South American adventure

so much has happened since i update the blog last week i will try to recount it for you.  we just finished our first week of street outreach in the south of Quito. for the most part the children are very loving and love playing with us. we made pom pom balls, butterflies, paper airplanes, and on friday we had a day of sports where we just played in the park for the morning. the poverty we see is not easy but when the children smile it is good. the other volunteers are great. i work in the market chyriachu and with 3 german girls and one american girl. they are a very good group of girls to work with and we work well together. we will be inviting a few over for dinner this week. i cut my hair to just passed my shoulders on tuesday. on wednesday we went to the basilica to try to climb to the top of the belfry and the steeples, but it was closed and we saw some dancers practicing a dance for a festival so we joined in and danced with them for a while outside of the basilica! it was fun. then on thursday we went earlier and climbed the steeples first and then the belfry second. there was a group of ecuadorian women there with us and we climbed the whole way with them. at the end they asked if they could take a photo with us which was nice. it was a bit scary climbing so high in the basilica on the ladders and at the very top you could see so much of the city. good thing we´re not afriad of heights. on friday after work we had a meeting with all the volunteers to discuss what happened good and bad this week, and plan for next week. our market theme will be countries of the world and we have activities each day. the school year starts tomorrow here in ecuador so many of the older children will not be there in the markets so we will have only 3-5 year olds. there is a girl 11 years old named gati that has been coming with her little sister everyday. she has so many questions about the United States and is very proud when she can tell me what a word means in english. it has been nice talking with her and her sister and getting to know them, though starting wednesday she will be in school so i wont be seeing her. thursday night we went to a pub quiz which is a trivia night sponsored by our organization in which the money collected from the participation fee goes to CENIT. there were a lot of other volunteers there. we formed a team with another couple from California and we won! our prizes are a one day bike tour of cotopaxi which is a mountain and national park 2 hours south of quito and a 10 dollar gift cert to the bar/restaurant. the other guy on our team was an international relations major at berkley there was a category about historical figures in which they showed photos of world leaders and he knew every single one. our team was called yo no se which means i don´t know (because we couldn´t think of a name) on friday after work we went to the bank for another successful ATM withdrawl! then we came back and rested because later we went to a fiesta at another hostal (the one we are moving to next week.) it was so much fun. we brought cookies and nutella and it was a hit because everyone ate it right away. they had all kinds of grilled meat, corn, and platanos. this meat is the best i´ve had in ecuador so far. the marinade was oil, garlic and blood from the chicken or beef. how strange but it was so good. there were a lot of ecuadorians there dancing salsa and we watched for a while, tried to dance ourselves a bit but were very jealous of how good they are at dancing. i asked one of the ecuadorians to teach us and so he taught me first for a while then i taught al a few steps. he lives in the hostal we are moving to next week so we are going to try to give him engligh lessons in exchange for salsa lessons. un intercambio. we left and got a little sleep before getting up early to catch the ecovia (above ground subway) and then a shuttle to the north bus station then a bus to otavalo which is the most famous and largest artisan market in south america and about 2 hrs north of quito. we arrived and followed the crowds to the market where we walked around all afternoon. we bartered and i bought a black poncho (cloth not for rain) and al bought a chompa which is a sweatshirt/jacket because the nights here are quite cold. we shared a bowl of chicken and vegetable soup, then went to the church in otavalo. a Mass was just starting so we stayed and i was shocked with the gloria and the other Mass parts were sung to the tune of the Beatles´song Hey Jude. after Mass we found a TV and watched a bit of the ecuador v. colombia futbol game. we caught the 5pm bus back and they also had the game on in the bus until the reception went out and then we listened on the radio. ecuador lost, but it was great to see everyone so interested in it and all the ecuador jerseys all over the market! this morning we went to the church Compania de Jesus for Mass. there is something like 7 tons of gold and i believe it after seeing how ornate it was. the Mass parts here were sung to the tune of Simon and Garfunkel´s song Sound of Silence. i wonder if they know the actual songs or not. i liked this church a lot becasue the people were very energetic and the priest easier to understand (some of them mumble or their microphones are echoey) and they had a guittarist that i want to talk with when we go next week. after Mass we had to get back because we were meeting a friend to go running on the ciclopaseo on avenida amazonas which is a main street through Quito that is blocked off on sundays for runners and bicyclists. we ran for a while but is is so much harder to run at 10,000 ft. than in NY. my chest felt tight so i had to stop sooner than i would have liked. it was also hot and sunny today so i did not want to overdo it. while in parque La Carolina we ran into a friend of ours from NY that we know from the Mt. Irenaeus retreats that i knew was also here in Quito working at a preschool. it was very random to just see her running through the park but good to make contact with her again. today we have to go shopping for food and we might go out tonight to see the centro historico (colonial old town) lit up at night and have a special drink whose name i am now forgetting at a cafe with some friends from CENIT.

