Door Homage to Daddy
Monday, March 23, 2009
Santa Barbara, Napo Province
I took this through the railings at a daycare in the Amazon. We were doing a ¨minga¨, like a community service project that indigenous communities do, painting the daycare and the whole time this group was inside minding their own business.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Breakfast was yummy empanadas with preserves, so good. Then we went to another lodge in the canoe, the Arajuno Jungle Lodge. It was even better than the other one. It’s completely self-sufficient and sustainable, and the owner, Tom, came to Ecuador from Nebraska when he was in the Peace Corps. They had an awesome swing where could go out over the river.
We took the canoes to Santa Barbara, a little community with a school. We “taught the kids math” for an hour, but the kids hardly knew their numbers for the most part. They just knew what sounds came after each other, at least until five. My girl was Diana, and she told me she was three but she definitely was at least five. Some of the other girls said they were three when they weren’t, too, we aren’t sure why. After “teaching,” we painted the daycare with the help of some of the kids. Some kids were swinging from a vine hanging from a huge sable tree. We took a walk around their chacra, their indigenous-style farm where everything grows together, it was really interesting. I tried a cocoa bean.
Canoe trip back to the lodge. We swam in the river, it was the perfect temperature, really nice. There are those fish that swim up you if you pee and you need a big operation to get it out. I built a sandcastle with a couple other people. By the way, the lodge was a pet monkey called Mona.
At dinnertime, the owner put on a Pink Floyd concert DVD and lit a lot of candles on the porch/dining room. There were hammocks, too, and these awesome swinging chairs. For dinner we had quinoa soup, salad with good kind of blue cheesy dressing, pasta with creamy kind of basily sauce, and really really good muffins with passion fruit sauce. Later we put five headlamps on one of the girls and tried to take pictures of her swinging in the dark. We played cuarenta, and later a couple of us stayed up and talked to the cook from Uruguay. I slept in a top bunk like at Wooster!
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Pancake breakfast! Then a hike with a guide Franklin through the rainforest, both secondary and primary parts. There were snakes and I ate a termite. After hike we were all dropped off by ourselves off the path and stayed alone for an hour without a watch or journal or anything just to observe and feel connected to the jungle. At first I was pretty relaxed and enjoying it and watching a spider on his web, but suddenly there was a huge crash nearby, probably a falling tree branch, and my heart was racing. Then a bullet ant was crawling right at me, which was weird since usually they’re just going on their way. So for the rest of the time I wasn’t as comfortable, but you’re not really supposed to be completely comfortable, I don’t think.
After lunch, we went on a CANOE TRIP (it was a motorized canoe, but still the coolest thing ever) to the Amazonica animal refuge for animals that used to be pets. They try to recuperate them to release, but a lot of them can’t be ever, especially parrots and monkeys. There was one monkey with an equilibrium problem who was doing tricks, very cute. We also saw the biggest rodent in the world, also cute. There were a lot of European volunteers, our guide was from Switzerland. Then canoe ride back.
Our speaker was the son of a shaman. Interesting, don’t feel like writing about it now.
Night hike! Huge spiderwebs yards high between trees. Frog. Guide made me a plantain leaf crown like Pocahontas and Denise made me a bracelet.
I saw a bullet ant behind my bed!!!!!
After lunch, we went on a CANOE TRIP (it was a motorized canoe, but still the coolest thing ever) to the Amazonica animal refuge for animals that used to be pets. They try to recuperate them to release, but a lot of them can’t be ever, especially parrots and monkeys. There was one monkey with an equilibrium problem who was doing tricks, very cute. We also saw the biggest rodent in the world, also cute. There were a lot of European volunteers, our guide was from Switzerland. Then canoe ride back.
Our speaker was the son of a shaman. Interesting, don’t feel like writing about it now.
Night hike! Huge spiderwebs yards high between trees. Frog. Guide made me a plantain leaf crown like Pocahontas and Denise made me a bracelet.
I saw a bullet ant behind my bed!!!!!
Monday, March 9, 2009
This was the travel day to Napo, where we stayed for our Amazon trip. It was a beautiful bus ride through the sierra, I loved it. We drove down four kilometers. Our only real stop was in Papallacta to go to the AMAZING hot springs there, all surrounded by the Andes, soooo wonderful. There were lots of little pools with different temperatures and then the river which was icy cold and left us all tingly to go back into a hot pool. We knew we were going to have a picnic lunch afterwards, but when they told us it was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we were all shouting, we were thrilled. We put cheese in them (which is actually tasty not disgusting since the cheese is different here, they put it in hot chocolate sometimes, too).
We got to our lodge, Ariñahui, at dusk and had dinner, which was always really good there. I roomed with Zohar and Denise. I saw a big black bug behind my bed right before we fell asleep so we all freaked out and pushed our beds into the middle.
We got to our lodge, Ariñahui, at dusk and had dinner, which was always really good there. I roomed with Zohar and Denise. I saw a big black bug behind my bed right before we fell asleep so we all freaked out and pushed our beds into the middle.
