Bonita.

7/7/11

So I’m loving where I’m at right now.  I’m sitting at an internet café (an actual café that has actual coffee) that has its own character; planted flower pots surrounding the outside of the door, a ceiling that looks a little like the Bitter End in Grand Rapids, MI, and Spanish music playing in the background.  I’m currently sipping on a Mocacchino, writing my blog, and looking out into the busy town of Quito, Ecuador.

Caffe Caffe-- sitting in this coffee shop for 3 hours drinking coffee and writing my blog.

Caffe Caffe--my wonderful "dinner" of fruit (watermelon, strawberries, papaya), yogurt and granola. Yum :-)

The whole city thing isn’t quite attractive, but who’s complaining when they are waiting for a bus to leave to go to Tonsupa?  Danielle and I meant to buy tickets for a charter-type bus that was supposed to leave at 3:00 PM.  We rushed to arrive here really early (2:15PM) and found the line to buy tickets to be extremely long.  I was worried this would happen; of us not being able to buy tickets because the bus would be full since it’s Thursday and a lot of people leave to go to the coast for the weekend.  Since we were already in Quito (about a 30-45 min drive from Lumbisí) we figured we would take the next bus, which leaves at 6:15PM.  Oh great, I wonder what we’re going to do for 3 hours, waiting in the small bus ticket station with nothing to do.  I got this great idea to just walk around the block, looking for things to do and places to discover while Danielle watched our stuff at the bus station.   I came across a bakery which smelled delicious, but remembered that sweets in Ecuador aren’t going to be as sweet/moist/great-tasting as in the States.  So I moved on, walked around the block, then came back to a place that was called “Caffe Caffe”.  I got excited as I was thinking it would probably sell real coffee and other pastry-type things.  My thoughts were correct.  I entered the quaint little café and saw an older couple eating at a table with no one else in the store.  I asked for a menu and we got to talking about why I was here (that I was waiting for the bus to leave and that I was trying to find a place to stay for a couple hours) and found out that the older couple owned the café, welcomed Danielle and I into the place to store our luggage for the time being before the bus left, to use the Wifi, and to eat a small snack.  It was great to talk to this older couple, as they were extremely patient and attending to our every need.  I was able to also meet their son and we talked for about a half hour as well.  What a great place to end up and spend some time where we otherwise would have been uncomfortable in the bus station. 

Enough about the internet café.  The past few days have been tiring, very busy, but fulfilling.  Monday the students from the University of Illinois started their summer course teaching English (ELS), arts and culture, sports, and environment.  The first day not many kids showed up, which was expected, but it was still a lot of work.  The professor from U of I asked me to take control of the ELS course the first day, that I wasn’t very excited about since I wasn’t one of her students and was just there to help, but I obeyed and tried teaching the younger kids the Head, Shoulders, Knees, Toes song.  Many of the students already knew some of the body parts, so it was successful, but the kids were still pretty naughty and wouldn’t pay attention very well.  It’s definitely a work in progress.  The students are starting to learn my name (many of them even say Jolie), so Lumbisí feels even more community-like.  By the time we’re done working at the vocational courses with the kids (ages 7-15) at 5PM, I’m spent.  That’s pretty much a full-time job, working 8-5 everyday.  I’m feeling pretty confident with Spanish more every day that I’m here.  I’m able to understand what is being said to me and explaining things to other people who I come into contact with.  Tuesday and Wednesday I bounced around from group to group at the vocational course, just to see who needed help controlling the kids and what not.  This was much more successful as I wasn’t the main “teacher” in the class.  I also had the chance to work with some of the special needs kids who attend the course.  As the title of this blog suggests, one of the kids who has DOWN-syndrome comes up to me (and all the girls who lead the class) and says “Guapa” (or pretty) and just stares.  Let me tell you, it’s good for our self-confidence haha.  However, you also know that he’s saying that to everyone.  The kids who are special-needs actually impressed me because they are able to understand things, talk to you, and even draw, color and write.  It’s really fun to work with them!  Sometimes after the course, I go for a run in Lumbisí.  One of the times I ran to an ecological park up the way in Lumbisí; the other time I ran around in the stadium, which are just a few soccer fields and a basketball court.  Even though this isn’t as exciting as seeing nature, I’m able to run around the perimeter of the soccer field on level ground, looking into the mountains. Win-win.

I’m impressed with the community feel in Lumbisí.  I can walk around town, talk to the women running the small “farmer’s market” and am surrounded by family members.  I respect all of the women because they are so hard-working and very welcoming. This week was also the last week working at Muñequitos with the kids. I was able to take a few pictures of the kids but I will definitely miss the kids because I have been working with them for 2 months! :-( 

The professors at the day-care and I (Jenny, Maria Jose, Silvia, me and Jaime).

