Mom's Visit

Monday night around midnight, Maria Paz and I went to pick up Mom from the airport....it was incredibly exciting and we stayed up late like little kids at a sleep-over talking. Mom met the host family the next morning before we went out with Aviva to Teleferiqo and Quito Antigua. Abuelita served Locro soup for lunch and then Aviva, mom and I prepared pizza for the family and Nora's host family. The next day mom and I headed to Tena where we had an awkward encounter with my other host family, but a great time visiting the hospital and seeing the town. Then we spent a few nights in Banos where we went hiking, walking and just exploring, playing cards and working on sketchbooks. On mom's birthday we took a bus to Cayambe and stayed at the oldest hacienda in Ecuador, Hacienda Guachala. It was beautiful and we were the only people there! At dinner they made a fire and the whole meal was great - quinua salad, soup and trout. When I had made the reservation, they asked if I wanted cake served for her birthday...well, I thought they had meant maybe a slice, but instead they brought out a huge birthday torta, so we gave most of it to a really nice woman we met who works there. We took a horse ride in the morning and the guide asked me to marry him and live on his hacienda....awkward moment. We spent one night in Otavalo at the indigenous market and wandering around town looking at all the small stores and incredible outfits people wear. Going back to Quito was wonderful, but I am so sad to leave my family. We played cards for the last time with Pedro and Maria Gracia before packing everything. Maria Paz brought humitas for a good-bye merienda and I realized how much I will miss this family. At 4:15 am, Francisco and Maria Paz brought us to the airport and we had plenty of time before our flight to Dallas. Back home in LA it was exciting to see Chloe, JH and dad and so strange to be here. Also, getting everything ready for Jamie's wedding has kept me very busy and at times it is so confusing / frustrating / wonderful to be back. The strangest moment was sitting in a Beverly Hills dress shop for the bridesmaid's fitting and seeing all the crazy rich people come in and complain or throw a fit about something small - like a veil. Anyway, the wedding is today and it will be beautiful and I feel honored to be a part of it. Everything reminds me of Ecuador and prices seem so exspensive. This morning i ate a chirimoya, my favorite Ecuadorian fruit, which mom managed to find at the open market here.

Atacames

Aviva and I spent a few days after the program at the beach in Atacames. Adrianna and Francisco, Nora's host parents, let us use a hotel room that they own, so the trip was really reasonable and a great way to de-stress after the final papers and presentations. We left Quito around Midnight and arrived around 6:30 in the pouring rain and took a motorcycle taxi to the hotel. We got our hair braided, sat on the beach and had to say "no" about a million times a day to people selling everthing from coco water to sunglasses. Aviva also runs cross country, so we went on a couple of early morning runs on the beach before it got too hot outside. At night the beach town turns into a huge party on the weekend and the beach cabanas turn into bars with swings and tropical drinks.

first communion

back to quito

so, tomorrow is the last day of classes and I had my final presentation / turned in my final paper yesterday. The presentation was about 1/2 hour long and went pretty well considering I get nervous speaking in front of people, especially in Spanish. I cannot believe how quickly this semester has gone...and classes are almost over. This coming weekend I will say good-bye to Nora (she is heading back to MN) then take an over-night bus with a friend, Aviva, to a coastal town called Puerto Lopez. I am looking forward to laying and running on the beach, reading for fun (perhaps in a a hammock) and seeing another part of the country for a few days.

My first weekend back in Quito included: cooking our own dinner with Nora & Aviva, watching "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and playing cards with the host siblings. Saturday was the first communion of Isabel, Nora's host sister, and it is a huge deal here. The lunch looked like a wedding and we dressed up....I bought some black heels for the occasion. After, the extended family and my family went back to Nora's house for a huge dance party. The host grandmother was wearing heels higher than mine and is an incredible dancer....she wore her shoes longer than I could. Our families went through a ton of whiskey as they blasted the salsa, reggaton and meringue. Nora and I went with rum and apparently her host father told Maria Paz that we looked incredibly happy....and apparently i dance better as the night goes on....around midnight I went downstairs to our apartment with my host mom (an early night for her). Sunday was a recuperation day filled with reading, working on the paper, watching "The Devil Wears Prada" and napping with my host family.