Sunday, March 8, 2009 – El Día Internacional de la Mujer
This was my last day with the Espinosas before going back to Quito and then to the rainforest. I wasn’t sad at all, I was pretty excited. In the morning I got up early in case they were going to do something and had breakfast. I overheard they were going to church at Camila and Mimi’s school since Cami’s class was doing something so I kind of invited myself since they didn’t seem like they were going to. Just the parents and Cami went. It was a modern-style Catholic church with nuns and communion and everything. The fifth-graders sat where the chorus would be and sang and read some scripture. One boy read a poem for mothers, waving his hands around for emphasis. It was really cute. All the kids gave their mothers flowers, which was funny since a lot of the mothers had been holding the flowers for the whole service and just gave it back to their kid so their kid could hand it back to them.
So then we went home and I finished packing. A little later Pati (my host mother) called me into the living room and they were all sitting there. She’d called a little family meeting to thank me for coming kind of and to tell me what she thought and supposedly to find out what I thought. She told me that she thought we didn’t have a lot of dialogue since I was an independent person and in my own world and they wanted to respect that. While I’m not arguing that’s a decent description of me, I had been trying so hard all month to get them to talk to me and do things with me that I felt like they were completely just letting themselves off the hook for not being more welcoming. Of course I’d be independent or else I would have stayed at home, that’s no reason to not talk to me, especially when I’d always be asking questions and trying to include myself and they would hardly respond. And there were Sami and Mimi sitting there who’d hardly said a word to me all month. It was just very awkward and uncomfortable. I thanked them for having me and gave them the present I’d put together with Pittsburgh things and dog toys and marshmallows (they LOVE them, it’s a little gross) and some chocolate and a charcoal pencil for Camila since she likes to draw. They gave me a nice light scarf and a leather bracelet they’d written my name on, and that was the family meeting.
We went to lunch at the Cuena restaurant called Rom Boy. My host mom, who was suddenly acting all friendly, I think because of the dog toys, recommended a typical dish she liked, which ended up being the stomach fat of a cow with sauce and rice. I couldn’t eat it since it made me gag, so I hide a lot of it under the rice. What the girls got looked really good though, so I’ll get that when I visit Cuenca. It’s steak with a fried egg on it with rice and French fries. After lunch we went to the mall and Sami wanted to get her cell phone fixed so we sat around in the cell phone store for a while. They were taking too long so Pati brought me back to put my luggage in the car and we picked up the rest of them on the way to the chapel where the bus was picking us all up to go to Quito. A few people weren’t there yet so we had an awkward almost goodbye time for a while. We took a picture. When we really said goodbye it was fine. Sami kept her iPod headphones in. Pati looked pretty sad all of a sudden though, and her eyes got bloodshot.
We took the bus back to Quito. Some people were a little upset, but they can go back to visit while we’re in Quito really easily. I sat next to Adam and Meredith though, and their families were more or less the same deal. We always felt the distance and never felt totally welcome or comfortable. At least I had Camila, so it wasn’t all that bad. We went to the Hotel Alston, where we always stay in Quito, and I went on a walk with Rachel and Zach before it got dark. Evidently another guy on our program had seen someone get shot in the head when he was in Quito with his host family, so we were a little on edge, but we found the artisan market, which is really cool. I’ll take pictures later.
So then we went home and I finished packing. A little later Pati (my host mother) called me into the living room and they were all sitting there. She’d called a little family meeting to thank me for coming kind of and to tell me what she thought and supposedly to find out what I thought. She told me that she thought we didn’t have a lot of dialogue since I was an independent person and in my own world and they wanted to respect that. While I’m not arguing that’s a decent description of me, I had been trying so hard all month to get them to talk to me and do things with me that I felt like they were completely just letting themselves off the hook for not being more welcoming. Of course I’d be independent or else I would have stayed at home, that’s no reason to not talk to me, especially when I’d always be asking questions and trying to include myself and they would hardly respond. And there were Sami and Mimi sitting there who’d hardly said a word to me all month. It was just very awkward and uncomfortable. I thanked them for having me and gave them the present I’d put together with Pittsburgh things and dog toys and marshmallows (they LOVE them, it’s a little gross) and some chocolate and a charcoal pencil for Camila since she likes to draw. They gave me a nice light scarf and a leather bracelet they’d written my name on, and that was the family meeting.
We went to lunch at the Cuena restaurant called Rom Boy. My host mom, who was suddenly acting all friendly, I think because of the dog toys, recommended a typical dish she liked, which ended up being the stomach fat of a cow with sauce and rice. I couldn’t eat it since it made me gag, so I hide a lot of it under the rice. What the girls got looked really good though, so I’ll get that when I visit Cuenca. It’s steak with a fried egg on it with rice and French fries. After lunch we went to the mall and Sami wanted to get her cell phone fixed so we sat around in the cell phone store for a while. They were taking too long so Pati brought me back to put my luggage in the car and we picked up the rest of them on the way to the chapel where the bus was picking us all up to go to Quito. A few people weren’t there yet so we had an awkward almost goodbye time for a while. We took a picture. When we really said goodbye it was fine. Sami kept her iPod headphones in. Pati looked pretty sad all of a sudden though, and her eyes got bloodshot.
