Ecuador Travels

2007-05-27T08:23:00.000-07:00

Mom's Visit

2007-05-27T08:07:00.001-07:00

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.

2007-05-27T08:02:00.000-07:00

Atacames

2007-05-27T07:54:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-09T07:28:00.000-07:00

back to quito

2007-05-09T07:08:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-05-07T07:43:00.000-07:00

Doctoras Violeta y Angelica

2007-05-03T10:51:00.000-07:00

2007-05-03T10:33:00.000-07:00

Quito!

2007-05-03T10:13:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-04-23T14:18:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-23T14:13:00.000-07:00

airport

2007-04-23T14:09:00.000-07:00

so....

2007-04-20T09:28:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-17T10:35:00.000-07:00

easter in quito

2007-04-17T10:26:00.000-07:00

weekend in Tena

2007-04-15T15:10:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-12T13:19:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-12T13:12:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-04T08:41:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-03T07:19:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-03-26T07:11:00.000-07:00

Bus from Baños to Cuenca

2007-03-26T07:02:00.001-07:00

Inca Ruins

2007-03-26T06:59:00.000-07:00

2007-03-26T06:49:00.000-07:00

highlights...

2007-03-26T06:44:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-18T14:18:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-18T14:12:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-03-13T07:01:00.000-07:00

las parteras

2007-03-13T06:45:00.000-07:00

Cotacach, Valle de Chota & Otavalo

2007-03-12T11:56:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-03-05T08:01:00.000-08:00

photos...

2007-03-05T07:46:00.000-08:00

weekend...

2007-03-05T07:39:00.000-08:00

-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

2007-03-02T12:19:00.000-08:00

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

2007-03-02T10:36:00.000-08:00

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.

some notes...

2007-02-27T14:21:00.000-08:00

-My mom is coming in May for about ten days...so now I am starting to plan some possible adventures!
-Last night I understood my first Spanish joke. Pedro came into the room as I was doing my homework and he said, "there were two tomatoes in the refrigerator... and the first tomato said "Que Frio" (or how cold) and the the other tomato said "AHHH a tomato that talks!"" He was so excited that I finally understood a joke, so he proceeded to teach me a couple of knock-knock jokes as well.
-Beer is cheaper than diet coke at some restaurants.
-When the mail arrives at CIMAS (the school) everyone gets really excited and runs around handing out any letters and packages. It felt like Christmas when I received a wonderful letter from E. Jach today!
-I purchased "Little Miss Sunshine" in Spanish for $3 but it has a different name.....
-Nora and I walk daily to and from school and along the way are many little stores, all selling mostly the same things. The big news was that the tiny store close to our building sells phone cards and the lady that works/runs the store is great.
-In 2000, Ecuador adopted the US dollar, however, they have their own coins including a very useful 50 cent silver piece.
-Ecuador has a special type of mango that is palm-size and amazing.

roses

2007-02-26T13:16:00.000-08:00

we went to Cayumbe, which is north of Quito and known for its huge rose industry. we toured one of the plantations and it was incredible to see how much work goes into exporting roses....

Perrito!

2007-02-26T13:07:00.000-08:00

We went to the house of an indigenous leader in Cuyambe and they had this puppy. They made an incredible lunch and they served Cuy (guinea pig) along with other Ecuadorian dishes such as potatoes with salsa de mani, which is a peanut sauce.

