oui oui oui!

Since Kat left in March, I needed to find more friends, and fast. I have found it incredibly difficult to find a group of Ecuadorian friends mostly because I'm not looking for a boyfriend. If I had found an Ecuadorian boyfriend, I could fit in with his group of friends and the girls would (somewhat) accept me. Since I have to reject every Ecuadorian boy that comes within 10 feet of me because otherwise they'll think I want something else, it's very difficult to find girlfriends. they have very closed circles of friends and they don't like to let in new people, let alone foreigners. (I've heard enough stories from my host sister and her friends to know that this is true.) So, I've become recently attached at the hip to Sarah, a French teacher at my university. She's from La Rochelle, France and she's my age! I met her when my class switched campuses back in April, and we've been inseparable ever since. I pretty much owe my sanity to her. I have a permanent reservation on her couch in her apartment and she actually has vegetables and other things to cook with in her refrigerator. And the best part is, that even though she is also a gringa, we have to communicate in Spanish because it's our only common language. Although, I'm slowly picking up some French. :) Her boyfriend, Julien, is here in Ecuador, too. He's visiting for three months. last weekend, we went to the Llanganates mountains and stayed at the refuge with our Ecuadorian tour guide friends. We hiked and stayed up late playing cards and drinking. It was fantastic. Sarah has totally kept me from going insane here. The other night, I made her and Julien dinner to repay them for all the times they have fed me. I made chicken marsala (which they had never had before!) and a side of green beans. I had not cooked in so long! but it came out good. That's definitely the thing I'm most looking forward to when I get home: good food! I'll be home in 9 days!! This has been an eye opening, incredible experience, but I'm so ready for it to be over.

Quilotoa!

This past weekend was spent celebrating the battle of Pichincha... or whatever it was that gave us monday off! On saturday morning, a bunch of worldteachers and I wound through the mountains by bus to the tiny town of Chugchilan. We stayed at a baller hostel which for 10 dollars a night included breakfast AND dinner. It was fantastic. And a good thing that they had 6 blankets on each bed because it got cold up in the mountains. Pretty much the weekend was spent playing bananagrams and comparing our countdowns until when we leave and talking about what food we miss the most. (Oh My G-d! meeeeee too!!! I would do ANYTHING for macaroni and cheese with breadcrumbs on top!!! auuuuuuuuuugh!) But we also did get to see the beautiful Quilotoa lake! it's a volcano/crater lake in the middle of the mountains. According to one of our truck drivers, it last errupted in the 1700's and left the landscape as mountainous as it is. Half of our group hiked down to the water and back up. I decided to go with the adventurous group and hike around the rim of the crater. We were told that in about 3 hours or about halfway around the lake, we would hit a river and a small town, where we should deviate from the trail to hike back to chugchilan. However, after asking hikers coming from the other direction, we realized it was possible that this river and small town do not in fact exist and we would not know where to turn off the trail. Plus, the looming rain clouds were fast approaching the higher cliffs that we would have to climb, and we could hear thunder in the distance. After two hours of hiking, we thought it would be wiser to hike back the way we came and hitch a ride back to chugchilan from the town of Quilotoa. This turned out to be a good decision. We avoided the rain and we safely made it back to chugchilan in the back of a pickup truck (as we had missed the last bus by 45 minutes). Overall, it was a great weekend. I got to hang out with Americans who commiserated with my Ecua-frustrations, and I got to hike and see the beauty of this country with whom I currently have a love/hate relationship. It was literally, a breath of fresh (cold, mountain) air.

Carbohydrates

As much as I love my host mom, I simply cannot handle Ecuadorian food anymore. It´s been some time that I´ve been in food withdrawal, but I simply cannot take another day.

Breakfast usually consists of bread with cheese and fruit juice. On the rare days that there is something different, it is a fried egg with french fries or a fried egg with rice.

Lunch always consists of a soup that contains potatoes and meat, and then a heaping plate of rice with something. That something is either a meat stew, a potatoe salad or (the worst option) overcooked pasta with an oily sauce.

Dinner is either leftovers from lunch or bread with cheese (again).

I actually can´t take it anymore. I have gotten into the habit of picking up an ice cream on the way to my afternoon class to forget about the lunch I just had.

The Atkins diet has never sounded so good.

Llanganates Mountains!

This past weekend I went on I hike with three other worldteachers and two Ecuadorian friends (who happen to be tour guides) to the Llanganates mountains. It is said to be where ancient Incan gold is still buried, hidden from the Spanish invaders. We did not find any gold, however we did find a lot of cows and interesting high elevation vegetation. The views of the mountains were absolutely spectacular. I had been rainy the whole week before (and it continues to be rainy this week) but this weekend we got lucky. It was cloudy, but not rainy. Juan says that if the group of explorers are good people and they get along, the mountains will treat them well. He said that whenever he takes a tourist group who bickers with each other, the weather does not cooperate. I kind of like the theory. Anyway, we got to the base of the mountains by taking a bus from Ambato to Pillaro and then hopping in the back of a pick up truck that was headed in the same direction we were. (one of my pictures is of me and my Ecudorian friends in the back of the truck.) Once we got to the national park we hiked for 6 hours (1.5 hours of which was a grueling uphill march). At about 4pm, we finally made it to the refuge where we would be spending the night. We made spaghetti and played a card game called cuarenta with the park rangers who live at the refuge. It was so much fun just to chat with them, learn about what they do in the national park.. and of course talk some shit about playing cards. We went to bed early from pure exhaustion. Hiking in altitude is hard! It was VERY cold up in the mountains at night, but we were snuggly warm in our multiple layers and multiple blankets. The next morning, we woke up at about 8 and looked out with window. We were clearly above the clouds. The valley below us looked like a bowl of whipped cream. And it was absolutely silent, a sound I rarely hear in Ambato where there is always either city sounds or roosters. This past weekend's trip was so refreshing. It was good to be reminded of how beautiful this country is. So I thought I should share it with you!