We took the bus back to Quito. Some people were a little upset, but they can go back to visit while we’re in Quito really easily. I sat next to Adam and Meredith though, and their families were more or less the same deal. We always felt the distance and never felt totally welcome or comfortable. At least I had Camila, so it wasn’t all that bad. We went to the Hotel Alston, where we always stay in Quito, and I went on a walk with Rachel and Zach before it got dark. Evidently another guy on our program had seen someone get shot in the head when he was in Quito with his host family, so we were a little on edge, but we found the artisan market, which is really cool. I’ll take pictures later.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
We didn’t do much today, so I spent a lot of time playing with Camila, but at night they asked me all of a sudden whether I wanted to go see a music program. We went to the square in San Rafael, the little town I pass on my way walking to school, and they were setting up with plastic patio chairs and sound equipment. (I just realized I never see folding chairs here. They always use plastic patio chairs.) It was the day before International Woman’s Day, so it was kind of for that but way really an opportunity for a local mayor candidate to put on a cultural event. There was an older guy walking around with a 2 liter pop bottle filled with liquor and a plastic cup for people to all drink from. A couple guys sang and then the main feature was this woman singer with her two back-up dancers. The women were wearing dresses that were basically shirts, they might have covered half of their butts. I thought it was kind of strange tribute to the día de la mujer. We left early since I don’t think they liked it very much.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Amazon Week
My first host family!
I don´t have anything written but these two lodges are where I´ve been this past week.
Arajuno: http://www.arajuno.com/index.html
Alinahui: http://www.ecuadoramazonlodge.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1&Itemid=66
Arajuno: http://www.arajuno.com/index.html
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
This was the last day of classes in Los Chillos and the last day overall of Spanish class with Alberto. I don’t think I’ve written much about him, but we loved him. My Spanish class is high intermediate with five people. We haven’t talked about grammar hardly at all since the second week since we can always convince him to play charades or pictionary instead. We say we hijacked the class. We call ourselves Los Tigres Chéveres (the cool tigers, not nearly as fun in English), and there’s a lot long name involving mountains and nearby cities. Alberto is kind of like a little boy even though he’s in his forties; he giggles all the time and has a really goofy smile and can’t control us at all. Sometimes he does these really long pauses and we think he’s trying to get us back on topic but really he’s taking us even further away with some random opinion. Our class is very different from everyone else’s and I really haven’t learned very much, but we do speak in Spanish all the time so that helps. As a goodbye thanks present to Alberto we rewrote Te Recuerdo Amanda in his honor. (Te Recuerdo Amanda is a song by Victor Jara, who was a new-style folky singer in the seventies in Chile, and it’s our class’s theme song. Jara got killed in the Pinochet coup.)
Our workshop classes all prepared presentations for the last day. Elias is our workshop teacher and the boss of the Spanish/workshop teachers. He wanted us to act out this poem about the huasipungo system during the colonial period. It’s way more serious than anything the other groups were doing. I’m the Spanish guy and at one point I cut off Jessie the indigenous man’s balls with a knife. I also whip her. Everybody but Cecilia dies in the mines. The lowest level class’s presentation was soooo funny, they sang songs they wrote about the debt crisis and the colonial period and other things to the tune of other songs, like the Beach Boys.
After class a few of us went to Crepes & Waffles in the mall for ice cream. I got caramel and mora, so good. Then internet café and home for lunch.
Tonight we had our goodbye party for Los Chillos. All of our families went and we had dinner and dancing, pretty fun. It’s hilarious watching the gringos dance with the latinos, we look ridiculous, almost all of us.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Today we had class until 4 since it was a lecture day (the ethnohistory of the Amazon rainforest, in Spanish). After class I went to the market with Zohar and Denise to find some good rainforest pants – pants that would dry quickly. I didn’t really find any so I got some light sweatpants, but they were only 9 dollars so not bad, I’ll use them. Zohar and I bought guacamole ingredients, and brought them to my house with tortilla chips (which they call nachos here). It turned out pretty good. They only have guacamole here when they eat tacos, which is not very often since its not Ecuadorian at all, so I wanted some with chips. Most of them liked it, but Mimi just ate the chips with lemon juice.
Zohar and I went to visit Amanda down the road, and while we were there the power went out. It was awesome – we had dinner (lunchmeat sandwiches with hot chocolate) by candlelight. Amanda’s host brother walked us back to our house even though it’s less than a minute down the road. The stars were amazing. Usually you can’t see them since we’re in the Quito suburbs and there are tons of lights all the time. The outage was huge – most of us lost power and we’re pretty spread out. At my house I looked at the stars with my host dad and showed him Orion and what may possible have been the little dipper, and my host mom wanted to have us tell scary stories but the rest of them didn’t want to (which sucked, that would have been great and they never do anything like that). I was starving since I’d hardly eaten anything all day, so I ate dinner again with them, rice and hot dog this time, again by candlelight. Lights came back on around 9:30 and we went to bed.
