22 sept 2009
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!
Tags: Quito
annieandal
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