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!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 11:26 am and is filed under Quito. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.