Zohar and I went to visit Amanda down the road, and while we were there the power went out. It was awesome – we had dinner (lunchmeat sandwiches with hot chocolate) by candlelight. Amanda’s host brother walked us back to our house even though it’s less than a minute down the road. The stars were amazing. Usually you can’t see them since we’re in the Quito suburbs and there are tons of lights all the time. The outage was huge – most of us lost power and we’re pretty spread out. At my house I looked at the stars with my host dad and showed him Orion and what may possible have been the little dipper, and my host mom wanted to have us tell scary stories but the rest of them didn’t want to (which sucked, that would have been great and they never do anything like that). I was starving since I’d hardly eaten anything all day, so I ate dinner again with them, rice and hot dog this time, again by candlelight. Lights came back on around 9:30 and we went to bed.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
We had a cuarenta tournament. Cuarenta is the big Ecuador card game, mostly from Quito. It’s complicated in a weird way in that it has tons of little rules but isn’t that hard to pick up. I’ll have to teach it to everyone when I get home. It’s a partner game if you play with four, so I paired with Denise. We won the first round but had to play the second against Adam and Alberto, which wasn’t fair since Alberto is my Spanish teacher, from Quito. So we lost that one but did pretty well. The teachers actually served us shots (canelo I think its called with liquor but not very much) while we were playing, so it was definitely one of those moments when I realized studying abroad in Ecuador was totally different from at home.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Today we went to a local school and taught classes all morning. I got assigned to the sixth grade, so the kids were nine and ten mostly and very cute. At first I was disappointed not to have a younger grade, but with older kids the interaction is more interesting. We planned out three hours of class time. First we taught English. I made a worksheet with English action verbs and their Spanish counterparts, and I had them split into groups of five and play charades with the verbs; they had to guess the verb in English. One group especially was really good and into it.
Then we mixed geography and English, and taught a lot of geographical feature terms that they will never remember but one of my group members thought was important – words like coral reef and archipelago and mesa and a couple I didn’t even know in English. But it was fun since we had them play Pictionary on the board with the words, and, again, had them guess in English. For more geography without the English, we split them into groups and assigned them a country to learn about from these cards we made up. The group I was helping had Germany and I told them Germany had lots of fancy castles were princesses used to live. We were drawing what we thought the country looked like according to what we learned, so I drew a princess and then I had to draw it for five other girls since they liked it. We were going to have them present after but they were getting rowdy so we didn’t.
After that was break, when they get served some food, usually rice and beans (provided by government funding and padded with 25 cents from each student a week – some can’t pay).
After break we had them write stories with the prompt that they are traveling to any country in the world by plane and they crash somewhere, like in the jungle or the desert or a city. One girl wrote this really cute story about how her mother told her she had to go to Paraguay and she was very sad, but she took a plane there and crashed in Argentina. She saw some different animals and came to a city, and she saw a tall, thin woman there. It’s her mom and her mom tells her she never has to leave again. A couple of the other kids didn’t write anything at all. I think they all had very different literacy levels, and also they don’t seem to have very many creative projects.
After the classes we talked with the teachers, and they told us about problems with funding and parents who won’t or can’t reinforce what’s taught at school. Also, parents who can’t afford to feed them breakfast so they come in hungry and parents who abuse their kids. Mostly we just talked about how it was a good experience.
Later I played with Camila for a long time. We started with bubbles (from Ellie, the best present) and then played hospital (which involved many dramatic death falls) and then I tied her shoes together and chased her around.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Photographic Homage to Linda´s Field PicturesThis entry is extremely long.
This weekend was completely different from the rest of my time here, it was a really good change. On Friday, I hung out with Denise after class and we went to San Luis, the crazy nice huge mall, to go to a movie. I didn’t think I would do much hanging out at malls while in Ecuador but that’s what everybody does here. First we had lunch, and it was great to eat somewhere besides my host house. The food’s okay here, but she’s not a great cook really. It’s usually pretty bland. And sometimes I just want something simple for lunch and here its always a full meal and then dinner is just some bread and tea. So we got really good chicken sandwiches and a fruit salad. I’ve been hanging out with Denise a lot since the cloud forest. She was actually raised in Ecuador and then moved to San Diego.
While we were waiting to go to the movie I finally got to “talk” to Linda, even if it was a facebook chat in an internet café. It’s very surreal to be in touch with home (even though she’s in Scotland) and then to snap out of it and be in this mall next to a games arcade and all these Ecuadorians speaking Spanish. It’s hard to get back into Ecuador mode, especially since I always feel so rushed when I’m in an internet café. But I was soooooo happy to finally get in touch with her. I’m sure it will be a lot easier when I’m in Quito and I need to find or borrow a Skpe headset.
We bought tickets to see Bride Wars (Guerra de novias en español) just since it started at a good time but we heard it was so bad that we asked to change movie and saw Gran Torino with Miles, a guy from the program, and his host brother. We’re supposed to do things with host siblings as often as possible so we speak Spanish. We liked the movie a lot, but its really strange to watch movies in English with Spanish subtitles since there were all kinds of racial slurs since the main character is all rascist and it was funny to us since it was so out there but, for example, Clint Eastwood would say things like chink, gook, spook, paddy, deigo or whatever and in the Spanish subtitles it would just be the politically correct name. And then, again, you walk out of the theater and you’re in Ecuador with all the Spanish and it’s a strange transition.
Afterwards we bought a few pirated DVD’s, which is another thing I wouldn’t do in the states but everybody does here so I don’t really care. They are only $1.50 a disc and they had some really good ones. They even had Blue and White from the Three Colors trilogy by Kristof Kieslowski. They also have movies that are still in theaters and TV series.