Two really cute girls painting each others fingernails one morning.

Maira (a volunteer from Ecuador) and I on my last day.

Evelyn and I (my favorite at the day-care)

  Whenever I go outside of Lumbisí, I am taken aback by how good I really have it living with a great family and how different every else is that I go (Cumbayá, Quito, etc). I am blessed to have this opportunity to serve and to be served while having an incredible experience in another country.

Saltando!

7-3-11

These past few days have been very busy, but I really like it.  Yesterday we all (5 of us) went to Quito for another tour.  I can’t believe how much time I spent shopping in a couple of the art markets.   All of them went to the Teleférico while I stayed behind looking at all the art.  After they went to the top of the mountain to look down on Quito, we ate at a Greek restaurant which sold sandwiches (on pita bread, with chicken or other meat, French fries, tomatoes, onions and a mixture of mayonnaise and ketchup), kabobs, or big plates of food.  We spent some time eating great food and talking to each other in a great environment.  We ventured back to the art market once again.  All of us were exhausted by the end of the day since we had been on our feet walking all day through the capital. 

A famous view from a central park in Quito.

After taking the 35 cent bus back to Lumbisí (a 45 min drive), Zack and I spoke with a few families to organize the lunch they are making for the 12 volunteers from Illinois, who will be staying here volunteering through FEVI for one month.  My job was to help my host mom make Quimbolitos once again, as well as buy all the ingredients for the women making the lunch.  Danielle and I ate soup with our host family for dinner. Afterwards, Matilde (my host mom) and I bought all the ingredients to make Quimbolitos from our grandparents’ small store that live behind us.

This morning I awoke quite early for a Sunday morning to help Zack post announcements around town, letting parents know what time the “Curso vocacional” (summer class hosted by the students from the University of Illinois that includes English lessons, art and sports) begins this week and the whole month of July.  I was busy the whole morning tracking down different ingredients in the small farmers-market like shops.  Some of the food included 25 pounds of potatoes, avocados, salsa de maní, flour, milk, oil, soda, water, cheese, plátano (maduro y verde), and baked chickens.  I was impressed and happy that I could buy all of these things locally from Lumbisí to support the community where I live. I’m not sure how many trips I made going to my house and walking back into town, but I was definitely exhausted by the time lunch came around.  Making Quimbolitos was also fun because some of the girl friends that I’ve been with helped make them with my host mom.  Each person contributed to make wonderful Quimbolitos (they are like sweet corn bread wrapped in a huge green leaf—“hojas de achira”; what my host mom and I made about a month ago…) On one of the trips walking back to my house on a dirt road, I heard a little girl say “Profe!” and I turn around and see one of the girls I work with at the day-care.  It was good to hear someone say that, as they recognized me and then said “Jolie” (or something that sounded like it) and was all smiles as we walked to our individual houses along the way.  I’m so impressed and content with the small things in life!

Lunch was well prepared by the women who hosted the lunch in the small “cafeteria” at the day-care.  We ate with all of the students from the University of Illinois and everyone was fully satisfied afterwards.  After a restful afternoon, some of our extended family came to our house to chat and to eat dinner with us.  It was good to see Freddy’s (my host dad) other sister who I haven’t actually had much contact with, even though she lives just up the street a ways.  Now for a busy week ahead of me!

Pay

7-1-11

These last few days have been busy, as there are more volunteers here and 12 more to come tomorrow!  Wednesday night my host mom and sister stayed up late to welcome a new “host sister”/volunteer who will be living with us for about 4-5 days before she leaves to go to Tonsupa for a few months.  I had a great time drinking tea and laughing about previous volunteers/experiences that the family has had.

Thursday morning we met up with the other volunteers who arrived on Wednesday to show them around Lumbisí and all that FEVI is apart of (community garden, day care, cafeteria for the elderly) and also to visit my host family’s chanchos (pigs).  After the “tour”, we played with the little kids (they are sooo cute!) until we left to go to the comedor to help serve the elderly.  What a difference it makes to have more volunteers to help pass out food!!  It was crazy how fast we could deliver the hot soups and what not.

After eating lunch separately in our host family’s houses , we all took a trip to Cumbaya to get a few things done.  One of the things included buying Jiff Peanut Butter (which is extremely expensive here—around $6.00 for a small one), cocoa for baking, and butter.  My plan is to make no-bake cookies (since desserts are lacking here) for my family sometime soon.   

