Ecuador-bound: Chistoso!

6-5-11

So I’m a little behind in these blogs now. Friday, the Muñequitos had a fiesta because it was “Children’s Day” on Wednesday (which I’ve already posted pictures online). The little kids walked down the two main streets in Lumbisí to show off their costumes and to take pictures in front of the old church in the park. I guess that church is not used anymore because they needed more space, so they are building a big brick one down the road. About 3 PM, I helped some women from the community with the organic garden project. This was the first time that I helped with that so I was pretty excited to be there. The jobs included weeding and making some type of mulch. The goods from that garden go to the “comedor”, and also to the ladies who keep up the garden. After washing up, another volunteer (Sherri), Zack and I went to a family’s house from the States (actually from Kalamazoo, MI!) for “American food” (Chili, Corn Bread, desert and coffee!). I (and Zack lighting the oven) made the corn bread the night before so we could bring something to the family (parents, identical 5 year old boy twins, and a 10 year old girl) when we arrived. The food was amazing along with good conversation made for a great night. The family lives about 5 min by bus from Lumbisí in a gated community (they’ve lived there for about a year), in a house which was very impressive (wood floors, 3 bed, 2 bath, dining, living, and kitchen—also a nice fireplace which we sat by after dinner—sooo good! :-)

Saturday mostly consisted of going to Quito with Zack and Sherri, which was good since I hadn’t really gone there for sight seeing yet. We took a few different busses to the historic district of Quito. We toured through about 3 churches (one made of 7 tons of gold), a few markets, and the historic area of “La calle de La Ronda”. La Ronda reminds me of Italy (from pictures I’ve seen) because of balconies of small apartments in a pedestrian street, which I absolutely loved! There were of course bakeries and restaurants along the way and we just happened to drop into a restaurant for lunch. It was pretty expensive (I think because of the beauty of the place) but overall good food and atmosphere (and they even had “drip” coffee instead of instant!) I ate “Locra”, which is a soup made of papas and cheese, accompanied by tostado. Our sight seeing ended with a look at local painters’ paintings in a main park; they are very impressive and pretty inexpensive. We headed back to Lumbisí and our families to eat dinner. Dinner was another soup (vegetarian—not very common); cauliflower, broccoli, papas and cheese….mmmmm….Afterwards, my host mom, my “aunt” and host sister went to get ingredients to make “Quimbolitos” that are kind of like a corn bread consistency/taste wrapped in a leaf and cooked over the stove. My host mom suggested making these to sell from our store on Sunday morning because there was a big program going on at the local school right across the street from the FEVI store, meaning more people coming into contact with us, thus making more money for the store. Since I wasn’t very tired that night, I stayed up talking to my host mom for a while which is always fun :-) about past volunteers whom they’ve hosted in their house. ..

Sunday morning was the day to make Quimbolitos! My host mom and I awoke at 6 AM to make them so that when we sold them, they’d still be warm. It was an early morning, but well worth it because of the experience of making a different type of food. My host brother who is 4 years old had fun eating some of the batter as we were making them. I think we made about 40-50 Quimbolitos? My host mom called family members and friends to see if they wanted any, and of course, everyone did because they’re delicious. We sold each one for 50 cents. I earned back the money spent on ingredients very quickly, but after that, it wasn’t a great success selling them at the store. The program at the school started at 9-10AM (keeping in mind Ecuadorian time where things don’t exactly start on time) and people said they would buy them after the program. It wasn’t a huge success because we had competition; snow cones, chicken on the grill, and other soups available around the store and also they could buy food at the program. Instead of being successful, we entertained ourselves by playing the card game “Spit”. About mid-day we went to a local hole-in-the-wall billiards place to play some pool and while we were at it, to check e-mail at an internet café (since the wireless wasn’t working/blocked) at the store. In the afternoon, my host mom, “Aunt” and I went to see their pigs/feed and water them. One of the pigs is about ready to give birth (they think Wednesday) and she is HUGE! Seeing host family’s “farms” is always fun.