Then Denise and I went back to her house, and watched and talked to her host mom a little and drank an herbal tea she’d just made from the leaves, and then watched an episode of House since I’d just bought the first two seasons. (Since Maggie bought a season for like 40 dollars or something ridiculous, and I got the first two for 3 dollars, I thought that was pretty cool.) While we were watching my host mom called and said she would take us to the historic center in Quito since its beautiful at night. I was so surprised since she never offers to take me anywhere, and she had already said she’d take me a few friends to the waterfalls the next morning so this was a very sudden flood of offers to do things that I thought wasn’t going to come. Pretty much all the other families have gone on weekend trips to different parts of Ecuador and little trips around.
So Denise and I went with just my host mother to the old city and walked around for a few hours. In El Rondo, the oldest section of the city, we went to a karoke bar, which are everywhere, and Denise sang – she sings really well. Karoke bars here are for people who can sing; sometimes it’s like the original version of the song is playing, not some random person singing.
This weekend was completely different from the rest of my time here, it was a really good change. On Friday, I hung out with Denise after class and we went to San Luis, the crazy nice huge mall, to go to a movie. I didn’t think I would do much hanging out at malls while in Ecuador but that’s what everybody does here. First we had lunch, and it was great to eat somewhere besides my host house. The food’s okay here, but she’s not a great cook really. It’s usually pretty bland. And sometimes I just want something simple for lunch and here its always a full meal and then dinner is just some bread and tea. So we got really good chicken sandwiches and a fruit salad. I’ve been hanging out with Denise a lot since the cloud forest. She was actually raised in Ecuador and then moved to San Diego.
While we were waiting to go to the movie I finally got to “talk” to Linda, even if it was a facebook chat in an internet café. It’s very surreal to be in touch with home (even though she’s in Scotland) and then to snap out of it and be in this mall next to a games arcade and all these Ecuadorians speaking Spanish. It’s hard to get back into Ecuador mode, especially since I always feel so rushed when I’m in an internet café. But I was soooooo happy to finally get in touch with her. I’m sure it will be a lot easier when I’m in Quito and I need to find or borrow a Skpe headset.
We bought tickets to see Bride Wars (Guerra de novias en español) just since it started at a good time but we heard it was so bad that we asked to change movie and saw Gran Torino with Miles, a guy from the program, and his host brother. We’re supposed to do things with host siblings as often as possible so we speak Spanish. We liked the movie a lot, but its really strange to watch movies in English with Spanish subtitles since there were all kinds of racial slurs since the main character is all rascist and it was funny to us since it was so out there but, for example, Clint Eastwood would say things like chink, gook, spook, paddy, deigo or whatever and in the Spanish subtitles it would just be the politically correct name. And then, again, you walk out of the theater and you’re in Ecuador with all the Spanish and it’s a strange transition.
Afterwards we bought a few pirated DVD’s, which is another thing I wouldn’t do in the states but everybody does here so I don’t really care. They are only $1.50 a disc and they had some really good ones. They even had Blue and White from the Three Colors trilogy by Kristof Kieslowski. They also have movies that are still in theaters and TV series.
Then Denise and I went back to her house, and watched and talked to her host mom a little and drank an herbal tea she’d just made from the leaves, and then watched an episode of House since I’d just bought the first two seasons. (Since Maggie bought a season for like 40 dollars or something ridiculous, and I got the first two for 3 dollars, I thought that was pretty cool.) While we were watching my host mom called and said she would take us to the historic center in Quito since its beautiful at night. I was so surprised since she never offers to take me anywhere, and she had already said she’d take me a few friends to the waterfalls the next morning so this was a very sudden flood of offers to do things that I thought wasn’t going to come. Pretty much all the other families have gone on weekend trips to different parts of Ecuador and little trips around.
So Denise and I went with just my host mother to the old city and walked around for a few hours. In El Rondo, the oldest section of the city, we went to a karoke bar, which are everywhere, and Denise sang – she sings really well. Karoke bars here are for people who can sing; sometimes it’s like the original version of the song is playing, not some random person singing.
The next morning Denise, Zohar, and Zohar’s host sister Katia came over at 9:00 and my host mother drove us down this really bad rocky road to the start of the trail to the waterfalls and dropped us off. The road was so bad that a few times we had to get out of the car so it would ride higher to get past rough parts. The tallest one is 80 meters, I think, and there’s a hike around all these other small waterfalls. This was my favorite day by far, it was so much fun. At first we were all out of breath and stopping every couple minutes since the altitude was wiping us out and we don’t exercise here. The first part was really steep and led to the top of a hill where you could see several volcanoes and lots of pretty farmland. There was a kind of jungle gym, too. At first my ankle was bothering me, since it’s still swollen, but it didn’t give me that much trouble, I just had to be really careful. The trail was gorgeous and there were lots of little wooden ladders and bridges. I took tons of pictures (for me, at least). We got lost towards the end and we were all joking that we were going to die since all we had was one Tango (a little chocolate and cookie thing) that Zohar brought. We sat in the middle of the trail and waited for other people to come and tell us how to get to the big waterfall, which eventually they did. They were a young Ecuadorian couple and really helpful. We walked together to the right trail and the guy kept giving us his hand to pull us up big steps and rough or slippery parts. When we finally found the right path we only had an hour left before the bus left, and when we were almost there we saw the rest of the path was a really steep muddy dirt stairs. We decided to take the easier path to the top rather than the bottom because of my ankle but really because it looked like a death trap and we were all so tired from walking all day. We climbed up a big boulder and had a great view of the valley. I walked a little further by myself and climbed out to the edge of a rock overlooking the waterfall, which I probably shouldn’t have done by myself, but I’m glad I did since I’m the only one who actually got a good view of the waterfall we’d been walking all day to find.