 Later in the afternoon, we had about 5 kids (ages 7-16) for the English class.  Another volunteer (who lives in Quito, but is originally from the US) helped four girls with past tense verbs, while I worked one-on-one with a student who is 16 years old.  This gentleman needed help with the verb “to be” in English because he is struggling with his English class in school and has a huge test on Monday that he absolutely needs to pass in order to move on to a higher level class.  This was very rewarding because I was able to give him the attention he needed to work on examples of the verb and also to explain pronouns and similarities in Spanish.  After the laid-back class session, I gave him a mini-quiz that he did extremely well with different examples.  There was also an adorable little boy (age 6) who needed more attention learning his colors in English, so I used the strategy of repetition by holding up colored pencils and having him repeat after me which colors were which.  I thought it would be a little intimidating to say all 12 colors (in the colored pencil box), so we worked on only 4 colors; next time we’ll review and learn new ones!  After working most of the day, we were all very tired, so we all decided to go to Zack’s apt. to make batidos de mora!  Of course, we also added chocolate ice cream to make them a little more indulgent… :-)

This morning (Friday) for breakfast we ate fake-omelets (tasted really good with fresh tomatoes, green peppers and onions), coffee for me, hot oatmeal “juice”, and of course, bread (with honey!)  We were all able to be with the kids again for a couple hours; then worked our way to the community center where the elderly do arts and crafts/things to stimulate their brains before they come to the comedor to eat lunch at noon.  Except, we didn’t have much luck because I guess Fridays are movie-mornings, so we weren’t able to interact with them as I had hoped.  After serving, we came home to a delicious lunch of Llapingachos, salad, beets, beef, and freshly squeezed orange juice.  Llapingachos are definitely my favorite food here ;-)

A ver...

A ver…

6-29-11

Tuesday was a particularly clear day—in the morning there were absolutely no clouds in the sky and you could see the snow-covered Cotopaxi volcano very well.  It was amazing! The kids in the morning were especially clingy and lovable.  It is getting easier understanding the kids speaking Spanish now that I know them a little better.  There have been a few other volunteers working with me at the daycare, so the kid-teacher ratio is easier to handle all the running, screaming children.  After working with the kids, we go to the comedor to serve the elderly their daily lunch.  They are so grateful that it is easy to serve them their soup, rice, potatoes, meat, salad, and juice.  Something interesting happened yesterday, though.  Since us servers were running a little behind at the end, the elderly were getting out of their chairs before I could even get out the door ahead of them.  Because of this, some of them felt obligated to give me hugs and say their thanks to me.  It was so sweet! :-)  After lunch, I walked down to the river by myself because I was in need of some adventure and to be surrounded by nature.  It was a great hike (and I wore Keens instead of flip-flops) and it’s a beautiful place.

A HUGE plant/tree that looks similar to Aloe Vera.

My hike down to the river.

The view from where I was sitting down by the river.

I only had about an hour to hike down to the river, so I had to run back up to get to the English classes on time.  Three girls came (ages 16, 12, 8) and they read a story aloud, taking turns reading.  This was very successful and I’m so proud of them!  We worked on pronunciation and a little bit of comprehension, since they are more worried about actually saying the words correctly (past tense in English is difficult for first-time learners).

Today was the opposite of yesterday—total cloud cover instead of clear skies in the morning.  However, the sun truly burned through those clouds and it was really hot during the day!  There were a few more volunteers helping out at Muñequitos, so it a little more fun playing with the kids. 

It’s really interesting to me how well our bodies adjust to new environments.  Just a few months ago I graduated from college and was speaking English to everyone, being completely comfortable living in a nice house.  Now, I’m speaking Spanish to anyone I come into contact with, eating a totally different diet, but I am still myself, just living in a different country…

Mentira!

6-26-11

Last night was another crazy Ecuadorian party that included lots of dancing and Pilsener beer.  The party was right next door to the grandparents house and everyone in the surrounding area was invited-though only about 30 people were present.  As always, the dancing didn’t begin right away and it was awkward.  Picture a white tent set up with plastic chairs set around the perimeter for people to sit in and just look at each other while they eat food sitting on their laps.  No one really talked, but music played in the background at least.  However, it was an interesting dynamic because everyone knew each other; but no one talked.  After a while, people started dancing (me included) and the booze kept flowing.  This was the exact same as the other Ecuadorian party I’ve been to, as while you’re dancing, someone offers you a shot-like amount of beer that you take (or don’t) and continues onto the next person.  I’m starting to dance better both in meringue and salsa music, so it’s a lot more fun to dance with people.  

This morning I was actually able to sleep in without many disturbances (dogs, crying, roosters, doors slamming, etc).  My host mom made scrambled eggs, fresh fruit, and a mora Batido for breakfast!  Afterward, I helped her carry all the “compostable” food (absolutely nothing gets wasted here) to feed the pigs that they own.  The little pigs are so cute!  I hadn’t seen the pigs since the momma gave birth.  This afternoon, the whole family and I went to their corn field (they own land further away from here) to pick the ears of corn.  This was quite an adventure because I had never picked corn before and also we had to dodge enormous, colorful spiders in their huge webs between the stalks of corn.  The family all seemed to like to scare me, saying “Jolie, watch out!” as I was picking ears of corn.  It is safe to say that I’ve gotten my fix of spiders in the last few days.  We picked corn for about 2 hours; the sun intense as to burn my forearms (luckily I was wearing a hat).  I loved being outdoors, helping out with chores that needed to be done. 

