South American adventure

last week was the first full week we have worke in a few weeks. i spent the most of the week when i was not in CEA doing music and homework help with the children, i was calling and meeting with parents and looking for more children who need to go with me to get their eyes checked. there are two girls whose eyes have high astigmatism and the treatment for this is very expensive, one is 21 dollars the other 50. this does not sound like that much here but for the families with whom we work this is a lot. i have met with a lot of families and explained the treatment needed and offered that we pay a part of the cost of the 15 dollar lenses the child needs so that the parents have to pay 10 or 8 and am saddened when they tell me the need to come back in 2 weeks or a month to be able to pay for the 10 dollars. it is a different world here. people earn what they can and spend it on their immediate needs and very few have savings for things such as paying 10 dollars for glasses. 10 dollars is a lot here. yesterday i went to the north of the city to pay and order the glasses of one student and while walking on the street i received a lot of attencion from the people walking by, much more than normal. they called me blanca, gringa, gringita, bonita, guapa, americana these translated are white person, gringa, little gringa, pretty, beautiful, american. usually i get one comment but yesterday it seemed everyone wanted to make theirs. because it was raining and i could not go running in the park, i just stayed in our casa, prepared morocho con leche a hot beverage for the cold temperature, and reflected on how often here i feel like the foreigner because my skin is so much lighter and immediately i am identified as a gringa. i dont like the term gringa and when people call me it i tell them my name and ask them to call me Annie. figuring out how i fit in to the culture here is an important part of growing and it is not easy but i am trying to accept these perceptions and make connections with the people i can. which i am doing a lot. las oñas are the wonderful family that we spent saturday with building an improvised grill in a wheel barrow with bricks on all sides and a borrowed grate from a nieghbor. we grilled chicken, beef, shrimp, and had a large meal. then i prepared what was left of the ground cacao into chocolate that we had a fondue again with pineapple while we all snuggled together and watched anaconda  4 a very bad movie but it was in spanish so i used it as another opportunity to learn more spanish and i do acutally understand almost all of what people say to me or i ask them to clarify what a word means if i dont know. sometimes i communicate myself well and other times i know how much i have yet to improve. everyday there is growth and i am doing my best to be patient with myself as i learn. after watching the movie, we used the rest of the chocolate to make hot chocolates with milk and a little cinnamon. the best hot chocolate of my life. sorry starbucks.

later saturday evening the oñas drove us to the panecillo which is the statue of the virgin mary that overlooks the whole city and links the south with the north. we can see the panecillo from our casa as well as from the dining room of CENIT. the views of the city are amazing and they are preparing the large lit up figures of Jose, Maria y Jesus -Joseph Mary and Jesus that can be seen from all parts of the city for the navidad, asuming there is luz of course, there have been a lot of power outages and certain sectors have 4 hours of no electricity each day. it is a lack of water and the hydro pumps cannot produce electricity enough for all the city. thankfully we live behind a hospital so we almost always have power. the hot showers have been hit or miss, and many days after running i want to shower but it is cold so i have to cook and wait until many hours later for it to be warm.

on sunday we went to the house of another volunteer Veronica and she baked us apfel strudel which is an austrian pastry of apple strudel. que rico. we celebrated her birthday in her absolutely gorgeous modern house. i did not realize how simple and primitive our kitchen was until i was in hers. but i love our kitchen and our community of German, Austrian, Holandese, Ecuadorian, American , Canadian house full of people who keep us company as we cook and we eat together, salsa dance in the kitchen, and learn German in part by just listening as they talk. and the view from our terrace is amazing from the hammocks.