We started walking back and just when we got to the road to walk back up to where the bus stops, it started pouring. We got a ride on the back of a truck and we huddled under my tiny umbrella. It was so crazy, we couldn’t stop laughing. We were totally soaked. When we got to the right place, we saw another girl from the program there with her host brother, which was also pretty crazy. They had found a truck with the back covered so we all rode back in that. One of the driver’s daughters rode in his lap the whole time with her hands on the wheel. On the way we stopped so they could buy some food and there were all these chickens all other the place. We also passed a wedding party. When I got off and asked how much it costs, they told me it was free, but I still don’t understand why.
It was about 4:30 when I got back and I was so wet and tired and dirty and hungry. I took a shower and ate lunch and watched one of movies I bought in my room. I didn’t have any clean pants left until about a minute ago when my host mom did my laundry after the cloud forest and then the hike. I’m really glad Zohar brought her host sister; she was great and I hadn’t met any Ecuadorian girls my age who didn’t seem all girly and spoiled and obsessed with boyfriends. I’m jealous Zohar got such a good host sister, I want to steal her. It was also good since we spoke Spanish most of the time. Zohar’s Spanish is hilarious. She only has three semesters, too, which was the minimum, but she’s in the lowest Spanish group. She makes up her own words for a lot of things using her French and Hebrew. (Sometimes I realize that a word I thought was Spanish is actually a French word that I say with a Spanish accent.) She’s studying drama and designed her major, which I can’t remember her name for, but is about directing and organizing plays with political or social themes. It’s like those plays in Africa that dramatize how having HIV shouldn’t mean someone’s an outcast and how to prevent it. I think there’s a scene in The Constant Gardener about that.
So I slept very well last night and this morning my oldest host sister made us omelets for breakfast. They mentioned something about me cooking lunch but I think it was kind of a joke. I’d like to cook for them but I don’t think I could cook anything I usually do with their ingredients. I should buy some. I’m also not sure they would like I lot of the stuff I like. I think this afternoon we are going to a museum in Quito. So overall, this weekend was a lot better than anything before. I actually got out of the house and got to be with other people. My ankle is still annoying but I’m figuring that its not going to get worse so I can kind of ignore it and just elevate it every once in a while. I’m excited to move to Quito though and find out who my other host family is. We only have one more week here.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009: Cloud Forest Trip
Yesterday I got back from the excursion to Intag, where the cloud forest is. It was wonderful, so beautiful. We stayed in cabins and it was like camp. I got closer to some of the other girls since there was a lot of girl talk in the cabin at night and we were all together all the time. I loved the cabin, I want to build one like it in the Canadian wilderness somewhere. (Canada is still my favorite country. Even though evidently they don’t have good environmental restrictions for their mining companies and so they go all other the world and mine irresponsibly to get rich quick and then leave behind all the things bad mines leave behind, like drainage problems in the water supply and ecological losses.)
The only bad part was I decided it would be a bad idea to go on the hike if I ever want my ankle to stop being swollen, so I missed out on that. I still think it was the right thing to do though, especially since I did some other hiking that I shouldn’t have done. However, my ankle did get me a burro ride to the bus, which was awesome. I was the only one who was allowed to ride one, everyone else had to walk. Some people were jealous.
The place grew and roasted its own coffee, which was good, but it also had amazing hot chocolate that I liked better. I’m still bringing home some of the coffee beans though.
A few people from around there, like indigenous women groups and anti-mining activists and an American lady who’s lived there for a long time came to talk to us. It was all pretty interesting and a lot of Spanish. Some ladies who make bags and things out of a fiber they make from a kind of cactus came and explained how they made everything and used natural dyes and we bought things.
On the way back we stopped in the famous Otavalo artesian market and got to do a little shopping. It’s one of the places everybody goes if they’re in Ecuador. I got a couple things and ate at a pie place (which is noteworthy since for the most part they don’t eat pies here but it was an amazing pie place).
I’m trying extra hard with my host family. I wish they could be a little more welcoming like pretty much all the other families so I could relax a bit and not always be worrying about making sure they like me and talk to me. I play with Camila though, so that’s good. I also talked to my older sister for a few minutes about her school, which was a break-through since usually she doesn’t talk. I’m hoping in Quito I get a host sibling closer to my age, like everyone else has. Most people got a host sibling within a year of their age. Mimi still has hardly recognized my presence in the house at all. Sometimes I try to talk to her, but she only gives one word answers so it’s not worth it. My host mom’s been a lot better lately. Most of the time she’s fine, it was just the ankle thing and the doctor that she didn’t seem to handle well at all and made me angry. I am so tired, it is bedtime but it is only 9:08.
The only bad part was I decided it would be a bad idea to go on the hike if I ever want my ankle to stop being swollen, so I missed out on that. I still think it was the right thing to do though, especially since I did some other hiking that I shouldn’t have done. However, my ankle did get me a burro ride to the bus, which was awesome. I was the only one who was allowed to ride one, everyone else had to walk. Some people were jealous.
