Week's Recap

(the Wards come to Ecuador!)

And I’m back! Apologies for the extended absence. The week was a whirlwind filled with all of my favorite things about Ecuador and family, made all the better by the mixing of the two. A breakdown of our week’s highlights follows, hopefully it will encourage some of you to plan a visit down south some time soon!

Sunday: Met the Manna girls at the terminal and hopped on a 3 hour bus out to Otavalo for a day of artisan market shopping and haggling. How my mother is more successful at haggling in English than I am in Spanish I still don’t know... Highlight of the trip: getting to watch a Korean soap opera on the way out, and Black Dog 1 & 2 on the way back. Never seen them? Boy do I feel sorry for you... Dinner at Boca del Lobo, a place I’ve been drooling over since we first walked by in on break from language school back in July.

(inside of Boca del Lobo, as seen from the street)

Monday: Out to the markets at Sangolqui to do the week’s fruits and veggies shopping. Loaded everyone up (including Dana who’s now a market expert!) with bags and subsequently braved the bus back. Out to programs for the day; Apoyo, English, Women’s Exercise and then back home. Highlight: Seth and Dunc were making dinner!

Tuesday: Exploring Quito by foot; hit the dvd shop for my brother, the alpaca wool shop for blankets and the most incredible slippers (which I will never be taking off), and the English bookshop where you can get US magazines for 1.50 (Economist and Time if you’re lucky, Decor and Electronic Digest if you’re not, Vogue if you’ve hit the jackpot). Stopped for lunch at the theater cafe before tackling the Basillica! I managed to convince the boys to climb into the top spire with me while my mom enjoyed a coffee and her book at the restaurant halfway up :) Dinner at Latitude, a wine and tapas bar; intense political discussion followed.

(my new best friends, house slippers from heaven)

Wednesday: Toured the incredible Guayasamin museum in the morning (opens at 10am most days) before grabbing the coveted bagel with cream cheese at Magic Bean and hopping on a 4 hour bus to Baños, an amazing town tucked into the side of the Andes. Dinner at Casa Hood, my favorite restaurant in Ecuador.

(Guayasamin museum)

Thursday: Our adventure day! Rented bikes at a little shop off Calle Martinez at 10am; 5 bucks a pop for the whole day, and hit the road. After a “little” accident in the HORRIFYING tunnel (ie. my brother hit the wall, went in a ditch, and busted his arm horribly...don’t think my family has forgiven me yet for that), we continued on the ride through the Andes. Took a ‘gondola’ over the river gulch to get closer to El Manto de la Novia waterfall, hiked down through the forest for lunch overlooking the famous Pailón del Diablo waterfall, climbed up and behind Pailón for an incredibly wet and wonderful experience, and biked on/climbed down to swim in the final waterfall. Hitching a ride back to Baños at 7pm found us all wet and sore and beyond ready for dinner.

Friday: Caught an early 8am bus back to Quito where we were greeted by torrential rains and a gypsy cab driver who took advantage of my exhausted Spanish and over-charged us for our ride out to the Marriott Hotel. Taxied out to Conocoto (where we just missed the rest of the Manna crew who headed out to the mountains for the weekend) to carve our ‘pumpkin’ ie. green squash with REALLY thick edges. Piled back to Quito, indulged in a Marriott burger, the best bit of red meat I’ve found down here, swam in the pool, and had cocktails in the lobby after long showers.

(our dubious little 'pumpkin'...gotta keep with halloween traditions, even in South America!)

I’m now sitting back in Conocoto catching up on work that I missed last week and relaxing in my pjs (and slippers!); gotta love slow Sundays.

Holly

Colorado comes to Conocoto

I know two people who will not be reading the daily life blog this week; my parents. No, it's not because they've become frustrated by my constant blogging about food or by my sometimes backwards sentence structuring (I blame Spanish), it's because my whole family is here visiting Ecuador for the whole week!

Mom, Dad and "little" (ie. 16 years old but already 6'2'') brother got in on Saturday, and we've had a packed two days thus far; traveling out to Otavalo with the rest of the Manna girls for a day of market haggle-ing, exploring Quito, buying the week's fruit and veggies at the Sangolqui markets, joining in on Apoyo, English class and women's exercise, AND getting to experience the wonder that is Seth and Dunc's dinner night.

I want to apologize in advance if this week's blogging is late or lacking; I want to spend as much time away from my computer and with my family as possible.