Al is doing well holding up the street outreach in Camal with the absence of the head volunteer who is on vacation these weeks. yesterday a mother of one othe niños of Al gave us shrimp so Jessie and Al and i cooked it with a pesto pasta and salad. we always eat good when we cook with Jessie.

we are beginning preparations for Dia de las Gracias Quito or Thanksgiving in Quito. we are inviting everyone and i am buying the turkey and we will have mashed potatoes and green been caserole, but aside from that we are asking everyone to bring a traditional dish from their country. multicultural and never traditional. asi es mi vida.

we finally got the extensions on our visas! 91 dias mas en ecuador! we bought a box of wine to celebrate finally being done with the long process of getting the extension. this makes us very happy because we can stay in the country and continue working with CENIT until Christmas, go to the country with theOñas for Christmas, spend new years with Kryn and Ashley in Puerto Lopez, i can spend more time with my friends on the coast, andwe can seen more of southern ecuador before we leave to enter Peru in the middle of January.

i am continually surprised by the sun and warm weather and keep saying to Al, can you believe that it is the 16th of november? as we walk to the bus in the morning in the warm sun.

i have been running in the park a lot of afternoons and there is a 10k near where we work in december that i might run. running at altitude makes your chest tighen up a bit more than i am used to but i am training a bit to get passed it.

chao todos!

we dont have much time to write because we need to eat dinner and go dancing in a little while but i thought i would write a bit. on sunday we went to the country with the Oñas and had a wonderful 3 days eating amazing food, and spending time with the family. on monday the day of the dead we went to Isinlivi to the Mass and then walked around and put cards and flowers on all of the graves of the deceased family members of Clever, the father of their family. the cemetary wa filled with people and the Mass was there in the cemetary. interesting. we came back tuesday night and got ourselves ready to work on wednesday. i had a very busy 3 days at work and on friday i took 6 children to the doctor to get their eyes checked, topographic exams, and 3 to get their glasses. they were very happy trying on frames. last night we had a good bye party for Daniel, our friend from Berlin. this morning we were going to go to Latacunga but we decided to stay in and relax and play guitar and make chocolate with the cacao we bought in the amazon in Misahualli. we had chocolate fondue with piña (pineapple) and strawberries that was really good. i had several stores and then a restaurant looking for a grinder for the cooked cacao before a man from a restaurant loaned me his. then we went running in Ichimbia and lifted weights. tonight we might go salsa dancing? tomorrow we will spend the day with the Oñas and make lasagna after Mass. hope you all are well.

con amor,

Annie y Al

we have done so much this last week and have not had much internet to write. on saturday night we went to la festival de las ensaladas, salad festival which there was so much food. salads of every kind imaginable and a lot of bread too even though this week was not pan fest. on sunday we spent the day with the oñas and we went for a walk with them towards el cinto which i was surprised to find out that in Quito there are walking paths and a bit of nature too. Clever ended up giving us a ride back to our casa on Sunday night where we slept and woke up at 6 to catch a series of busses to Baños. we arrived in Baños in the afternoon and spent the day exploring this village. we visited the guitar workshop, found lunch for 2 dollars that was huge, and found a hostal with a kitchen and a cheap grocery store which i loved because for the next three days our food bills were so cheap. we relaxed in the hammocks and woke up early to rent bikes and left for the Baños-Puyo route which is 61km and we are proud to say we did it all. along the way is la rute de las cascadas, the route of the waterfalls and we stopped and hiked to see some of them. que linda. we made it to Puyo very tired after the second half of the journey that was more uphill and it lasted 5 or 6 hours in total. we caught a bus back to Baños and arrived wanting nothing more than hot showers, dinner and bed. thankfully we got all three.