The place grew and roasted its own coffee, which was good, but it also had amazing hot chocolate that I liked better. I’m still bringing home some of the coffee beans though.
A few people from around there, like indigenous women groups and anti-mining activists and an American lady who’s lived there for a long time came to talk to us. It was all pretty interesting and a lot of Spanish. Some ladies who make bags and things out of a fiber they make from a kind of cactus came and explained how they made everything and used natural dyes and we bought things.
On the way back we stopped in the famous Otavalo artesian market and got to do a little shopping. It’s one of the places everybody goes if they’re in Ecuador. I got a couple things and ate at a pie place (which is noteworthy since for the most part they don’t eat pies here but it was an amazing pie place).
I’m trying extra hard with my host family. I wish they could be a little more welcoming like pretty much all the other families so I could relax a bit and not always be worrying about making sure they like me and talk to me. I play with Camila though, so that’s good. I also talked to my older sister for a few minutes about her school, which was a break-through since usually she doesn’t talk. I’m hoping in Quito I get a host sibling closer to my age, like everyone else has. Most people got a host sibling within a year of their age. Mimi still has hardly recognized my presence in the house at all. Sometimes I try to talk to her, but she only gives one word answers so it’s not worth it. My host mom’s been a lot better lately. Most of the time she’s fine, it was just the ankle thing and the doctor that she didn’t seem to handle well at all and made me angry. I am so tired, it is bedtime but it is only 9:08.
Friday, Feb. 20, 2009: Cloud Forest Tomorrow!!!!!!
The past week has been really weird because of my stupid ankle. Yesterday was the strangest and most frustrating day I’ve had so far. Our classes went to Quito to visit museums, so I had to do a lot of walking. It was hard, especially in the museum since I had to put most of my weight on my good foot so it got really tired. I was limping but not that bad. At the same time, I knew that it was not going to help it heal at all for me to be walking around on it all day.
When I got home I was all frustrated since I was worrying about going to the Cloud Forest with a sprained, swollen, bruised ankle. I’m sooooo excited about hiking there and swimming and everything, I don’t want to miss out on anything. I was upset and crying a little when my host mom came in my room and asked me about my ankle. She told me I should go to the doctor, so I said that’s fine and she said she’d take me when she got back from doing some errands. She got back around 8:30 and we went to the clinic.
I actually don’t think I’ll write about that experience here since it was so frustrating and uncomfortable and I just want to get over it. Anyway, I got an X-ray and it’s an extended ligament, so no big deal. But the doctor kept going on about how I shouldn’t go to the cloud forest and if I did I would have to get a cast on my leg sometime in the future, and none of it made any sense. It’s just a sprained ankle. I’ll give it some rest and it will get better. I had to buy all this stuff and it was like $70 that I don’t think was necessary at all. I think my program will pay some of it back after I get home but I was hoping not to have to get out more cash for a while yet and $70 could have been two month’s spending money pretty much. I have an Ace bandage on and I have anti-inflammatory pills and a spray that probably doesn’t do anything. The only cool part is that I got to keep my X-ray, which is the best souvenir ever.
So after everything I was all depressed and angry but my host mom finally offered to take me back and forth from classes, so that was good if a little belated.
Today I was in a bad mood because of yesterday, but I’m getting out of it now since it is an extremely nice perfect weather day. My window is open so I can get a breeze while I enjoy elevating my ankle. I gave my host mom a chocolate so I think we are okay again. She’s thinking about driving me around Old Quito tonight since I shouldn’t walk, which would be great. I’m hearing a lot more about other people’s complaints about their host families, which makes me feel better about not being all lovey-dovey with mine. At least my ankle has made my 13-year-old host sister pay more attention to me, but only because she thinks its really disgusting. She comes in my room to look at it and says “que feo” which means basically “ew, how ugly.”
A woman who seems to be a maid is here now. At first I thought she was a friend since she came over to help set up for the party, but then she didn’t stay so I figured she wasn’t. She looks more indigenous than the family and friends. My sheets are changed and I think she’s going to wash my laundry.
Something weird that happened today and is not related to my ankle is that while I was waiting to get picked up with a few other students, an Afroecuadorian from Esmeraldas started talking to us. We asked how she was and she answered, “Estoy muriendo” (“I’m dying”). I think she has some kind of infection, but she was moving around easily. She came to the school to ask the Father for money but he said he didn’t have any.
When I got home I was all frustrated since I was worrying about going to the Cloud Forest with a sprained, swollen, bruised ankle. I’m sooooo excited about hiking there and swimming and everything, I don’t want to miss out on anything. I was upset and crying a little when my host mom came in my room and asked me about my ankle. She told me I should go to the doctor, so I said that’s fine and she said she’d take me when she got back from doing some errands. She got back around 8:30 and we went to the clinic.
