9/27/04
Well, we`ve had a great week. Spanish lessons went well for both of us, I`m remembering bits and pieces of what I have learned over the years and Jim has really picked up a lot of the language....and wants to use it ALL the time :-). His favorite lesson of the week was when he realized that the plural form of the word esposa (wife) was esposas and means handcuffs! He and Luis (the director of our school) had a good laugh about that one.
Along with learning language, we have learned a lot about the political situation here. For example, the curency here is the US dollar. They changed to the dollar in 1999, after their curency, the Sucre plumeted in worth to 25,000 sucre to 1 dollar. When they made the change over to the dollar, the people didn`t understand that it was worth more that the sucre and, at first, equated one dollar to one sucre. For a few years prices skyrocketed, they have come down significantly but some items remain even more expensive than in the US.
We also stayed with a family this week. Our host "mother" was Maria Ilena. She is a grandmother, her deceased husband was a diplomat, and she is walthy by Ecuadorian standards. Our first day at the house was overwhelming, there were 2 young children running around, 2 servant-type people, her middle aged daughter and her husband and their 21 year-old son who had just had gastric-bipass surgery and could only drink Gatorade for 30 days....We got used to the comotion in the house and Maria took genuine interest in us, she was very ammused by Jim, and by the very concetrated expression he gets on his face when he`s trying to figure out just how to say something in Spanish. We ate like royalty, tons of fresh vegetables and fruits. Maria introduced us to tomate de arbol (tree tomato) it tastes like a cross between a tomato and a lemon...it`s Jim`s new favorite.

We visited an art museum this week. The name of our school is Guyasimin, named after a very famous Ecuadorian artist. Much of his art was very political. There are pictures of his paintings on the picture site, you may recognize his style.
Friday, after a very busy week of school, salsa lessons, and visiting museums, we said goodbye to our host family and headed north to a town called Otavalo. They have a very famous Saturday market, and we wanted to be there for the early morning small animal market. Saturday early morning we hit the markets, everything from Goats, chickens, rabbits, and guniea pigs (a local favorite) and cows were being bought and sold. Later we hit the craft market and for the most part we resisted the temptation to buy all of the beautiful alpaca and handmade products, knowing that we`d have to carry them around on our backs.
Today (Sunday) we went on an early hike up a mountain outside of Quito (Pichincha). There were beautiful views of the city and surrounding country.
We are now headed to the bus station to catch a night bus out to the jungle. We`ve got a 10 hour bus ride, then a 4 hour canoe ride up a river. We`ll have spanish lessons out in the jungle as well as exploring. We`ll be out of touch for the next week. Sending you all peace and love,
Lisa