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.
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