in the morning we went to Mass and took a bus to Tena and then to Misahualli and arrived in this sleepy jungle village after dark. it was so hot and humid! we had to buy a beer to cool us down, and i normally dont like beer too much. in the morning we bought breakfast prepared for us which is the first time we have done that in more than 2 months and it was nice to be served breakfast. then we walked 8km in about 2 hours in the hot hot sun to reach then entrance of lagoons and waterfalls which we immediately went swimming. and watched the beautiful butterflies of all colors fly by. then we hiked a ways up to the larger waterfall and Al climbed up half of it. we got back to Misahualli by bus because of the extreme heat, hydrated and i wanted to relax in the plaza and read but not 2 minutes later came several monkeys. it turns out 30 monkeys live in the plaza and they come out to play in the afternoons. they tried to steal my book, Al´s cross necklace, and they succeded in stealing a crab from a nearby restarurant and were playing with the crab in the tree. how funny and entertaining. there was also a tv crew filming a tourism ecuador show that was there and they interviewed us for a segment on Misahualli. the monkeys were climbing all over Al and one jumped on my arm too. i did not get any reading in because of all the action!

we found a seafood restaruant near the river Napo and ate dinner, and they had salsa music on so we stayed and danced for a while after dinner. after we went back to the hostal and tried to sleep but it was difficult with the heat. thankfully we had a fan.

in the morning we went walking and exploring a bit and bought dried cacao which i know how to make chocolate from in about an hour. this is the cacao dried and fermented, now i just need to cook, grind, and cook again before we have amazing chocolate. i was very happy about this purchase. we caught the 11am bus to Tena and in Tena we left for Quito arriving at 7pm just after dark even though we tried so hard to get back before dark so we could walk and avoid a taxi fare, but no such luck.

today we played with Salome, a 10 year old girl who is the godchild of the dueña of our casa and i made irish soda bread again. tonight we have to pack again because in the morning we leave for the country with the Oñas to celebrate Dia de los Difuntos, Day of the dead which is a 2 day holiday here and we do not have to work until wednesday. i bought mozarella cheese and pepperoni because we are going to make brick oven pizzas.

tonight we will have kraft mac and cheese that someone left behind in our kitchen. we are very excited because here it is very expensive to buy and we have not had mac and cheese in months!

hasta luego

Dios les bendiga

saturday night was great! we brought irish soda bread and there were breads of all kinds at pan fest (festival of breads) there was german bread, zucchini bread, banana nut bread, olive and rosemary bread, along with dips and guacamole. we ate so much bread but it was fun. on sunday left early and took the trole to villaflora where we met the Oñas and they drove us back to their house which is farther south than where we work, about 45 minutes away from where we live although we all live in Quito. we live in a very long city. in the morning and went to Mass with them in their barrio. after Mass we went to a few stores looking for the ingredients to make colada morada which is a wonderful fruit drink. we prepared banana nut pancakes for them and they prepared a late lunch of rice, puree de potatoes, meat, and crab. we spent the whole day with them. Alejandro (Al) was playing with Kati the little girl all afternoon while i cooked with Pati. i was also playing their keyboard and there were many requests for jingle bells which i obliged. they drove us to catch a bus around dusk and we got home before it was too late. monday morning i went to CEA and sang more songs with the children and helped with english homeworks. on monday i recieved an email from Clever the father of the Oña family that said he hoped we got home safely and that if we want to come over again this weekend there is no problem. there is a church that is an hours walk up a small mountain se llama el cinto that we might go to with them on sunday. monday night we went out to La Ronda with friends for the despedida of Dana, a friend from Germany that will be leaving this week but tues was her last day at CENIT with us. on tuesday we had an especially busy day at work because of the theatre play that we performed in front of the high school. i was the clean daughter that always washes her hands and bathes but i did not want to eat the pork because i was afraid i would get the swine flu. it is a play that we wrote to dispell misconceptions and display information about our campaign of health to the students about the flu and the swine flu. it went really well! i wore this fancy blue dress and my hair in pigtails with rosy red cheeks. pictures soon to come. then we went to all the classes to give a talk about our individual topics of which mine is the transmission of the flu. we did all of this again today for the younger children as well as the other classes.

apart from this, i have been spending a few days working on my visa documents which are plentiful. hopefully we will get the 90 day extensions. also we are planning our trip for next week becasue we get a week of vacation and we are going to the amazon. i have been talking and emailing trying to get contacts for a guide so we can go a bit cheaper than with an all inclusive tour. we are leaving either sunday or monday for the week.