Doctoras Violeta y Angelica

Quito!

I am now back in Quito living with my previous family and finishing my final paper. The last week at the hospital was incredible - I did interviews with teens for my monografia about adolescent pregnancy and spent some time interviewing doctors and nurses about the services in the hospital. On Tuesday I went into see two different births that happened right around the same time and one was an 18-year-old. After the baby was born the nurse was busy, so she handed me the baby girl, Linda Isabel, and told me to teach the new mother how to nurse.....long story short, the mother, Karina, told me I needed to come back to Ecuador every year on April 27 for her baby's birthday. When I left quirofano (or the delivery room area) the father of the other baby, Leif, asked me how it his wife was doing since family cannot enter the delivery room. When I told him everything was ok he hugged me so hard I could barely breath and he was glowing with happiness.

Over the weekend Emily's family took us into the Selva, or jungle, for one last adventure before returning to the big city. We hiked through streams and climbed waterfalls using ropes and ocassionally ladders carved into the rocks. When we stopped for lunch in a small community i was literally chewed by fleas, but only on the skin between my knee-high rubber boots and shorts. I apparently was allergic to them and the bites swelled up making it incredibly painful to walk.
Sunday was filled with writing the monografia and baking about 200 oatmeal raisin cookies for the entire hospital staff. Emily's mother has a panaderia and we used her industrial oven, which made it go a lot faster. Say goodbye to the doctors and nurses was difficult - they have been incredibly kind and welcoming especially considering we have only been at the hospital a little over a month. I did a couple last interviews and we asked one of our favorite residents for a perscription for the horrible bites. As I waited for the ride to the bus terminal the director of the hospital and his wife, on OB nurse, leaned out their apartment window waving and blowing kisses....an excellend good-bye to Tena.

So now....about a week left of classes and my mom will be here on the 14th!

Friday Allie and I traveled to Riobamba, about six hours by bus from Tena. We stayed with her host aunt who is a student in a culinary school there. She was so much fun and was beyond generous about inviting us to her house. The first night we ate Mexican food, which was amazing after not having it for so long. We ended up at an outdoor disco-tec and it was freezing compared with Tena! Saturday were huge festivals with a street parade, vendors and marching bands. In the afternoon we went to a bullfight and the the bullfighter was a woman. I could only watch one and we left before it actually ended, although it was difficult to push our way through the all the people. That night we went to an enourmous outdoor concert and a singer named Fausto Mino was the big attraction - girls kept running up on stage and hugging him during the songs. Coming back to my host family in Tena was ok and I am now in the last week of the internship. I have been doing interviews with pregnant teens about sex education, their family situations and abortion - all of which has been really interesting. So now i am sitting in an internet cafe - it is pouring outside although it is bright and sunny and i am trying to work on the big paper...

Riobamba

airport

so....

after thinking a lot about the summer and the possibility of returning to work in Quito, I decided to go home...so much to assimilate from the semester and a lot to look forward to in California. I only have a week left at the internship and so much to do....a 20 page thesis paper in Spanish! I am working on researching teen pregnancy (a huge percentage of the births here). Basically I have a week to really do the research...so it should be interesting. The last overnight shift was unbelievable. First Allie and I got to watch a c-section and I had to beg for clothes from the ER nurses, who are hilarious. The washing machine was broken, so the supply of sterile clothing was limited. Then, there was another birth, but it was horrible because when the baby was born he was blue and took way too long to cry. During the night there are only residents and no actual doctors, meaning that this situation (and many others) could have possibly been avoided had a doctor been there to do a c-section. I helped to pump oxygen for the baby boy...i have no idea if he will have long-term brain damage. We slept for a couple of hours in the surgery unit on gurneys and when we woke up and went down to the ER a woman had literally walked in to the exam room and had her baby right there....so it was an interesting surprise. This weekend i am off to a city called Riobamba for festival...about a 6 hour bus ride. my host family is getting a little less pushy, but we still have our moments. I finally met my host dad and he is really nice...I wish he lived here. Also, yesterday it rained so much that the roads were washed out to Archidona, the next town over. Allie works in physical therapy and some of the parents carried their kids the 12 kilometers through the muddy roads to get to their appointments...amazing dedication.