chao!

a note about the photos that i forgot in the last post. the first few were taken from the plane and there was some awesome lightning we could see near colombia that i tried to capture. el kangaroo se llama, creo, Fred Murdock. the kangaroo is named Fred Murdock. he is our represent the US mascot with his flag pin and red white and blue headband that i made and al put on his head. the photos with our arms up in victory were taken at the summit of volcan ruco pichincha. chao!

today was our second day with CENIT doing street outreach. we take a bus to the south of the city every morning and meet up with the groups of other volunteers to go to our markets. al and i are working in separate markets, i am in chiriachu and al is in el camal. it is good work. we gather the ninos and take them to the park where we start by going around the circle saying our names and our favorite color or animal or whatever the question is that day. then we sing and play games with them (all in spanish of course) and then we do an activity. today we made masks with paper plates, crayons, yarn etc. the children are very loving. the other volunteers are almost all from germany and many of them don´t speak english which is good because we are speaking quite a lot of spanish even with them. there was a couple from england in our hostal that we have spent the last few nights with and said good bye to them this morning because they went to the coast to puerto lopez and i am a little jealous because that was where i spent 2 months a few years ago. they were happy for all the advice. today al is having his first go at washing clothes by hand and it is pretty sunny so it´s a good day for it. yesterday i made another soup with all kinds of vegetables. i also made tomato tree juice and plan on making another juice tomorrow, luckily our hostal has a blender and a kitchen so food is much cheaper than eating at restaurants. yesterday we went to the mercado central to buy fresh vegetables and fruits and then had our first attempt at withdrawing money from an atm. it went well. we also explored parque ichimbia which is a beautiful park very near us that people actually jog and bike in! i have uploaded some photos onto picasa that can be viewed with this link. http://picasaweb.google.es/angelita251/QuitoSemana1?authkey=Gv1sRgCLWLj7n70amj7QE#

i am still figuring out how to have my account accessable in an easier way, but it took me long enough to do this and so here it is. tonight we are going to see a movie at this bar that shows foreign films free every tuesday night.

on friday the weather was sunny so we got up early, checked out of our other hostal and moved to this one which has a kitchen and is cheaper :) we were albe to get up to the teleferiqo by 10am which is a cable car up the side of the volcan pichincha which is right near Quito. at the top of is cruz loma which is a place for beautiful views and it said that there was a 3 hour hike from there up through the mountain. we started and it was a bit cold but we were good and took some wonderful photos and enjoyed the views of the city. then we continued going and about the 2nd hour it was so cold but we were nearing the summit and so we continued. by the end it was so difficult, freezing, climbing on hands and knees and we were not properly dressed for this (Al was in shorts and I in capris) but we kept going until we finally reached the top. we spent all of 2 minutes on the summit before we went down by sliding on our bottoms through the dirt and stones until we got to the part that was more of a hike. it was strenuous and we were very ill prepared but we had an excellent day. and it was our 2 year anniversary and that was a wonderful way to spend it together. today we took it much easier because we are both very sore from the climb yesterday. we are getting used to the new hostal and bought food and i tried my hand at cooking both sopa de papas y yuci which is a vegetable soup and also tortilla de queso which is a cheese omlette. tonight i will make us a milk, sugar and rice dessert of whose name i have forgotten. nice people here in the hostal with us although they speak english…that is the only drawback. we are here at casa bambu for the next few weeks until we came move into another hostal even cheaper near here. we are on the border between the old and new towns of quito, very near nice little tiendas (stores) in which al was very happy that we bought potatoes, yucci, lemon, bananas for a total of 55 cents. i ate seco de chivo which is goat, and also guatita which is tripe stew. i am pretty sure that tripe is cow´s stomach but it was good. tomorrow we will go to the basilica for Mass. we made contact with CENIT on thursday and we will start on monday both doing rescate de calle-street outreach in the markets of south quito until the middle of september when the full staff returns and we will specailze further from there, i will probably do medical work and al some tutoring, but we´ll wait to see for sure.