yesterday after work we played frisbee in parque Carolina with some very serious frisbee players but it was good to run a bit and be tired.

last night we had tango lessons and tonight as well with Daniel. tonight my friend Elissa is coming over for dinner. she is from NY and graduated from UB and happens to be working 2 years in Quito so we are meeting up tonight.

tomorrow i have a lot to organize for the next group that will have their eye checks on friday at Vista Para  Todos. and i am also giving guitar lessons to a little one in the morning and talking with 2 parents to negotiate the price of the glasses their children need.

hope you all are well.

Dios les bendiga y chao!

this week has been very rainy except for yesterday and today where it has been warm and sunny. i brought in several new songs for the children in CEA Camal and they keep asking me when i will be coming in to sing again. wednesday we had a tango lesson in casa with Daniel and thursday we watched harry potter 4 with Reuben for his english lesson which he said was a bit difficult for him to understand because of the accent and also all the new words that we could not translate to spanish. later that night we had salsa lesson in casa which was really good, we are learning new vueltas that make dancing easier. the dancing thursday was a good warmup for last night when we went out with Reuben and Rianne dancing at a place north of the mariscal with live music. it was really fun and Reuben says that Al is really improving. it is thundering right now, ay de mi we have to walk a half and hour soon! friday i arrived at CENIT at 8am and collected the 8 girls and we took a car to the north of the city to Vista para Todos (vision for everyone) a fundacion that is giving us 2 dollar eye exams for the girls in the high school. the girls were very sweet. 2 need glasses they are 21 dollars for the glasses. next week i will meet with the parents to decide how much they can pay and how much CENIT will contribute. today i learned some new songs from a little one that is the godchild of the dueña of our casa that was singing with me on the terrace. i also made irish soda bread from memory and it turned out good! i will bring it to the pan fest (bread festival) today at the casa of unos amigos. everyone is preparing a different type of bread to eat. tomorrow we are meeting the Oñas at Villaflora stop on the Trole to go to church with them in the south and then we will prepare banana nut pancakes for them for lunch after Mass and also we bought mortiños which are a fruit that you can use to prepare colada morada, a fruit drink. this week is our last before our vacation and we are seeing to it that we get all our visa paperwork done before we leave for vacation. we get a week off and we are looking in to going to the amazon el oriente. a ver.

 que les vaya bien…

we have been so busy it has been difficult finding time to write. last week we had salsa lesson and the following night a friend from Germany Daniel that knows how to tango taught the large group of us tango. all of our lessons are in the kitchen which is more like the communal meeting place of everyone who lives in our casa. also on tuesday of last week i made bolas de verde with nellie which are cooked and mashed plantains shaped into a ball with cheese and onions inside and then fried. served with coffee by Hilda, a colombian woman who is a friend of the family that owns our casa, they were excellent. our dueño Pedro even came to tango with us. we just learned the basic step forwards and backwards but it was fun and i love the music.

wednesday night we made a chinese meal with jessie of noodles with soy sauce with carrots, cucumbers and onions, eggs and tomatos served with mani on top which are fried peanuts. we were so full we almost did not feel like dancing!

