The Year in Photographs

Welcome to Ecuador.

July 2008

Dunc channels Guayasamin while waiting to see The Dark Night.

Jos and I feel not so good about the cow brains for sale at the market.

The group plays in a giant snail during our first weekend in Quito.

An incredible welcome to our new city, Quito as seen from the top of Pichincha.

View from the spires of the Basillica.

August 2008

Three little smiles at the amusement park.

Art students in the 2008 summer camp.

10 de Agusto celebrations in Old Town.

The sun sets on the dry season in spectacular ways.

Attempting to summit Pichincha in a flurry of fog and snow.

Serena treats Dunc to his favorite, Enya!

The rainy season begins...

September 2008

The infamous river clean up.

Central church in Cuenca.

Eliah looking good.

Jos, Serena and I pile on our new Panama hats.

October 2008
View from the bus in to Quito.

Carving "pumpkins" with my family during their Ecuador visit.

November 2008

Festivals of Quito and bullfights on Thanksgiving.

Dunc carves our Thanksgiving bird.

December 2008

Eliah, Serena, Dana and Jos laugh during our Secret Santa exchange.

Returning to the West.

January 2009

Our bus advertising blitz attracts it's first interested party.

View of the Mindo cloud forest from above.

One of the many hummingbirds in Mindo.

February 2009

And the rainy season continues...

Jos and Dana lead a game in Children's English.

Art students work on their Van Gogh Starry Night interpretations.

March 2009
Jos and the Duke spring breakers paint the teen center in preparation for it's grand opening.

The Library opening concert.

April 2009

Blue footed boobies on Isla de la Plata!

BBQ on the roof of the library with the teens from the teen center.

Wendy sets up Chinese Checkers and regards the camera skeptically.

May 2009
Setting up our booth at the health fair.

Selena and Jori goof around in the kid's corner.

Full moon during a family dinner on the roof.

Mark, Selena and Carlitos enjoy the bean bags.

Seth bonds with Joseph while hanging in the teen center.

June 2009

One of Michael's guitar students listens to the example chords.

July 2009
Celebrating with Dana after she reached the summit of Cotapaxi!

The wall of maps and Duncan's head.

Seth attempts to shoulder both Serena and Dana in Otavalo. Mark and Dunc help. Eliah doesn't.

August 2009

Dana bonds with the polo horses at the hacienda.

And now it's their turn...!

Love, Holly

Questions for Bibi

It's that time again... time for you all to send me any and all questions you might have for our very new, very fabulous country director, Bibi Al-Ebrahim for her interview later this week.

There hasn't been much about Bibi on here, so the opportunities to ask any number of questions really are endless! Curious about how she gets her hair to be that awesome? Or what her favorite place she's traveled to is? Or what the best part about getting her MPH from Tulane was? Now's your chance!

Please do not hesitate to send them in, the more the merrier.

Questions are due to me by Friday night at midnight. Submit them, per usual, either as a comment to the blog or directly to my email. Holland.c.ward at gmail dot com.

Looking forward to hearing from you!
Holly

Upon his return

(Eliah and Dunc have been gone for about a week, so imagine my surprise when I opened my email to find something from Eliah titled "Last Guest Blog". Turns out he just can't seem to get enough :) So here it is, Eliah's last hurrah.)

"Here I am in my first week back after thirteen months with Manna and it's clear things have changed.
Take my brother's yappy beagle, with whom I cohabit when in the States. While I've been gone, she has matured, like a fine wine, into a less-annoyingly yappy state of being. Unlike this time last year, I now have an irresistible urge to put used toilet paper in bathroom trash cans. Of course there was never anything abnormal about spending the afternoon hunting for mushrooms in the woods, but when I got home today I cooked them. That wouldn't have happened a year ago. Meanwhile, no one anywhere in the house has screamed in the last hour. Strange.
But that's not all. Things in my own head, too, are not the same as before. Maybe I can't get past the fact that I just spent a year volunteering in a country with a higher rate of nose jobs than southern California. Or that I paid about as much to work for that year as Ecuadorians earn in the same amount of time ($7150 vs. $7500 according to the CIA World Factbook). Then again, maybe it's something else. Something about a unique time and a way of living gained and then lost. People, places, and experiences I know I won't forget. Something that can't be captured in a single blog entry. Or maybe that's just the parasites talking.
Whatever it is, after a year with Manna things have changed, and in a way I can't—and wouldn't—undo. Still, it's comforting to know that some things are exactly as I left them thirteen months ago.

I need a job.

-Eliah"

It's like summer camp all over again!

Right now our living room looks like a summer camp cabin; sweatshirts strewn everywhere, pillows piled on the chairs, Nalgene water bottles thrown in random corners, and 18 pieces of near-to-busting luggage covering every inch of the floor. No, spring break isn't happening all over again, something even better.

The new PDs are here!

Dana and I spent a solid two hours today emptying out our room of all clothes, shoes, brushes, random socks, backpacks, and the other things that clutter a life in 13 months. I wish I had found something exciting that I'd whined about loosing earlier in the year, but sadly all I found behind the dresser was a broken hanger and 3 horribly dusty bobby pins. How boring is that?

Anyway. They're here, we're excited, and the house is moaning, full to the brim.

-Holly

Otavalo goodbyes

Yesterday we hugged goodbye two of our numbers, Dunc and Eliah. It should come as no surprise that the two cuarenta partners planned their Ecuadorian evacuation together; yes, they both claimed Graduate School as their individual reasons for leaving on the same day, but I'm not buying it. They just couldn't stand to be down here if the other was not :)

In anticipation of their departure, last weekend all eight of us oldies piled into a bus headed for Otavalo. I have to admit I was a little hesitant to go there; in our trusty Lonely Planet guide book Otavalo is written up as a "must see place for tourists of all kind, due to its enormous weekend market,". The last place I wanted to stay with my seven people was a touristy market town, surrounded by leather key chains and alpaca floor rugs and painted shot glasses...no thank you. So imagine my surprise when our camioneta drove out of the town, up the cobblestone street right into the mountains and just kept going. Up, up, up we drove, jostling around in the back of an old white truck, backpacks and knees and laughs jumbling around with us, until we came to La Luna, our hostel picked by Dunc.

It was perfect. Nestled into the side of a big old hill covered in golden grasses and swaying trees, the place had crisp white walls, fire places, colorful hammocks, homemade guacamole, and a ton of board games. But most importantly it had connecting rooms and one big dinner table for all of us to sit around and reminisce, eat, play and read.

Here's to our last hurrah together! It's been a great year, huh.
-Holly

Serena and Jos goof around while running back down to the hostel.

Serena and Eliah get ready for a serious game of Guess Who?

While Dana and Mark battle it out in Cuarenta.

View on the way to the waterfall.

Love that self timer.

Spot Serena.

Recreating a Quito statue we pass every time we bus into the city.

Trying to squeeze everyone onto a small rock. Why not.

Eliah and I share some rock space.

Rousing game of Clue next to the fireplace.


Mark tries to roast a marshmallow with a piece of burning paper...?

Dunc takes in the view on a Sunday hike.

The steep trek up to the summit begins.

View of Cayambe from the top of Fuya Fuya (my first Ecuadorian summit!)

Danabean and I channel our Colorado mountains.

The climbing crew.

A condor sighting from the summit. Rare and wonderful, as it's estimated there are only 65 in the whole country.