Hola a todos.  Ya llegamos a Quito ayer por la noche.  Yo se que la mayoria no hablan español y entonces sere amable y escribir en ingles.

We are here safely!  After our long day of travelling, and it sure was long, we arrived in Quito at a little after 11 last night. The Bogota airport was not too bad because we never had to leave the areas that were secured.  Once we arrived in Quito we had no problems getting through customs or getting our bags.  We went to have them call a taxi and they had one there for us to take us right here to our hostal, the Secret Garden.  We are staying in the 6 bed dormitory which was a bit noisy last night, so we did not sleep too soundly, but we slept in so we felt pretty good when we woke up this morning. Then we got our things together, got some purified water and locked our valuables in a locker and headed out to the Mercado Central, where there are rows of stands of local foods being sold.  I ordered a batido of tomato de arbol which is tomato tree juice and it was excellent.  Then Al ordered corvina con arroz y sopa de camarones which is sea bass with rice and a shrimp soup.  It was a really good first meal here in Ecuador.  We walked to the Basilica where we walked around and found some peace. Then we walked south to the Centro Historico where there are many old colonial plazas and buildings with colonial architecture which I don´t know if I have fully appreciated considering I know almost nothing about architecture.  We went to plaza Santo Domingo, plaza San Francisco, Plaza Grande and then we came back to the hostal for more water and a restroom.  It was hard but we did find one eventually when we were out today, there are not too many to be found.  We paid 10 cents to use it and they gave us a little toilet paper, and none of the toilets had seats, and you dare not put the paper in the toilet before you flush, you have to put it in the basket next to the toilet.  General Ecuadorian bathroom etiquette.  We came back to the hostal to study the map and we walked almost the entire length of the new town up to a beautiful view near barrio Guapulo.  We walked down the stairs entering into the barrio before we realized there was not much to see there so we turned around.  But this time it was much harder because it was uphill in one hour.  These Andes are making us feel the altitude and we were very much out of breath but we made it back here before dark.  We were just up on the terrace where they had live Andean music and we had bowls of potato, cheese and avocado soup.  Tomorrow we plan to find the famous goat stew in the restaurant below the cathedral which is only served from 9-11 in the morning.  Then we will try to find CENIT and introduce ourselves and look at some of our housing options for while we are here in Quito.  We have been cautious with our stuff and so far have not felt any major security risks.  It kind of feels like NYC in that when you are out in public you cannot take your guard down and you have to keep your bag zipped and really close.  Al and I have been doing really well speaking almost exclusively in Spanish, in fact it is annoying me to have to think and write in English right now.

In about 12 hours we will begin our long travel day.  We start at 8:30am in Buffalo Airport, to Charlotte, to Miami, to Bogotá, ending in Quito around 11pm.  Ecuador does not practice Day Light Savings, so they did not “Spring Ahead” an hour with us.  Other than that hiccup, it’s the same “Eastern Standard” time zone.

 Ecuador is just coming out of its wet season, so the weather should be comfortable.  The temperature should be between 60˚ and 70˚ for the entire Fall Semester.  Normally, being so close to the equator, one would think it to be warmer.  But Quito’s elevation is about 10,000 feet, so that cuts the temperature a bit.

 When we get to where we are going, and get to a computer, we will write a post to let everyone know that we are safe and sound.  We should have somewhat regular access to computers.  If CENIT has accessible computers, we could write posts every few days.  If CENIT does not have computers for us to use, then it may be a week or two between blog posts.

See you on the other side . . . . . of the world.

So i have two more weeks of teaching here at Chautauqua until i go home for the long weekend and get myself ready to leave. it feels like there is so much to do and not that much to do at the same time because i’ve already done so much preparation for the trip. i went through my packing list today seeing if there is anything i can cross off in an effort to live more simply this next year and travel more lightly. i am proud to say that last week i met my goal of riding my bike around Chautauqua Lake! it was 45 miles in 4 1/4 hours.

i just finished a book called The Savage My Kinsman that is about a woman whose husband was killed in Ecuador on a missionary trip in the amazon. it is an amazing story about how she and her tiny baby stayed in ecuador and ended up being called to go and live with the tribe that killed her husband. they lived with them for a year and she came to forgive them for killing her husband. last week i finished Love In the Time Of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and now i started reading the stories of Eva Luna by Isabel Allende. I am trying to read Latin American authors before our trip.