Love from Ecuador,
Holly

My dogs from home, the only one's missing in Ecuador :) I couldn't resist, sorry...

El Pobre Angelito

Thursday evenings are long ones for the girls of the Manna House; from Apoyo Escolar we head to two different English classes, and then reconvene at 7 for our rousing hour and a half of women’s exercise (which was pretty hysterical tonight; think 23 women, most STILL wearing sweaters, ages ranging from 5 year old Marjorie who tagged along with her mom to a 68 year old grandma who wore her shawl the entire workout). We staggered into the house tonight at 9:15, only to be greeted by the boys deep in a game of, you guessed it, RISK and sprawled all over the dining room table. After maneuvering some of their little soldier pieces over to the side, we proceeded to scarf down Mark and Eliah’s dinner, all the while being completely ignored by the guys who were so enchanted with their world domination strategies that they just couldn’t be bothered. And there you have a very telling example of life in the Manna house, the boys are playing RISK and the girls are eating.

After dinner we decided to put in Home Alone, which Jos got for her birthday (along with an exorbitant amount of chocolate). Translated horribly into Spanish as “El Pobre Angelito” (The Poor Little Angel), we’ve been talking about watching this movie ever since week two when Jocelyn realized she’d forgotten to bring it down with her. As the movie screened from the projector, popcorn popped in the microwave, and water boiled on the stove for hot chocolate, we all were transported back to our respective childhoods and the anticipation of Christmas fell around us all like a blanket. Yet, as Jos so correctly reminded us, we have to get through Halloween first :)

Holly

(the new sketch on my bedroom wall)

Rosa (or: Home)

(Today's Guest Blog comes from Mark Hand, who just completed his first meal as Head Chef this past weekend! Nice work on the mushroom etouffee (and thanks to Jocelyn for being sous chef...)

"When I traveled to New Orleans a few months after Katrina, my friend Lindsey and I spent an afternoon driving around gawking at the damage. At the end of the day, I was spent; I needed home. Not Shreveport, necessarily, but some place of refuge – a bookstore, a coffee shop, a Scottish pub.

Home doesn’t have to be a physical place, I've learned. Today I went home to a person – Rosa – who for me personifies that concept in a way that I hadn’t realized.

Rosa, mother of one of UBECI's co-founders, is about about sixty-five and served as my first mother in Ecuador. When I arrived in August 2007 I knew limited Spanish, immediately landed a level three sinus infection, and was fitfully processing the previous six months as a social worker in Shreveport as I prepared for my team coming in September. Rosa listened, carefully. She also did enough talking to make me realize that this tiny old woman who guts her own guinea pigs, uses every drop of water at least four times before giving it to the pigs and is just now learning how to read, might be one of the sharpest, wisest, most determined human being I have ever met.

And for me, she is home. Not having visited in about six months, I had developed that Catholic knot of guilt in my stomach that starts to form when you haven’t visited your grandmother in too long. So when Fabián failed to show up for our meeting this morning, I swallowed hard and pointed my nose to Rosa’s.

Thankfully, Rosa did not berate me for not showing my face more often, and seemed genuinely grateful to see me and take a break from feeding the pigs. We talked about Obama (“Have you heard about his family? He used to be poor, like us!), the Rafael Correa flag outside her door and what I thought about the new president, the dwarf beans from her son in Italy that she is going to try and plant soon, and the old grandfather who se fue a otro mundo (“went to the other side,” loosely) three months ago. We laughed at the social work stories I told her over a year ago, and she asked if I could find her the telephone number for Ecuador’s Vice President. He’s handicapped, and Rose thinks if she could get him on the phone, that maybe he’d know how to help her handicapped son, too. If he knows what’s good for him – or if he takes the time to get to know Rosa - he probably will."

Mark

(Rosa and a guinea pig)

Happy Bird Day!

That’s how the kids at Apoyo Escolar pronounce Happy Birthday, which they couldn’t say enough times to Jocelyn, who turned 23 (gasp!) today. From Melissa’s handmade birthday card, oddly depicting Dana in a house with “feliz cumpleanos” smashed in the bottom corner, to Dennis’ gift of an old giraffe stuffed animal, to Carmen’s thousand hugs and extremely wet finger painted present, I’d say Jos had a pretty sweet day. Just wait until she opens house presents tomorrow :)

Holly

(The birthday girl waiting for the Ecovia in Quito. With some mushrooms.)