that seem to honk at pedestrians as a warning like ¨I´m coming, don´t walk into the street right now¨or at least that is how Suzal and I started to understand all the tooting. Second, the side walks are very narrow, a tight squeeze for 2 people when passing each other, so the majority of the time Suzal and I walked single-file. Also, around the beginnig of our journey, around 11:30/12 there were a LOT of school kids walking around, arm-in-arm, wearing matching school uniforms which was a bit surprising since it was so early in the day...OK so back to the hostal. The hostal we´re staying in has a cafe attached to it, so we were able to order some wine and food. Suzal wanted a bottle of wine, which ended up being brought in this glass pitcher full of red wine, and then also a little something to eat. We decided on ¨tostis¨which I don´t think are an Ecuadorian food because it was pretty much a sandwich on wheat bread with cheese and ham and then it was like grilled together with a sandwich press of somesort. Even if it wasn´t Ecuadorian, it was good! So we sat and chatted for awhile before it started to get cold (I think the nights and mornings can get pretty chilly even though the day itself was sunny and nice and I had to keep rolling up my sleeves). We went back to our room where we talked for several hours. I think this woman is changing my life! She lives in Boulder, Colorado so we´ve already discussed how once I get to Colorado she is going to show me around Boulder. She eats a raw diet meaning she doesn´t use flour or sugar, doesn´t use a microwave, makes her own juices and dried fruit, etc. She taught high school art for several years but is planning on retiring in the next few months. I love her outlook on life and her desire for learning. She told me how she didn´t get her masters because she wasn´t enjoying art education (or whatever her planned masters was in) but instead took several classes in biology and spent years exploring cadavers when she wasn´t even enrolled in those classes! So needless to say, I did a lot of listening last night and loved every moment of it. I knew that this trip would introduce me to new and exciting people, but I didn´t realize how that would happen, yet here I was having a wonderful experience with a fellow American who I never would have met if I hadn´t traveled to Ecuador. And besides her enthusiastic character, Suzal helped open my eyes to things I probably wouldn´t have found all that exciting without her, such as cool old steps or a dirty river with lush flowers growing besides it. Also, even without knowing Spanish, she seems so comfortable here as if she belongs, which definitely helped me feel more comfortable when my natural tendency is to feel like a massive outsider. So yeah that was our day yesterday. This morning I woke up, got dressed and had some breakfast here at the hostal: hot tea and a biscuit (which was like an unsweetened croissant, served with butter and jam), which I had two of...how healthy, right?! We then decided to go get a nice warm jacket sort of thing because we were both surprised at how chilly it was last night and we expect the mountains and school to be even colder. I bought one for $18, and Suzal bought the same one so we are matching! We also drew money out of the ATM so we could just pay the school when we arrive, rather than worrying about finding an ATM up in the mountains or something (so I´m expecting to have to pay about $300 for the month at this school, meaning I have a LOT of cash on me and can´t wait to give it to someone!). We packed our room and are now ready to leave. The director of the school, Pam, is sending someone to pick us up from the hostal between 11:30 and noon to take us to the restaurant where she´ll be so we can have lunch together before heading up to the school. I´m excited to get settled at the school, start to get to know other people and speak more Spanish (I haven´t spoken too much since arriving here so far), but I´m also a bit nervous. Suzal is only staying a week so after that I may be on my own at the school and I´m really going to miss having her as a travel partner. Hopefully others will come along as well, I´ll just have to wait and see!