thursday was our last day of work last week because friday was the festival of the independence of Guayaquil, the largest city in Ecuador. so friday morning we left at 7am and took a series of buses through Quitumbe, Latacunga, to Sigchos. It was midday and they told us the next bus would be the following day at 11am, so we decided to walk the 3 or so hours to the next town and try to find a hostal. while we were walking, a car came up and we asked if we could hitch a ride and they said they were only going about 2o more minutes but sure. while talking with them we discovered they are a wonderful family and they invited us to their house. we went and explored their large farm of chickens, cows, pigs, goats, sheep, fruit trees of all kinds, quinua, strawberries, and we hiked up the large hill nearby looking for mortiños which are like blueberries to make a drink colada morada but they were sparse so we just hiked around. the family name is Oña, the father Clever mother Pati, children Esteven, Daniel and Kati. Their grandmother lives in the country on this farm between Sigchos and Isinlivi. We had lunch  of the best chicken ive had in ecuador and dinner with them, sat around the fire talking until late and then they made our beds and we slept in a room with 7 beds and about 12 people, except for Al who got a room all to himself adjacent. We were up at daybreak with the roosters and the grandmother had breakfast served at 7 of cheese sandwiches and potatoes with a hot oatmeal drink and Clever offered to drive us to Quilotoa which was 2 hours away. this road was full of cows, sheep including the occasional black sheep and even llamas mating, engargado which means with full cargo on their backs. the only thing they asked was that we pay him gas money and we arrived at Quilotoa at 10am on saturday. we hiked down to the crater lake and had lunch then hiked back up because we did not want to hire a mule. around 1 we were weighing our options and decided to hike around the perimeter of the crater as fast as possible, the guide said 6 hours but we thought we could do it in less. we bought some snacks and departed to the right around the crater and found it to be very challenging, strenuous uphill some of the time on hands and knees like rock climbing.the views were gorgeous and we ended up making it back just in time to catch our 6pm car to Zumbahua. We checked in to a hostal, and went to the restaurant where everyone in town was watching the ecuador v. uruguay game which ecuador lost in the last minute and everyone was really upset. we had dinner and then fell asleep at 9pm. i woke up in the morning with a terrible headache and dehydration and jessie woke up the same so we went out and bought 5 liters of water that we started drinking right away and finished by early evening among the 3 of us. we went to Mass in Zumbahua which was the most profound faith i have seen yet in ecuador. there were no instruments but everyone was singing and it was standing room only for about the 50 of us that arrived last to this small chapel. we walked around town and ate fried doughs and empanadas on the street and i wanted to buy fruit but no stores had fruit because there is a big market day on Saturday that we had missed and the woman at one of the stores told me es imposible encontrar frutas hoy dia.  it is impossible to buy fruit on this day. so we took the 11.30 bus to Latacunga and bought mandarinas when we got there. we walked around Latacunga center and found a place with big bowls of crab soup with a whole crab on top for 2 dollars and it was so good but very messy. jessie told the waiter tengo verguenza! that she had shame that we made such a mess. we took a bus back to Quito and then the trole from Quitumbe which broke down and we had to hop ship to another trole until we got to Alameda but it was still light out so we could walk back to our casa. we have uploaded my photos to flikr so go to the album Quilotoa to see them. we got the address and email of the Oñas and they live in Quito not too far from us, so we are going to visit them and cook a large meal for them either this weekend or next. they were so kind to us we want to repay them a bit.

yesterday i did the first music with the children in CEA. i brought the guitar and sang En la selva la gran selva el leon duerme esta noche In the Jungle the mighty jungle the lion sleeps tonight and also Mi Gallo and the children loved it, they kept saying otra vez! which means again again! i also taught one little boy the D chord on the guitar because he has a lot of interest, and he is behaviorally a bit challenging so i will use it as a reward for good behavior. the children were so cute asking me why i cant come in everyday and only monday and wednesday and i did my best to explain that i work in the clinic the other days. we handed out oritos which are small bananas and i helped a little one with his math addition homework. he had trouble deciding which number to carry to the next row and we worked on that a bit. yesterday afternoon i made copies of the signed letter for the eyecheckups that took me so long to complete and we handed it out to 10 girls in the 8th grade that hopefully will bring them back signed with 2 dollars so i can take them for their eyecheckup on friday morning.

yesterday after work i walked in the rain to the famed coffee shop Pepa de Oro which is behind the presidential palace cerca de Plaza Grande and bought a libra of cafe especial which was not expensive and it tastes so much better than cafe instantaneo. it is a strange cultural tradition that most ecuadorians do not drink real coffee but instant even though some coffee is grown here and much more in colombia which is not far away.