Flower Plantation

2007-02-26T13:04:00.000-08:00

Minga

2007-02-26T13:00:00.000-08:00

Cayumbe

2007-02-26T10:57:00.000-08:00

Los barcos

2007-02-23T14:24:00.000-08:00

Sunset in San Vicente

2007-02-23T14:22:00.000-08:00

El hielo

2007-02-23T14:20:00.000-08:00

La Playa

2007-02-23T14:15:00.000-08:00

San Vicente

2007-02-21T04:54:00.002-08:00

Carnaval

2007-02-21T04:54:00.001-08:00

The weekend before lent is Carnaval…a huge celebration and a couple extra days of vacation. Some friends and I headed to the Coast to join the majority of Ecuadorians who travel to the beaches for this holiday. We stayed in a small beach town called San Vicente and shared Hotel Vaccacion’s last room….four beds and six girls…but it was great and fun to see a new part of Ecuador. After spending about ten hours on the bus on Saturday we tried to buy tickets for the return trip on Tuesday, but the only option was a Monday night ticket. On Sunday we took a short ride to Canoa for a day at a beautiful and very crowded beach. I bought some ridiculous blue sunglasses and we tried the water from a coconut (which felt very tropical and holiday-appropriate). The water was almost bathtub warm and felt amazing with the intense sun. There were all sorts of vendors including snow-cone cups made from blocks of ice and a hand crank. On the bus back to San Vicente I made friends with a huge family from Guayaquil enjoying time together at the beach. I was standing next to the Abuelo and before I knew it they took my picture next to him and told me that it was for their vacation album. When I got off the bus the kids and I blew kisses back and forth even though I had known them for approximately 20 minutes. Nora, Grace, Becca, Nora Skelly and Allie had applied copious amounts of sunscreen, but still ended up with bright red burns….and I even got a little burned which may have been my first ever. That evening the other girls returned to Canoa for dinner, but Nora and I stayed to walk around San Vicente, eat at a local restaurant and read. Allie ended up getting really sick from something they ate, which put a damper on the trip and kept her from doing much on Monday.
The next morning we took the motorboat ferry across the bay to Bahia, which is another smallish town packed with people for Carnaval. Part of the celebration includes squirting people with water guns, so I definitely got wet a couple times. Right before we left for the 9 pm bus it started to pour, so we made our way through the muddy streets to the station. The bus was pretty rickety and our window did not shut, so the ride was cold and damp. Also, it was so full that people were standing in the aisle and one guy brought a plastic stool and plopped it right next to Nora and I, which made it kind of awkward to fall asleep. But we finally made it back to Quito around 5 am and I happily crawled into bed for a few hours of sleep.
I spent Tuesday with my host family and we went to a park to play soccer with some cousins and friends. The friends have a six-month-old baby named Nicholas and I was trusted to be his car seat while we sped over speed bumps and windy roads outside of Quito. Overall it was fantastic to get to meet my first Ecuadorian baby and we all had dinner together in celebration of the holiday.

Tena

2007-02-21T04:53:00.000-08:00

On Thursday, Nora, Allie, Emily, Jenny and I took the six-hour bus ride to Tena in the Oriente region. It was very hot and humid, although less oppressive at night. The town is about 20,000 people and attracts tourists for its white water rafting and access to the Amazon. We were supposed to meet the social worker (my supervisor for the internship and possible host mother) at the terminal, but she was not there and did not answer her phone. After finding a place for dinner we located a hostel and were excited to find cable TV. Around 11:00 we heard a knock at the door and it was Rocio asking for what sounded like “siza” so we figured out she was looking for Souza. She was so relieved to find us and apparently she had called all the hostels in town asking for five American girls. She is super friendly and she hugged and kissed us as if we were her long lost relatives.
The next morning she took us to the Tena hospital, which is a public hospital for the entire province. She has been working there for 14 years and is an incredible person…I feel very lucky to have the chance to shadow her, both in the community and in the hospital. She gave us a tour and she knew everyone….and greeted them with the customary kiss on the cheek. The hospital is very basic and it was very full with people, especially women and babies, waiting to be seen. The maternity floor was incredible and she brought us into the rooms with the new mothers and surgical patients to meet the doctors and nurses. After our tour we took a bus to the next town over to see the hospital in Archidona where Nora and Jenny were supposed to intern. Unfortunately, nobody told them it is a private hospital, which basically meant there were more nuns and doctors than patients. I could see the disappointment on their faces, especially after spending time at the other hospital. Nora and I had looked forward to the idea of being close to one another, but at different sites, however we are going to talk to the internship coordinator about switching because Archidona is not a viable option. After rushing around and looking at the homes of possible home-stay families we boarded the bus for the long trip home to Quito.

Quito at Night

2007-02-13T13:14:00.000-08:00

llapingachos

2007-02-13T12:28:00.000-08:00

Last night, for our Spanish class, part of the homework was to prepare a typical Ecuadorian dish with our families to share with the class. Nora’s mom brought us to the Supermaxi, or supermarket, for the first time and it was kind of overwhelming, especially in the fruit section. My assignment was to make llapingachos, which are sort of like latkes, but instead of shredding the potatoes, we mashed them. My host mom was kind of caught off-guard and did not expect to spend the evening making something unfamiliar, but the whole family ended up joining in. We peeled potatoes to salsa music and talked about the upcoming holiday, the latest novela (soap-opera) and native foods / fruits of Ecuador. The seven-year-old, Pedro, alternatively worked on his homework and corrected my Spanish, while Maria Gracia made hand-made valentine’s day cards… This morning we got up at 6:00 to finish the dish and I was pretty frantic and ended up jogging to school with the Tupperware full of llapingachos and made it just in time. For lunch, everyone shared their dish and the recipe with the class and it was great to try such a variety of Ecuadorian dishes.

Baños

2007-02-12T10:51:00.000-08:00

We had a three-day-weekend, so I traveled to a town called Baños with Nora, three other Grinnell girls, Rebecca, Nora Skelly and Allie, as well as another girl on our program, Grace. The bus ride was about three and a half hours and was excruciating because Nora and I had to pee for almost the entire time. Vendors kept jumping on and trying to sell food and gum and one man tried to sell love poems and advice. The ticket-taker on the bus made me nervous by hanging out the door while we drove extremely fast along curvy mountain roads…but we managed to make it to Baños. The town was extremely touristy, but also very beautiful with opportunities to hike, bike and spend time outside. We managed to get a room in a great hostel with six beds and private bathroom very close to everything in town. The first day we took a hike that overlooked the city and an amazing graveyard.