I continue to check the travel warnings on the state dept. website to get an idea of safe and dangerous regions and cities. it still hasn’t fully hit me how long we will be gone. i’ve never been on a trip this long before. i’m excited and a little nervous. but i know we will have a good trip, no matter how many little discomforts there will be (it is the third world you know.) less than 3 weeks and then quito here we come!

only 36 days until we leave! our flight leaves at 8am on tuesday august 25th. as it approaches, it is starting to become more real to me that we really are going for a long time. 9 months is no short trip. i am going to do more reading about culture shock and adjusting to actually living abroad. i already know that the first few weeks are an elated high in which you feel excited about everything that is new. then this slowly goes down and there is a period where most things irritate you and you long for the comforts of home and the way you used to do things. but for the traveller that perserveres through this phase, her irritation will gradually lessen as she becomes content in the new culture with a more lasting happiness than the initial excitement. it is in this phase that positive life changing things happen. i made it some of theway through this cycle the last time i was in ecuador. i remember about 6 weeks in to my trip for a few days there was in a lull where i was discontent and irritated. there were roaches in the bathroom at night when i would turn out the light that would scurry away and hide. the eating of so much rice started to get old, the showers felt especially cold, among other things. but i do remember this lasted only a few days then i was not so discontent. i am trying to prepare myself the culture shock that will happen this time.

Why do I want to go on this trip?

1. I loved Ecuador the last time I was there, and have been seeking out a chance to go back and experience so much more.

2. The last time I was in Ecuador for 2 months and by the end of it I felt like I was just getting used to it and adjusted before I had to return to the US. There is so much more I want to explore, see, experience that I did not get to do last time both in Ecuador and the other countries (Peru, Bolivia, Chile?)

3. When I travel, the independent, adventurous part of me comes out. I become like a sponge taking it all in, and then I journal about it and reflect on it. It provides me with endless ways to grow and learn more about myself and then I get to see those changes happening within myself.

4. When I travel I am in the mindset of exploring and am not afraid to try just about anything. I feel so alive.

5. I want to whole heartedly give of myself in service to the poor. I want to live among the poor in the non touristy areas and do as the natives do. south quito here i come!

6. Right now there is an opportunity for al and i to travel for the year and we have money saved up enough that if we are frugal, we can make it work. if we wait until later, we may not have this chance. so we go now while we can.

I was with al and his parents at a thrift shop in ellicottville and after looking at the clothes briefly i inevitabely ended up at the books and found a book by Mother Teresa and copied down a few quotes i thought were meaningful.

“Let us do something beautiful for God by giving whole hearted service for the glory of God and the good of our poor.”

I could not have said it better. It still surprises me to know that she went most of her life giving in service and all the while struggled to find God’s presence with her.

It’s July now and the countdown to our adventure has begun. Al and I are leaving in only 48 days! The first part of our journey will be spent in Quito volunteering with CENIT, located in the El Camal market of southern Quito, Ecuador. South Quito is the non touristy area which we are happy about, because we really want to be immersed in the culture and language. The organization is called CENIT and this stands for Centro de La Nina Trabajadora, Center for the Working Girl. CENIT is a Catholic organization. They have a very informative website, so please look at it for more info: www.cenitecuador.org

The CENIT site has a link on the left column called CENIT News and if you click on Read Past Issues, they have a short description of what is going on with each of the service projects that is written by the volunteers. In the coming months, hopefully Al and I will be contributing to the newsletter!

Al will be doing street outreach in the mornings and CEA tutoring in the afternoons. My volunteer work is still being worked out due to a change in the programming of recent. Whatever project it is I do, I hope to be of kind service to those in need. Our focus for the first 4 months will be the volunteer work. There may be some weekend adventures in the areas surrounding Quito, but we hope to keep our focus on the volunteering and the people we are serving. The latter 5 months will provide us ample time to focus on travelling throughout Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. We can’t wait until we are on the plane at takeoff squeezing each others hands and going eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