Ecua Wedding!

Last night, my host uncle, Freddy, got married! He's one of my host mom's 7 siblings who lives in our neighborhood. The ceremony was at a church on the other side of town and party was in the reception hall that is the first floor of our house. The flower arrangements were absolutely gorgeous. White roses with blue daisies. On every table, there was a bottle of whiskey with a little foam decoration depicting a bride and a groom, a pretty canister of cigarettes and a decorated lighter for the guests to enjoy. Something that was last seen in the United States in maybe 1953. Another thing they did that was different was "raffle" off the bride's garter in addition to her boquet to the single ladies at the party. This lucky girl gets to have the garter placed on her by the a friend of the groom's and will supposedly get married the next year. Of course, that lucky girl was me. I had to stand on a chair in the middle of the room while some man put a garter on my thigh. It was mildly embarrassing but my host mom thought it was hysterical. Now she's all excited because she thinks I'm getting married soon.

Other than that minor incident, the party was a lot of fun. There was a lot of merengue and bachata dancing. We were not served dinner until 12:45. I went to bed shortly after that, but I'm pretty sure the party continued until 3AM.

Crawling

My 14 year old host sister has not been feeling well lately. On Easter she fainted once in church and then again later that afternoon. She's been pale lately and she hasn't had much energy. My host mom was worried so she took her to the doctor to get urine tests, blood tests etc. About a week later, when the doctor finally got around to reviewing her tests, he couldn't find anything definitive. He though she might have some form of salmonella, so he gave her some pills to take, but they haven't been helping. This morning at breakfast, my host mom was expressing her concern over her daughter. She told me that she has a friend who's teenage daughter had the same symptoms. What cured her daughter was crawling for 15 minutes a day. Apparently, if you don't let your children crawl when they're young, they have problems like this in adolescence. My host mom says, "It's true! I never let my children crawl. I always held them until they could walk because I didn't want them crawling on the dirty floor and then putting their hands in their mouths. I'm going to make Michelle (her daughter) crawl for 15 minutes a day. It couldn't hurt, right?" I told her, no it couldn't hurt... It could just embarrass her that's all.

If anyone thinks that there is any scientific truth to this please let me know so that I will stop thinking that my host mom has actually lost her mind.

ps, Michelle refuses to crawl, much to my host mom's unhappiness. and the doctor thinks it's actually just stress because she's not doing well in school. troublesome teenagers...

Family trip to Santo Domingo

This Semana Santa (holy week) I took a trip with my host family to visit my host mom's cousins in Santo Domingo on the coast. I definitely learned a lot. The coast is like a different country than the sierra. It's much more hot and humid. The women wear skimpier clothing and strut when they walk. About 80% of women that we saw walking in the streets were pregnant. The coast is also a lot poorer than the sierra. It really looks like a third world country. The roads are not paved, and buildings are more like shanties, hurriedly thrown together with a tin roof to top it off. The cousins that we stayed with live in such a house. The gate around the yard is just made of sticks stuck in the ground. The house has cement walls, a tin roof and dirt floors. the kitchen table is under the roof that sticks out, but outside the walls. The chicken pen is literally 10 feet from the house. And the bathroom... lets say there was no toilet seat, the door was a burlap sack curtain, and it was less than clean. But the cousins were lovely. We sang karaoke on their laptop computer for hours while the adults drank beer. The next day, we went to visit another family friends' farm. They grow oranges, avocados, bananas and lots of yucca. Yucca is the root of the plant that the man is cutting with the machete in the picture. It grows on the coast and it is definitely a staple food here. We took pictures around the farm and caught up with their friends. It was hot and humid but it was a really nice day.
What I found interesting was the way my host family introduced me. I've discovered that even though greetings are very important for Ecuadorians (you must greet EVERY person with a kiss on the cheek when you walk into a room) introductions are not that important. I would greet each family member with an "hola" and a kiss on the cheek, but no one bothered to tell me their names and no one bothered to tell them my name. When they asked my host dad, Luis, if we were all his daughters he would smile and say yes. "Don't you have four daughters?" "Yes, Michelle doesn't like the heat on the coast so she stayed home. And this is Jessica my adopted daughter." And that's usually all the information they got. No one really explained to them that I'm from the states, that I'm here teaching English for a year, and I live with them. She's my adopted daughter was enough. I guess that's how they see me. I'm beginning to realize how sad it will be for them when I leave. I am their first volunteer. I wonder if they will host another once I leave.

I will definitely be sad to leave my "adoptive" family. My host family is the best thing I have here in Ecuador, and it will be extremely hard to say goodbye to them. But I will not be as sad to leave Ecuador. I'm ready. I feel like I've had enough cultural immersion and I'm ready to feel comfortable and safe again. I'm ready to drive (myself, in my parent's car) down familiar streets and drink dunkin donuts coffee and shop at Target. I'm grateful for this experience of getting to step outside of my comfort zone and experience another way of life. But going back to my comfort zone is going to feel so soft and cushy. I secretly can't wait.