Tena

easter in quito

weekend in Tena

My host family went to Quito for the weekend...leaving me at the house to work in peace on my essays and spend time with Allie in Tena. It is always hot here and humid most of the time, except right after the heavy rains. I love walking though town...i live on the main street, so when i leave the house there is always something to see. directly next door is a shop that sells touristy items...jewlery and plates etc...then there is the hair / nail place where allie and i got $3 peticures, which were kind of painful. next door to that is a meat shop with all sorts of interesting pieces hanging on hooks and often cow heads, so i hurry past that shop to the amazing bakery with fresh bread smells...so it keeps going like that with all types of shops right next to one another and we always seem to run into someone from the hospital...so now we are finishing at our favorite internet cafe and off to run at the airport that is used as a public track. lots of love from the amazon. xoxoxoxoxox

tena hospital & family

If everyday in Tena was as incredible as Wednesday, then I would be less frustrated. I left the hospital three hours later than normal simply because I could not drag myself away from the excitement. I started the day doing OB-GIYN rounds with a great doctor wearing jeans instead of scrubs and lipstick on her teeth. She dictated and I wrote prescriptions, which is scary because I am pretty bad at spelling and I kept having to check that I wasn’t prescribing something else. I saw several c-section bellies and many shriveled, beautiful babies wrapped in bright-colored blankets. There is only a nursery for sick infants, so the healthy babies snuggle in bed with their mothers. The eight-bed rooms have absolutely no privacy and they put miscarriages next to new mothers….so usually I have no idea what I am getting into when I enter the room. My research project is exploring the social work aspect and socio-economic situations of adolescent mothers. I went through the hospital records for 2007 and calculated that about 1/5 of the 300 births this year have been women under 18. Anyway, I went down to spend some time in the ER and coincidentally a 16-year-old came in about ready to have her baby. This really nice doctor taught me how to feel the stomach to determine where the head, feet etc. are located and the girl was patient enough to let me poke around and listen to her baby’s heart. In the hospital, family members are not allowed into the delivery room, so I spent several hours with this girl and then went out to give her mother, aunts and sister updates. Right when she was about to have the baby they told me I could not enter the delivery room because they did not have enough sterile clothing….so I spent time pacing outside with the family and they were thinking of names for the baby girl and could not figure out how the hell to pronounce “phoebe.” Anyway, the baby is healthy and they were all so excited and I left feeling happy about my research and excited to be part of such a big day.

My home-stay situation has been more than a little difficult. I work and live with the same woman who happens to be one of the most pushy and aggressive people I have ever met, which does not gel with my personality. I have been getting better about communicating that I do not want / need three cups of white rice with every meal and she has stopped calling me every ten minutes to ask where I am. However, we had a very unsettling dinner conversation and it turns out she is one of the most racist people I have ever met. I do not understand how a person can be a social worker in a hospital serving a largely indigenous population then use derogatory words and forbid their child to have friends who are indigenous or afro-Ecuadorian. I was so appalled I could barley speak, but I managed to voice my opposing (and to her, a ridiculously liberal) viewpoint before going to my room, calling Nora and crying. I feel so uncomfortable living with someone who holds these beliefs and then calls themselves an advocate for underserved populations. The other thing that kills me is when she talks to her yappy, mean, miniature poodle dog using baby talk and a high-pitched voice right after the dog tries to attack me. Overall, this place is beautiful and I do not want to complain…..I am just trying to focus on my work and spend as little time at home as possible…luckily I have Emily and Allie here to talk to when in seems overwhelming.