this morning i took 2 children to terapia de lenguaje, speech therapy and am working on my poster for the transmission of swine flu

chao!

tuesday night we went to our friend Lisa´s apartment for canelazos de naranjilla and then we came back to casa oriente for the birthday party of another friend, Nan. there was chocolate cake and wine and it was wonderful. Nan shared her cake with me and another friend whose birthdays are all within one week. on wednesday we had a meeting with all in the clinic with the directora to reorganize some of the programs. after CENIT on wednesday Jessie, Jennifer and Lisa came over and we made quinoa salad and bruschetta with homemade whisky sours. it was so good. then we all shared a taxi to the mariscal where we went salsa dancing. it was good because we got to practice our pasos and vueltas that we have been learning wtih Reuben in class. thursday i finally received the package from my parents which had all kinds of sweets and another pair of jeans and beef jerkey for Al. thursday night we had another salsa lesson. our lessons have grown to 7 people in the house dancing with us which is a lot of fun. we had 3 pairs dancing and one girl rotating out every so often, and within the three pairs we danced and then the girl of each pair switched partners and we kept dancing. once we got it all coordinated it was really fun. Al was really enjoying himself. friday i went to Camal with Al and Barbara because they didn´t have enough volunteers and we played with the children in the park for the morning. after CENIT we did not eat lunch there but went to the fruteria monserrat to meet Lisa for her despedida (good bye lunch.) i was sad to see her go back to Cologne, Germany and hope to visit her someday (next year?)

saturday morning we got up very early and took the bus to the trole to the bus station Quitumbe in the far south of Quito to catch a bus to Papallacta. this bus terminal is so modern, it looks more like an airport. we took the 11am bus to Papallacta and once we got off we had to walk 4km uphill until we reached las termas de Papallacta. we entered, changed our clothes, met up with some friends, and spent all afternoon and evening soaking in the pools of different temperatures. how relaxing! we also went into the very very cold river several times, i went in 3 times and Al 4. it is supposed to be healthy to go from very cold to hot, vamos a ver.

on the bus ride back i nearly got sick but evaded it by pulling out my cold wet towel from my bag and putting it on my face which made me feel better. then last night we talked for a long time with a friend that left today as well.

today we went to Mass with another friend from Germany and then continued our tradition of helados (ice creams) after Mass at an heladeria in the centro historico. i tried coco y mora which is coconut and raspberry today and Al tried oreo. I have been sewing my pants to make them fit better because after hand washing and air drying, they tend to stretch out and are too big. i miss the washer and drier.

my throat is hurting and i was told to drink jugo de tomato de arbol which is tomato tree juice that i can make very cheap so tomorrow i will buy that. for tonight chicken broth will have to do.

we have an english lesson tonight with Reuben in which we are watching harry potter 3 in english and explaining any and all phrases or words he does not understand. al will cook the popcorn, he does it in a pan with oil and popcorn kernels. no bagged popcorn here.

tomorrow morning we have our weekly meeting of volunteers at 9am and starting tuesday i will be taking a little girl to speech therapy in the mornings every tues and thurs. (thought you´d be happy dad) so i will have to arrive earlier on these days. lots of dancing to come this week, we have salsa monday, tango tuesday and salsa at the salsatec wednesday.

esto es todo.

que es? esto es bueno.

Llore que no tenia zapatos hasta que vi un niño que no tenia pies.