You know you are a traveller when:
you spell traveller with two l’s. (Every other English speaker in the world uses the British spelling.)
you know what a “gap year” is. (Year between uni (university) and career in Britain, Australia and New Zealand.)
you smile silly to strangers back home and want to know where they come from
you rehearse what to say before going into the post office at home, then realize that they speak English there
you actually don’t mind Nescafe coffee anymore
your friends email, and the opening line is, “Where are you now?”
you are home from Mexico long enough to remember you can put the toilet paper in the toilet…and then you go to Asia…
going into a McDonalds means a clean bathroom and a sit-down toilet
you carry toilet paper with you at all times no matter where you are.
you have “toilet money” in your pocket just in case.
You’ve mastered ‘the squat’ and the bucket of cold water in the bathroom
the idea of a bathroom in your own private room makes you feel like you’re in the lap of luxury.
you prefer to crash on somebody’s floor or stay in a Motel 6 even if you could stay in a 15 star hotel because that’s “just not you.”
you feel guilty about 3 quick showers a day in 95 percent humidity in Asia when all you hear on the TV is news about the lack of food and water all over the world
someone asks what your favorite country is and your mind goes blank.
your conversations with friends include “when i was in…” or “oh yeah, that happened to me in……” and then the veil comes down over the eyes.
You have to fight the urge to say ‘Sawadee Kap’, or ‘Gracias’ to store clerks when you’re back home.
your backpack never quite seems to make it back into the closet
you wake up in the morning and have to remember where you are
you think a packaged tour is not travelling!
processed cheese and crackers from 7-11 sounds like a great meal especially after two months in China
you feel at home everywhere… but you feel like an alien in your own town
you catch yourself flipping your underwear inside out because you have run out of clean clothes
you can’t figure out how much something really costs without thinking about the exchange rate
you can’t figure out which way to look when you cross the street
you walk in the street at home forgetting you don’t have to watch out for the cracks, holes, telephone poles, phone booths, hanging electric wires or motorcycles on the sidewalks
you are at a party where people are listing off their accomplishments and you’re mentally listing off viruses you’ve survived, cities you’ve gotten lost in, and families you’ve lived with
a hotel (or hostel) room over 20 dollars makes you wince
When you have over US$200 in four different currencies in your wallet and you can’t even buy a coke during a seven hour layover in London’s Luton airport.
you have been listening to non-native English speakers speak marginal English for so long that you start making the same sentence structure errors and then return home and can’t switch back…”what we do today?” or “where you go?”
going days at a time with out hearing English spoken and you begin to forget English words
you return home and remember your life is not on the line anymore in taxis, tuk tuks, sangtaews , trucks, minivans with crazy drivers.
but you return home and driving a car yourself seems terrifying
you won’t eat Uncle Ben’s rice because it doesn’t stick together.
You have more guidebooks than pairs of pants.
You go to a chain restaurant at home and you still feel like a sell-out for not finding a good local place to eat.
you tell someone where you are going next and their response is, “are you nuts?” And you take this as confirmation of a well-made destination choice.
you hear the word “visa” and you don’t even think about credit cards.
your “home” is occupied by people other than you and all your worldy possessions fit into your spare room
you hear people back home tell you that they just spent 45 dollars on getting their nails done and all you can think of is how many nights in a South American hostel that could get you
you find it normal to go out alone
you can’t understand why everybody isn’t travelling
TV news at home is frustrating because of the lack of global input.
you come home from a long journey and people ask “Were you able to find yourself?” And you say, “Yeah, and I think I left it there. I need to go back.”
you eschew shiny new luggage with wheels in favor of your ten-year-old pack which carries the scuffs and dirt of three continents and which you have lovingly repaired by hand.
You look at the clock and think, ‘In Kathmandu, it’s midnight’.
you can finally understand all other English accents…Oz, Kiwi, British, Singapore etc.
you stumble off your flight to the airport McDonalds, and the value meal is the most expensive meal you’ve had in weeks
buying a full-sized bottle of shampoo/toothpaste/etc feels like a “long-term investment.”
you forget you don’t have to brush your teeth using bottled water.
It no longer makes any difference to your body when you wake up or when you go to bed
you know what time is being referred to when the ticket reads “2330″
you spend X amount of money on something (like $550 to fix your air conditioner, let’s say) and think, “Aw man, that’s enough money for a plane ticket to ___________”
you use web sites like Bootsnall, couchsurfing and rideshare and when you explain these to friends they think you are completely nuts to be meeting up with, staying with and driving with complete strangers that you talk to over the internet.
half your backpack is full of your computer, plug-ins, converters, cameras and video tapes and you only have room for two pairs of pants, three t-shirts and your toothbrush.
you hear people talk about how hard and expensive it is to travel and you think “huh?”
you feel like having a T-shirt made that says in six languages “I didn’t vote for Bush”