I actually don’t think I’ll write about that experience here since it was so frustrating and uncomfortable and I just want to get over it. Anyway, I got an X-ray and it’s an extended ligament, so no big deal. But the doctor kept going on about how I shouldn’t go to the cloud forest and if I did I would have to get a cast on my leg sometime in the future, and none of it made any sense. It’s just a sprained ankle. I’ll give it some rest and it will get better. I had to buy all this stuff and it was like $70 that I don’t think was necessary at all. I think my program will pay some of it back after I get home but I was hoping not to have to get out more cash for a while yet and $70 could have been two month’s spending money pretty much. I have an Ace bandage on and I have anti-inflammatory pills and a spray that probably doesn’t do anything. The only cool part is that I got to keep my X-ray, which is the best souvenir ever.
So after everything I was all depressed and angry but my host mom finally offered to take me back and forth from classes, so that was good if a little belated.
Today I was in a bad mood because of yesterday, but I’m getting out of it now since it is an extremely nice perfect weather day. My window is open so I can get a breeze while I enjoy elevating my ankle. I gave my host mom a chocolate so I think we are okay again. She’s thinking about driving me around Old Quito tonight since I shouldn’t walk, which would be great. I’m hearing a lot more about other people’s complaints about their host families, which makes me feel better about not being all lovey-dovey with mine. At least my ankle has made my 13-year-old host sister pay more attention to me, but only because she thinks its really disgusting. She comes in my room to look at it and says “que feo” which means basically “ew, how ugly.”
A woman who seems to be a maid is here now. At first I thought she was a friend since she came over to help set up for the party, but then she didn’t stay so I figured she wasn’t. She looks more indigenous than the family and friends. My sheets are changed and I think she’s going to wash my laundry.
Something weird that happened today and is not related to my ankle is that while I was waiting to get picked up with a few other students, an Afroecuadorian from Esmeraldas started talking to us. We asked how she was and she answered, “Estoy muriendo” (“I’m dying”). I think she has some kind of infection, but she was moving around easily. She came to the school to ask the Father for money but he said he didn’t have any.
Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2009: my ankle
Ahhhhhh. I haven’t been doing very much the past couple days since I sprained my ankle on Wednesday. It’s not that bad for a sprained ankle, which is great, but its still swollen and bruised. Pier, in our group, leads outdoorsy things at his college and part of his training is “mountain medicine” for climbers, so he’s been checking it. I’ve been trying to keep it elevated and iced a lot, but it’s so hard since it’s very very boring to lay here with my foot up for hours. I think it makes me more tired too since I’m worrying about it.
Tomorrow we’re going to Quito with our class, and I’m a little nervous since we’ll be walking around a museum, and I don’t want to make my ankle any worse. We’re going to the cloud forest this weekend and it sounds like the most amazing place ever, so I don’t want to miss out on anything, especially hiking. They have an organic garden and excellent food and, according to one of our academic directors, “the best guacamole south of Chiapas” if the avocados are ripe. And there are waterfalls and lots of rare birds. There’s not much electricity so it’s really basic but that’s just what I would like for now. I thought the valley would be a lot more rural, I’m a little disappointed it is so close to Quito. One of our workshop things is something like “observation and painting” so I’m really excited for that.
I’m soooooo upset with myself for doing this to my ankle. It was so stupid, too. We were playing Simon Says in my Spanish class and we had to run around the building and the floor was slippery so I fell. It wasn’t that bad, but I guess I twisted my ankle weird. It didn’t hurt that much at first, but I thought I was going to faint a few hours later. I still walked to the bus but I shouldn’t have. I wish my host mom would offer to drive me sometimes but she only offered the first morning and even then she didn’t end up doing it. I like my host mom, but I’m definitely jealous of some other people’s host families. Mine has already had so many host people that it’s not so personal anymore and I’m not very interesting for them, especially with the language barrier. Some other people’s host families are hosting for their first or second time and they take their students to cool places and talk to them all the time and make them feel really welcome. Also, most students have host siblings that are within a year of their age and my closest is 17, which seems really young to me since she’s still in high school.
Tomorrow we’re going to Quito with our class, and I’m a little nervous since we’ll be walking around a museum, and I don’t want to make my ankle any worse. We’re going to the cloud forest this weekend and it sounds like the most amazing place ever, so I don’t want to miss out on anything, especially hiking. They have an organic garden and excellent food and, according to one of our academic directors, “the best guacamole south of Chiapas” if the avocados are ripe. And there are waterfalls and lots of rare birds. There’s not much electricity so it’s really basic but that’s just what I would like for now. I thought the valley would be a lot more rural, I’m a little disappointed it is so close to Quito. One of our workshop things is something like “observation and painting” so I’m really excited for that.
I’m soooooo upset with myself for doing this to my ankle. It was so stupid, too. We were playing Simon Says in my Spanish class and we had to run around the building and the floor was slippery so I fell. It wasn’t that bad, but I guess I twisted my ankle weird. It didn’t hurt that much at first, but I thought I was going to faint a few hours later. I still walked to the bus but I shouldn’t have. I wish my host mom would offer to drive me sometimes but she only offered the first morning and even then she didn’t end up doing it. I like my host mom, but I’m definitely jealous of some other people’s host families. Mine has already had so many host people that it’s not so personal anymore and I’m not very interesting for them, especially with the language barrier. Some other people’s host families are hosting for their first or second time and they take their students to cool places and talk to them all the time and make them feel really welcome. Also, most students have host siblings that are within a year of their age and my closest is 17, which seems really young to me since she’s still in high school.
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