this last week has been quite difficult. after receiving a message from my brother on wednesday indicating that my grandma was very ill, we went to the cabinas after CENIT to call home. my mom told me that my grandma had passed away that afternoon a few hours prior. we were very sad but it did not feel like it was really happening and that day i was able to continue with our plans of grocery shopping, cooking and our salsa lesson that night. on thursday it was the same, i had the knowledge of what was happening back in the states but i am removed from it so it didnt seem real. then on friday i tried to call home twice but nobody answered. later that night a lot of friends came over and cooked a huge meal for me for my birthday on saturday. we had chicken, platanos, grilled zucchini, salad, un monton de fruit and canelazos de mora which is a drink of blackberries served hot. during the fiesta i started to feel strange and after a cetain point i went to the bathroom and started crying and i could not stop. i was so sad, i missed my family and wanted to connect with them but i could not reach them. al saw out all of our guests and i went to sleep. on saturday we had planned to go to papallacta which are hot springs about 2 hours out from quito but i woke up sad and grieving so i decided we would go another day. i went to the cabinas again 2 times to call home but nobody answered. it was the day of the funeral and nobody was home and nobody was answering their cell phones. i could not celebrate my birthday properly because i felt so sad and i could not enjoy the day. i have decided that we will celebrate this coming saturday by going to papallacta. on sunday we met with Lisa and walked to church but the times were different so we went to the cathedral which had Mass at 11am. after Mass we found a cabina in the Centro Historico and i called home and they answered! though the connection was bad it was really good to talk to my family. then we walked back and relaxed on the hammacks in the sun because all weekend there was so much beautiful sun. we had a snack then took the ecovia to eloy alfaro and walked up the steep hills through the neighborhood of bellavista until we reached the casamuseo of Guayasamin whom is one of the most famous painters of Ecuador. his museum is beautiful and is a hommage to all the poor of Latin America. the museum was really modern, i felt like i was in NY or Europe for a little while. we returned to our casa and had the leftover locro de papas which is a soup of creamy potato with cheese and avocado. al really liked it and cannot wait to prepare such foods for his family when we return to the states next year. on sunday night we had an english/salsa lesson, which is going very well. ruebens english is decent and we talk with him in english for a while then we dance. al has learned 7 new vueltas or turns now and we are working on doing the basic paso more quickly now with turning. we have improved a lot since we started a few weeks ago. on monday i went to a clinic in the north with Jessie our medical director to get more materials for educating our community about health issues. after work yesterday i met with Nellie the dueña of our casa to prepare humitas which are a typical ecuadorian dish of ground maiz with butter, cheese, eggs and onions wrapped in the husk of the corn and steamed for an hour. the process was quite long but i learned a lot of new cooking words and copied a lot of recipies from the book called cocinamos con kristie which is their cookbook and translates to Cooking with Kristie. Nobody knows who Kristie is but everyone refers to her. we had tea with the humitas with their family including their grandma Estelle whom is so cute. she is just tickled that al and i speak spanish and could not stop smiling at us whenever we talked. there are also 2 little girls that are always playing on the terrace, one is their daughter and the other is her amigita or little friend. Estelle is always tending to the plants all over the house which i find adorable because she shuffles her feet going from one plant to another looking and watering if necessary. last night we had another salsa lesson which was more difficult because the pasos jirando are difficult for us but we will practice. i got the paper saying there is a package! so i will go to the post today after work to pick it up. then i will try to call home, then we are going to Lisas apartment to make more canelazos and i will prepare buñuelos de avena which are sweets made with oatmeal and honey. i got the recipe from Kristie and will try it out today. then later tonight a friend Nan from Long Island in our casa is celebrating her birthday with a cake and we will get back to celebrate with her, she told me that i should blow out some candles too because my birthday is so close to hers and we were born in the same year too. tomorrow night we are going out salsa dancing! wednesday is the night to dance salsa in Quito.

chao amigos!

we now have an unlimited photo account so all of our photos are now on flickr, you can view them by going to the right and clicking on the link to flickr.

chao!