back to Quito

I went to Quito for the weekend to visit my host family and it was incredible to feel like I was home, comfortable and for the first time since leaving for Tena….cold. I made a deal with my Tena family that we would spend Friday in Quito together visiting their relatives, and then I would spend the rest of the weekend with my Quito family. We watched a famous procession in Quito Antigua with purple, robed people called cucuruchos, men dressed as Jesus carrying huge crosses and all sorts of other people from marching bands to women selling chochos. The streets were lined with thousands of people, which for me was the most interesting part – just watching all the families, children, vendors. The rest of the weekend was very low-key…..I helped to paint my host families house, we ate fanesca (a special soup for Semana Santa) and I went to my first Ecuadorian mass. There was a lot more music than I expected and the place was full of people because of the Easter holiday. I was supposed to travel with Tena family back that evening, but they did not call (apparently they forgot my number) so I spent an extra night and traveled the next morning the 5-hours back to Tena.

baby

last night was our first guardia at the hospital (from 8pm to 8am). All the doctors had said these are the most action-filled shifts and it truly was incredible. we watched a birth that happened really quickly and the doctor never made it...the nurse had only just put on her gloves and for a minute i thought i was going to have to catch the baby girl myself. in addition, there was a bus accident, a one-year-old with a bloated belly from a parasite and a man with a resistant TB case. we took a nap for a couple of hours on an old mattress and when i woke up there were definitely cockroaches on the floor assuring me that the hygene is a little lacking. the doctors were amazing and we worked out our schedule so that we can do a guardia each week.

Jungle

This past weekend was amazing in large part because Emily`s host father runs a tour agency. We went into the rainforest with him on Saturday and visited an indigenous community. The adults in the community work on a minga (communal work projects or farms) so there were maybe 20 kids running around and we played with them for awhile. Later, we ended up at an incredible lagoon, but I managed to fall, scrape my back and tear my shirt...all of it worth it for the swim. On Sunday we went rafting on a beautiful stretch of river and stopped on an island for a picnic lunch in the rain which included pineapple cut on the spot. The work at the hospital has been incredible...we wear white coats and look official until we speak. Most of the time we observe - anything from stomach parasites to stitches to broken bones. Some of the doctors are amazing and even take time to explain different things to us; however others prove the point that compassion is not a prerequisite to be a doctor. This evening will be our first over-night shift and I am excited because the doctors told us that most of the interesting things happen at night. The internship so far has not had a lot to do with social work, but I need to pick a research topic and there are many options in that area. My host family is very loving, although my host mother is very pushy especially about food, which can make meals somewhat awkward. Allie lives next to the airport and around six at night it cools down enough to run. The town uses the runway as a track, so it is a perfect place to run.

Tena

So, I am here in Tena, one of the largest cities (and really it feels like a town) in the Amazon region of Ecuador. My new host family is wonderful - my host sister is eleven, Karina; she is super friendly, but talks really fast. My host dad travels a lot, so I have not met him yet. My host mom, Rocio, is also my supervisor at the hospital. She is a clinical social worker and so far it has been really interesting to observe her work - I just wish I knew more Spanish. My room overlooks one of the largest streets in town, but at night I can open the doors and there have been cool winds and thunderstorms - a welcome relief from the heat. Our first night the storm was strong enough to come through the skylight and we had to move the table while we were eating dinner.

At work there are two other students from the program, Allie (from Grinnell) and Emily (from McAlaster). I have been helping to take people´s information and it is challenging to spell the names correctly. It has been truly eye-opening in terms of the struggles and poverty that many people in this community experience. Often the social worker comes into the picture at the moment of crisis, meaning that the situation is ususally pretty bad. I spent part of today in emergency and the patients need to purchase their own saline and gloves when they come in. We watched a minor toe operation and a doctor diagnosed this kid with a parasite from water. Each day here will be very different and I am working on learning all the new Spanish vocab for medical and social work related words.

Bus from Baños to Cuenca

Inca Ruins

highlights...

so much has happened since my last update….so I will stick with the highlights.

