South American adventure

i cant believe that we only have a week and half left here in Quito. there are so many things we still want to do we have a list. this past week we spent sunday with the onas cooking and spending time with their family. we made cheese empanadas and coffee and then later in the night we returned back home. on monday i sang my new christmas songs with the CEA children and they loved it. on tuesday i went to vista para todos with a 9th grade girl for a topographic exam that took much longer than it should have because of the power outage we had to wait several hours for the doctor to arrive. on tuesday night we had a christmas party here where we made hot chocolate with peppermint and decorated cookies and made paper snowflakes to decorate the kitchen with snow since there is no snow here ever. it rains occasionally but often it is warm and sunny. it all depends on the sun, when it is out it is very warm when it is not it can get quite cold especially at night. my friend rianne gave me a pair of warm socks that i am very thankful for many nights.

on thursday night we did the questions for pub quiz at a bar in the mariscal. al read them in english and i read the trivia in spanish. friday morning i got to work early to take Nicole the girl in 9th grade for the contact lenses but she was not there because she is sick. so we will have to go next week. i am also training Evelise to continue my project after i leave and we have been having a lot of meetings to discuss exactly how i do the vision project. every few days this week i have also been running with increased mileage training for the 10K that we ran today. 8 km each day i ran last week was very tiring. on friday night we had a movie night we watched Love Actually with more hot chocolate and popcorn and some friends from the casa. early early saturday morning we took the Trole to Mercado Mayorista leaving the house about 6.30 and arriving at 7.30 to meet up with Pati and the Onas. we went to the market where every saturday morning they sell clothes and shoes very cheap. i finally bought shoes that i have been meaning to buy for weeks that are better for dancing. al bought a leather jacket and we bargained the price down quite a bit too. at the other market we bought guinea pig that is a delicacy here and we cooked them up with garlic, onion and served them with potatoes, a salsa with peanut butter and all on a bed of lettuce. i was a bit hesitant but very curious to try cuy (guinea pig) and it was actually very good, like no other meat i have tried. we stayed home with the children and let the parents go out for a baptism and party to follow and the children went to sleep early so we could sleep too. we spent the night at the onas and woke up at 5.40 this morning to get to the 10K race by 6.10 because it started at 7. by a miracle of sorts we met up with our friends before and after the race even though there were thousands of people running and we do not have a cell phone. we ran with Kai, our German friend until the last kilometer when he wanted to run really fast and i could not go any faster. my goal was to run the entire time and to finish in less than 1 hour and we did both so i am very happy. we finished in 59 minutes!

after the race Clever drove us to Benjamin and Carmens house, the brother of Pati where we visited and had breakfast. we made plans to go swimming next saturday morning which Al is very happy about finally getting to swim in Ecuador.

we are off to a late Mass right now because we were running this morning and we could not go earlier.

feliz navidad a todos

los cabellos son de oro

so here is the story of the last week thanksgiving dinner. we had to stay longer over at grupo game because the turkey was not finished cooking. we arrived here by taxi with al with the turkey on his lap. look for the photo. we arrived late but most people arrived late anyway. we ate a huge dinner with dishes from all around the world. everyone told of what they were thankful for, and later we cleared the tables and danced salsa until past midnight when most people started to leave. it was a wonderful thanksgiving albeit nontraditional.

on sunday last week we spent the day with the onas at their house helping them prepare chaulafan and a cake for estevens birthday (their oldest son.) at the start of the party all the little ones went in front of everyone and told a joke or a story. then esteven and daniel went around offering snacks to everyone, then we all ate the rice dish and after the cake. there were 25 friends and family of esteven there. clever drove us home later at night. this past week a lot of parents have come to me asking to take their child to Vista Para Todos for an eye exam. i took 5  children up on friday and this week i will go 3 times again (it is more than an hour by Trole each way) for followup treatment for the children. last week i spent some hours looking up traditional latin american christmas songs and learning them by ear. last week i sang them with the children and the children of CEA especially like Cascabel which is the spanish translation of Jingle Bells. Just like the children in NY like it so much.

on friday we had an afternoon of party at CENIT for the fiestas de Quito because today is the date of the founding of Quito. 2 of my friends and i won a dance contest with all of CENIT watching, then later there was a costume party in which i was a princess and al was a deportista (spotsman?) there was a contests for the best costume and 2 large cakes. i have been running every few days this week training for the 10K. I ran 5K on Friday and 8K on saturday morning in La Carolina, a park in the north of the city with Jessie. friday night there was a large party in the street below our casa for the fiestas de quito with live rasta music. we went out and danced with a group from our casa for a while. on saturday morning after we went to the house of Jessies old host family and had breakfast with her, bought all the ingredients and came back here to cook for the surprise birthday party of a friend of ours Sherry from Toronto. i showered quick and then carried almost all of the food by myself to catch a bus to Sherrys house (which was very heavy) because al was sick in bed with a fever. the party last night was mexican food and about 20 people. it was a really fun party with us singing happy birthday in 4 languages (espanol, english, german y mandarin)

as i am typing this i am using a computer of a friend of ours from germany and their keyboard is different, the z and y are reversed so i have to keep reversing the errors of the manz words that i tzpe but realiye that the y and z are mixed up. the germans are alwazs complaining about this.

que viva quito! (the phrase that everyone is yelling this weekend)

thank you to both of our parents for skyping with us and giving us the advice we needed to cook the turkey, stuffing and gravy properly. the turkey is very close to being done and looks wonderful and the stuffing ... [Continue reading this entry]

on thursday we bought a 9 kilo turkey (about 19 lbs) and walked from santa maria to our casa, al with frozen turkey and me with the other bag of groceries about half an hour. it defrosted in the fridge ... [Continue reading this entry]

we have uploaded almost all of the new photos and videos to the flickr site so you all can see them. we are continuing with our salsa lessons on tuesdays and our prof says that al i are not allowed ... [Continue reading this entry]

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 ... [Continue reading this entry]

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 ... [Continue reading this entry]

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. ... [Continue reading this entry]

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 ... [Continue reading this entry]

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. ... [Continue reading this entry]