on friday i went to a spanish class with my friend Lisa but the prof was late so we joined a salsa class for a while until he arrived. after the class we went to la ronda for canelazos (a hot drink of naranjilla which is a fruit.) friday night we had our first english conversation class with rueben, our prof de salsa. our intercambio is going well. we talked with him for a while in english and he struggles the most with phrases and idioms but his english is pretty good. he is the son of our dueños, Pedro y Nelly. on saturday we met Lisa and Miriam at 8am near parque Alameda to catch the ecovia to rio coca, the shuttle to carcelen and then the bus to puerto quito. we arrived in puerto quito, which is northwest of Quito around 1pm after a bus ride through the mountains that reminded me of the one i took the last time i was here en route to puerto lopez. we had lunch and  then walked in search of a guide. friends of ours told us the name of the hostal and there was a sign on a road pointing to the left so we took it. it was a wonderful walk through the banana, platano, coconut and cacao trees with butterflies aplenty and fields of maracuya and naranjas (passion fruit and oranges.) que linda. we finally arrived at hostal cocoa and found the owner, Gabriel. he showed us how to get to the river where his 6 children were playing on the swings in the water. we swam and played with them for the afternoon. then we returned to the casa and made chocolate with Gabriel. it is a very long process involving cutting open the cacao which is green and red on the outside and white inside, then letting the cacao ferment in the sun for several days until browned, then putting them in a frying pan and cooking for several minutes until they are almost black, then removing the cascaras (shells) then putting the beans in a grinder and that produces 100% cacao. bitter but very smooth and so good. then you put a small amount about the size of a quarter into a pan of milk and pure sugarcane and cook it down a few minutes. we each had a small plate of the warm fresh chocolate and ate it with bananas and piña. que rico. no puedo describir que bueno es.

we had empanadas and batidos (smoothies) for dinner at this little place whose name is lo mejor empanadas del mundo (the best empanadas in the world) and then tried to sleep but it was very noisy in the town. the next time we go we will stay outside of town where it is much quieter. the next morning we met with Gabriel our guide and he took us to his friend´s finca de frutas-fruit farm. we walked around as Gabriel used a long bambu stick to catch oranges, mandarinas, pineapple, passionfruit, starfruit, bananas, platanos, lemons, papaya, cacao and we sampled each one. we left so full of the fresh fruits! there were cows grazing just beyong the farm and one cow came up to us near a lemon tree and ate a lemon right off the branch. who knew cows liked lemons? only in ecuador. we returned again and swam in the river because it was hot and the sun came out later too. we had a late lunch and returned on the bus that went uphill this time and took longer, so we didn´t get back to Quito until 9.30 at night. al has posted photos on the flickr site so please look. yesterday i had an appointment with the wife of a doctor of a clinic in the north of the city to see if they can send some doctors to us to do eye checks for the children.there is much to do before we figure this out because they want to charge too much and have specific rules that are difficult to work with, so i need to make more calls and more visits before it is worked out. slowly i am making progress on this. there are many children and even a few adults in the markets that want to have their eyes checked because they know they have a problem and i keep telling them soon we will get a doctor to see them.

today i did the clinica de la calle again with jessy our medical coordinator. again one patient gave us aguacates (avocados) which were unnecessary but very kind. we also did more physical checkups for the children in 2nd grade today. many of them have problems with their teeth, skin, some have lice, and it is very sad when we ask them what they have eaten in the last day and some of them say just rice or that they ate lunch at CENIT but then their father did not return until midnight and they had a small snack then and no breakfast this morning. it breaks my heart.

last night we had our first salsa class with Rueben and it went well! we learned the two basic steps and practiced them with different music. al and i have to practice together to get our rhythm to match one another with the basic step before our next class on wednesday night. we will do 45 min of salsa and then 45 min of english conversation and rueben said in a month or so he will take us to a salsatec, when we are ready. he is a good teacher, very clearly explains how we can improve our dancing. and with the intercambio we don´t have to pay which makes it even better.

i have the first of 2 spanish classes this afternoon, i am trying 2 classes to see if i like them. my spanish is proficient and useful but it could be so much better and i feel like i use the same words all the time and could use some more vocabulary as well as a grammar check. tonight Lisa and Jessy are coming over to make canelazos in our casa and i am also making guacamole, thank you jochiema for the aguacates.

hasta luego!