-Cuenca is maybe my favorite place so far in Ecuador….narrow streets, colonial buildings, parks with fountains, a beautiful river through town, incredible markets with everything from fake puma shoes to hand woven sweaters….and the city is very close to national parks with some of the most incredible scenery.
-explored Inca ruins with long, stone walls with no grout surrounded by mountains and indigenous towns.
-nora’s cousin in the States is married to a man from Cuenca, so we visited his parents and sister. They were incredible welcoming as if we were long lost children and the mother prepared an enormous, traditional meal with mote, ensalada, chicken and potatoes.
-back in Quito we took the Teleferiqo (sort of like an enclosed chair lift) up to 4100 meters for the view of the city before hiking higher until we were literally above the clouds. On the way down we got caught by a huge storm preventing the carts from moving….when we finally started the descent, it was so foggy that the wires looked suspended in mid-air.
-went with Nora and her host mother for the best / cheapest haircut of my life ($15). It turns out that Jimmy, the haircutter, travels with Miss Ecuador and the former Miss Ecuador was in the chair next to me getting her hair done, all of which cracked me up. It is not too short, maybe a little below shoulder-length, but it looks a lot less scraggly.
-night tour of Quito with my family in the central historic district to see the churches with lights, then up to the huge statue of the Virgin of Quito for the most amazing view of the city.
-Leaving tomorrow for my internship in Tena, a town in the Oriente, or Amazon region. I am excited for the work and to spend time with my new family, but also sad to leave my Quito family who I am comfortable with at this point. I will be living and working with the clinical social worker, Rocio, her 12-year-old daughter, and I think the husband. I am excited about the opportunity to speak only Spanish and curious about the work in Tena’s large public hospital.

Cuenca

I am in Cuenca (3rd largest city) right now tryping in an internet cafe next to our beautiful hostal. I am with Nora, her parents and her brother for our week-long spring break before the internships. We went first to Baños for a couple of nights to hike and go to the hot srings. On the bus I sat next to an indigenous woman, Eva, and she offered to teach me Quichua if I would teach her English. She wanted to listen to some of my music, so I played her some Los Lobos, which she said she loved. Eva is from a town called Salasaca, famous for weaving, and she is studying economics in Quito so she can run her own business. She invited me to visit her when mom comes. In Baños we took a night bus ride up to see the active volcano, but it was so foggy that we could not see much of anything. On the way back a couple of guys were trying to ask us what we were doing that night, but I thought they asked why I was looking straight ahead in the bus, so I responded "i am not so good with the altitude" which is now an ongoing joke on the trip. Basically, that phrase works for just about anything. The seven hour bus ride to Cuenca was breathtaking - winding dirt roads through the Andes with indigenous women getting on and off and people jumping on in towns to sell all sorts of snacks. Cuenca is a colonial city with a beautiful river, flower market and huge churches.

censo

so, Nora and I had to go get a censo card...mostly a form of ID. We had to get in line early, so we showed up at 5:15 in the morning and we were the second and third in line. So after waiting until about 8:30 the not-so-friendly guy told me that I was missing a signiture and would need to come back. Long story short, I went back twice the same day and when i tried to pay for the 4 dollar card with a 10, they did not have change, so i went out in the rain to find change.....it was a very long day, especially because at school we had to write our final group essay. My group wrote about privatization of water in Ecuador.

las parteras

Cotacach, Valle de Chota & Otavalo

Sunday – my host-grandmother woke up chuchaki (the Quichua word for hung-over) so we had a very slow morning cleaning the remains of the fiesta. Nora’s family and mine went to play futbol and we spent some time at a pool before returning to masses amounts of homework. This is the last week of formal classes, so we have final papers / tests etc. I am so excited to start the internship portion in Tena and Nora’s parents and brother are coming this week, so we will travel together for spring break!