Into the Wild

6-25-11

Today was the day for the hike up the mountain!  For breakfast, I ate a bowl of fruit (bananas, apples, papaya), a cheese empanada, and a warm drink (I think oatmeal somethin’ or other).  It was Zack, Danielle (a guy) and I who went into the wild.  We took a bus to Tumbaco and from there explored the area, trying to find paths leading to this mountain.  After several minutes of walking on roads and mis-leading trails (which were really just people’s driveways leading up to their houses with intimidating gates), we finally called our “tía” to find out where exactly these so-called trails are.  We ended up taking another bus further up to where look-alike trails might be.  Several attempts later, hiking up rocky and other small dirt paths, we eventually came to a house and asked if we could pass through his gate to hike up the mountain.  Although, it looked pretty difficult.  He told us to venture down where we’d come to a “small trail”, pass through some brush, and hike up the rest of the mountain.  Our adventurous spirits met their desires as we hiked down unknown paths, stepping into overgrown grass/weeds where who knows what snakes or spiders might be under our feet.  The trails truly were small, and not many people have traveled on them recently.  Sooner or later we came to an open area, where it was mostly brush, wildflowers, and thorn bushes.  Snakes were no longer on our minds, as we had more things to worry about: massive, colorful spiders in their webs and thorns/prickers to dodge.  As we looked higher up the mountain, it looked like the brush cleared; it didn’t.  We laughed because this was a bad idea to keep hiking up.  By now, my legs were torn up (I was wearing capris—not a good idea), so we decided to hop a barbed wire fence where it looked like mostly tall grass and maybe we could hike to a different mountainside.  The traverse over the barbed wire fence was the easy part.  However, the grass on the other side was infested with thousands of small spiders, scattering in the grass at every step we took.  It was my worse nightmare! The idea here was to just run fast, wherever we were going, which we didn’t really have a plan of action, because we didn’t want these small spiders to cover our bodies if they had the chance.  The spiders didn’t seem to go away the further we hiked.  So, to the other side of the barbed wire fence we went! We were happy with how far we went today, but we never did get to the peak because of various reasons.  It was still a great adventure and satisfied our desire of hiking up a mountain.  We headed back down the way we came up, ending up on a one-way road.  That was the best spot to nourish our bodies, which included peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (thanks Zack! I have actually been craving this…especially on whole wheat bread), a pear, apple, some sour gummy worms and potato chips.  In time we reached civilization; back to the three busses we took to get back to Lumbisí. A good nap and 2 cups of coffee finished off a great afternoon.

Danielle and Zack hiking up the mountain--this is the one with lots of thorns and spiders :-(

Zack and Danielle stopping for a short break to breathe in the wonderful view

Our hike up the mountain! 

Apure!

6-24-11

This was one of the few days I woke up to it raining, with clouds pretty much right above my head.  Once again, it was a very cold morning.  At the guardaría this morning, one of the girls brought a huge smile to my face.  Usually when the kids arrive, there is a short learning lesson for the day in the classroom.  This is where my English teaching usually comes in (colors, numbers, etc).  Except, today was different.  After one of the teachers went through the colors in Spanish, it was my turn to go through them in English.  As I held up the color yellow, and before I could even say the word for them to repeat, one girl shouts out, “Yellooowwww”.  I was amazed.  But that wasn’t all.  I moved onto the next color and the same girl shouts out, “Blueee”, which was correct.  The other two teachers in the room with me were extremely impressed, as was I.  That pretty much made my morning.  I’ve found with the two schools that I’ve been working at (Muñequitos in Lumbisí and the other in Tonsupa), that most of the kids already know the color “yellow” in English, but not much more than that, so the “Blue” was a first.  Later in the afternoon, Zack and Estevan were at the community garden, cutting the tops of trees with machetes so that the garden could get more sunlight, so I decided to join in on the fun.  We all took turns climbing up a ladder to get to the tops of the trees.  It’s hard work cutting branches with a machete!  But it was so worth the adventure…

Other things I’ve been noticing while living in Ecuador is that people just don’t use other “machines” that would make their lives so much easier.   What I mean by this is that wheel barrels for one thing would be a huge help.  I’ve noticed that the women carry 50+ pounds of weight on their backs, using sheets wrapped as slings (like a baby carrier).  This would put so much stress on the body!