1st day in Quito

Hola! Today was my first full day in Quito, Ecuador and it was a very fun, relaxing day at that. I woke up at 8:45 (a nice, long rest after my day of plane rides yesterday) and had breakfast at the hostal, which included toast with butter and jam, hot tea and scrambled eggs. I met two other travelers in the hostal who ate breakfast with me: a girl from France who is staying in Quito for the next 6 months for an internship and a guy from Australia who is here for almost a year backpacking around South America. We sat and chatted for a bit in English and then decided to go get ready (for me that meant just brushing my teeth! Keeping it simple here...as usual). We were going to get a cup of coffee/tea but the girl ended up meeting with a friend of a friend to go look for an apartment. Me and the other guy went to a cute cafe where they specialize in chocolate and coffee, locally and organically grown. I was going to get a brownie but instead went for a cup of hot cocoa, but I was able to try my new friend´s brownie. We sat there for quite a while just talking about our different backgrounds and stuff, which was fun. I learned that the area we are staying in in Quito is termed ¨gringoland¨ pretty much, which explains why the cafe menu was in English. After our chocolate (at 11:15AM mind you) I went with him to the hospita where I sat and waited as he got his 4th rabiis shot, he got bit by a dog on one of his journeys so he was playing it safe. After that we went to a little restaurant and got lunch. Our lunch dish, which is a sort of set menu, only cost $1.75, which was 10 cents cheaper than my hot chocolate and included a really tasty vegetable soup that came with a banana, popcorn and an orange-colored juice, then a plate of lentils, rice, cabbage salad and a piece of fried fish. I was very pleasantly surprised by how tasty all parts of that lunch were; I didn´t drink the juice because I´m afraid it might have been made with local water, didn´t eat the popcorn because I wasn´t feeling it with the meal and didn´t eat the cabbage salad because I didn´t know if the veggies had been washed thoroughly to get rid of all the pesticides. While we sat and ate and chatted, an older man came in and played this very unique looking harp for a bit and we clapped for his great performance (random performance too: Wednesday afternoon at like 2PM). Later my friend went to skype his brother for his birthday, I guess there are like skype-cafes around here, who knew?! I went back to the hostal for a bit and read my guide book of South America. I was hoping to meet up with some other tourists staying in the hostal but it´s pretty quite here with only like 5 people or so, so no such luck. Later my friend returned and we made some tea, talked about how he is a DJ back at home and then decided to make some dinner. It had started to rain around 3PM and there was even a bit of lightening and thunder. We walked through the rain to a little vegetable store that was literally a small room with vegetables on the walls. We picked out a bag of veggies: onion, 2 carrots, red bell pepper, zuchinni, several green beans, and it only cost $1! Luckily our hostal has a kitchen, spices and pans so we made some rice and he sauteed a sauce of peanut butter, cumin, terriyaki sauce, brown sugar together with the veggies. I made sure my veggies were cooked extra long and then we ate it with some brown rice. It was FANTASTIC and probably the cheapest dinner I´ve ever had ($0.50!). I hope I was safe enough about cooking the veggies for long enough because I really don´t want to get sick. Now I´m reading while waiting for my new friend to arrive, the 60 year old American woman who is going to go with me tomorrow to the market before heading to the school. It is still raining and it is pretty chilly, like I wish I´d brought another jacket right now! I´m looking forward to climbing into my nice warm sleeping back I spent so long picking out :) I´m a bit nervous about how we´re going to get from Quito to Latacunga and Sasquil tomorrow (that´s not exactly how you spell it, but what do you guys know? it´s the town where the big market is, and I don´t even know if it will go on in the rain...so many unknowns here!), but I figure whatever happens will be great because it´s part of my adventure. So I was a bit surprised how my first day in Ecuador turned out because it was so chill, but I enjoyed it nevertheess: I made a few new friends, practiced a bit of Spanish, saw a bit of ¨gringoland¨ and had some tasty Ecuadorian food. I wish that all the meals I eat here are as delicious and healthy as the dinner we made tonight was, but I have a feeling a lot of fried meats are in my future, we shall see though! OK I´m going to go back to reading Wuthering Heights now. Talk later! Besos

I made it!

Hello everyone, this is my first time blogging ABROAD! I am excited to tell you all that I had a very safe trip with very few issues. I woke up at 3:15AM this morning and had Robyn drive me to the airport. I was doing OK as I waited in line to check in with my already printed boarding pass when I was told that since my pass didn´t have a bar code, I needed to talk to a representative. I showed them my passport and then they were asking me about my length of stay--something I was a bit worried about. You can stay in Ecuador for 90 days without a special visa, so I didn´t get a visa because I´m only staying in Ecuador for 60 days, then Peru for 45 days, then Chile for like 15 days. However the woman at the counter was concerned, wrote some stuff down on the computer and then called another representative over to ask advice. Luckily this other woman had heped me earlier and seemed super nice. She told the woman that if it were her she would book me for a flight out of Ecuador within 90 days, print me the ticket, then cancel the flight. So that is what happened, and no problems arose after that. No one asked to see that flight ticket, but I felt comfortable knowing I had a document clearly showing I was leaving Ecuador within 90 days (even if it wasn´t real). Then I flew to Denver where I had a lay over (slept the whole way). Then flew to Houston, Texas next to this older man (79 years old) who I didn´t talk to until the very end, because I slept most of that plane too. He was telling me how he had a doctorate in science and had taught for 35 years, all grades including elementary all the way up to college! After he retired from teaching he opened up a B&B and took care of his wife for 19 years when she got Alzheimer´s. He was living with his daughter and her family in Colorado for the past few years, so they could help with his wife, but now that time has past since she passed away, he planned to move to Texas. So on this trip he was going to check out some houses or something and propose to his new sweetheart! Isn´t that so cute?! It was fun talking with him, although I was a bit distracted by this random hair growing out of his cheek. Anyways, once I flew into Houston, I had to take this old-school shuttle to a different terminal and was freaking out with several other travelers about not making our flights since this shuttle was going so slow and we were pretty sure it got lost along the way (I don´t think it actually did, but we were worried...) luckily I followed the signs and made it in time to check in at my gate, get a bording pass and then wait for a few minutes before bording. I watched as this woman said goodbye to a younger boy who was escorted onto the plane. I talked to her afterwards and she said he was her 12 year old nephew from Ecuador who had come to visit with her for the past month and a half (he was on summer vacation); during his stay she put him into school in Texas so he could meet friends and have something to do...an interesting vacation to say the least. We talked shortly about Ecuador and how the people in Quito (the capital) have very thick accents--great for practicing Spanish abroad for my first time ha! Anyways, I got on the 3rd plane and slept mostly through The Blind Side and Did You Hear about the Morgansons? As I filled out my customs form I was nervous because it asked about food and I had some trailmix and power bars packed and I was afraid they would either confiscate them or make me pay to bring them into Ecuador; lucky for me however they barely glanced at my sheet before passing me along. I easily found my luggage and the guy with a sign with my name on it and the hostal I´m staying at, it was only like a 15 minute drive from the airport too. I´m in a room with 4 beds, 1 girl is sleeping already. I think I´m going to go get ready for bed too now. The manager said breakfast is served from 7:30-9:30 and my travel buddy (another volunteer from America who is going to the school with me, her name is Suzall and she´s 60 years old) is supposed to be here tomorrow at 7, but I don´t know if that is AM or PM so I might have time to explore around a bit, we´ll see! Have a good night and remember: I´m a very detail-oriented person...you were forewarned! :)