Saturday – market day in Otavalo (the largest and most known artesian market in Latin America). All the streets in town seemed filled with stalls, tables and vendors with weavings, bags, scarves, paintings, belts, tablecloths and ponchos. The place had more gringos then anywhere else I have been in Ecuador, but the magnitude of the market was truly astounding. I wandered around, not sure where to start and many of the vendors are indigenous and call out… when I would stop we would bargain over prices which seemed to drop drastically when I started to walk away. I had a great conversation with a woman selling scarves and I showed her the purse that my mom wove and she was really excited that I appreciated her work.
That evening we returned to Quito and dressed up for the birthday party in honor of Abuelita and Maria Gracia. All of Maria Paz’s cousins came as well as Abuelita’s brother (the awesome professor) and his wife. The wife was incredible – she must have been 70 and danced the entire night in heels. Nora braided my hair with ribbon and I felt dressed up with my polka-dotted dress (despite my polka-dotted legs from the bites). The dance party lasted until 1 in the morning and the entire family kept reminding me that I might be able to salsa if I would drink a little more….i might have improved a little as the night went on, but I am nowhere near as good at dancing as the cousins and my host mom. Even my host-grandmother, who is incredibly arthritic, danced and she made them play the same song “que calor” over and over again.

Friday – after a morning learning about grass-root development projects in Cotacachi we went to Valle de Chota – a region with a predominantly afro-Ecuadorian population, a desert climate and very few resources. We visited a workshop where a group of women make clay masks to supplement their income and to express their history and lives. The masks are incredible and there were a variety of sizes, colors and some even had fabric. That night there was a band and dancers and the entire class ended up dancing….

Thursday – a class trip to Cotacachi…a small city north of Quito. We met with a group of indigenous midwives to learn about traditional birthing methods and medicine. It was really interesting and they did a demonstration…and I even got to hear some spoken Quichua. At the end of the presentation one of the midwives brought out her 8-day-old grandson. They wrapped him in a woven belt to make him less wobbly then a blanket before passing him around to let us hold him
….that evening I received the worst bites of my life….so painful / itchy that I actually took benadryl.

photos...

weekend...

-Saturday morning….i made arepas (basically corn pancakes) for my family.
-nora’s family took us to a town outside of Quito,Calderón, known for folk-art – mostly ornaments and decorations made of bread-dough and salt. (mom….you would have loved this place).
-comida tipica for lunch including a special soup made of potatoes called Locro, which is served with avocado, cheese and tostados (toasted corn). This may have been the best Ecuadorian meal so far…i am going to attempt to learn to make it.
-we drove to an incredible park overlooking the city and then down a famous incline called Guapulo, which is on a steep hillside leading to a historic church built in 1633
-Maria Gracia and I watched little miss sunshine in Spanish on my bed and then played countless games of cards with Pedro…my host mom is recovering from minor leg surgery, so she was in bed super early.

-Sunday morning started with miscommunication about plans, but I ended up staying home to help Maria Paz prepare / learn my enchilada and nora’s bread pudding recipes. My entire family helped….. Maria Paz blasted the salsa music, Abuelita and Maria Gracia chopped vegetables and I did the rest. It was a great morning and they seemed to really enjoy learning how to make them. Before the guests came I went for my first solo run….it was incredible, although it is still difficult to breath (altitude or smog???)
Abuelita’s brother came over with two of his daughters, son-in-law and grandchildren (7 & 16). Abuelita’s brother is a history / geography / philosophy prof and he was really friendly and incredibly interesting and smart. When he entered he asked where the gringita was…apparently I looked Ecuadorian to him. We had some great conversations about recycling, dogs, history and politics. I asked him who he thought was the most influential Ecuadorian woman and the whole family got into a debate….i think they decided on three women, all of whom are named Manuela. Also, when he found out that I did not support Bush he got super excited, grinning a toothless smile, and grabbed my arm to show his enthusiasm.

hospital

Our Spanish professor took our class by troleybus to a public medical university in central Quito. First-year students gave us tours, so we each had the chance to ask questions and walk around the campus...which included a room with cadavers! The student who gave me the tour, Isabel, was really nice and explained all about the process of becoming a doctor in Ecuador. She also explained that she lives at home (which is very common for college students) and commutes 1 1/2 hours to get to and from the school. Afterwards, in the central courtyard there was traditional dancing and a play, which our professor was in.

un otro perrito

My host mother's cousin came over last night with her huge, 7-month-old golden retriever puppy...so he almost knocked over my host sister, Maria Gracia.