Early on Saturday we went to the volcanic hot springs and got there before the tourist rush. There were three main pools at different temperatures and we had a great conversation with an Ecuadorian couple whose daughter is studying abroad in Italy. Later that day, Nora, Allie and I took an incredible 22 KM bike ride along a road following a river through the mountains. We had to ride through a pitch-black tunnel through a mountain and we honestly felt like we were going to die….but luckily the rest of the ride was much less scary. We passed fantastic waterfalls and eventually came to a trailhead where we parked the bikes and hiked to a suspension bridge and a massive waterfall. We put the bikes in the back of a truck and climbed in with three Australian travelers to head back to town. We found this great back-packer’s café in town, which had a book exchange, funky art, a fireplace and great food for reasonable prices. Sleeping in the hostel was like a huge sleepover and it was great taking a break from the big city.

On Sunday we bought / sampled some of the famous hand-pulled taffy before getting on a very crowded bus back to Quito. Nora and I got ripped off on the taxi from the terminal to our apartment building and paid more for a ten-minute ride than the ticket all the way to Baños. Anyway, it was wonderful to see my family in Quito again and I spend part of the evening helping Pedro sort international soccer cards while watching the Ecuadorian equivalent of Dancing with the Stars…

el mercado

2007-02-08T14:34:00.000-08:00

Our class took a trip to visit an indigenous market in Saquisili, which is a couple hours by bus outside of Quito. We went first to the animal market and I felt like such an intruder / tourist because our huge group stuck out. We then had a chance to divide into smaller groups, walk around and observe the negotiations about the animals. We talked to one man about his llamas and found out that they cost between $70 and $100. The highlight was when an elderly, tiny indigenous woman approached me and asked me where I was from, and was super excited that we were interested in the market. Afterwards we went to the town central and there were large market areas for food, clothing and random stuff (including old plastic baby dolls. We had some time to wander around and I walked with one of the program directors of CIMAS, named Emilia, who pointed out all sorts of imteresting fruits, spices and foods. She bought and had us try a fruit called Chirimoya which was green on the outside and white on the inside with black seed pods...it was incredible. I bartered for a woven bag and got the price down a couple of dollars, but it was overwhelming because there were so many vendors and styles and colors. It was incredibly hot and I loved being there...so much to see and people to watch and talk to.... We had lunch at a finca (farm) where they made all of their own dairy products and amazing juice. I sadly discovered that I lost one of my favorite earrings...one of the pearl ones from mom...so it is somewhere in the market or maybe cought on some llama on a finca somewhere in Ecuador....

events...

2007-02-07T05:51:00.000-08:00

-Nora and I ran for the first time since coming to Ecuador and with the altitude, less than 15 minutes felt like 30.
-During the run there was a man walking four goats....
-For my host mom's birthday I bought the most incredible bouquet of roses for $6....flowers are a major export here and are much, much cheaper than they are in the U.S.
-Tomorrow we are leaving Quito for the day at 6:15 am to visit an indigenous market, which I am incredibly excited about...
-The internship worked out, so it looks like I will be in the Oriente in a town called Tena working with a social worker in and around a hospital....I am still waiting on more details...

amor y abrazos

Vista

2007-02-05T06:01:00.000-08:00

Mitad del Mundo!

2007-02-05T05:55:00.000-08:00

Friday night, around eleven, Nora’s family had some friends over and invited me to come up and join them for tacos and dancing….but on the way up I set off the alarm, woke up the yapper dog and abuelita and managed to lock myself in our apartment until Nora rescued me. Our host moms tired to teach us to salsa and kept offering Tequila shots…they are amazing dancers and were surprised when we wanted to go to bed around 2:30…..

Saturday morning, Nora’s mom stayed home because she was suffering from chuchaqui (the Quichua word for hung-over)…so, her host dad, siblings, my family and a neighbor, Diego, went on an adventure to el Mitad del Mundo…or the middle of the world, equatorial line and namesake of Ecuador. The place was super touristy, but it was fun to go with real Quitorianos and we took some fun pictures…they also had afro-Ecuadorian dancing from the coastal region. We then drove to a protected area with an incredible valley and breath-taking view. On the way home, we stopped at a restaurant serving Ecuadorian food, which is always interesting…Nora and I ordered a dish which ended up being corn on the cob with a salty cheese on the side and we tried a type of juice made from corn. The evening included reading the lonely planet guide and thinking about possible trips within the country, teaching the host siblings to play “Go Fish” and watching part of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in Spanish…

Niños

2007-02-05T05:50:00.000-08:00

This group of preschoolers were visiting the Basilica at the same time…on the steps outside they sang a song for us and we reciprocated with a Spanish song about little birds and they knew the song too, so they sang it back to us. It made my day to have this brief interaction…

Basilica

2007-02-05T05:42:00.000-08:00

Native Ecuadorian birds instead of gargoyles….

Tour de Quito

2007-02-02T13:35:00.000-08:00

The tour of Quito was incredible...we went to the Basilica del Voto Nacional and it has the tallest towers in Latin America, so we climbed to the top via hundreds of stairs and ladders...it was the wrong day to wear a skirt. The gift shop had packets of postcards from maybe the late ´70s, which are hilarious. We ended up back at the Museo de la Ciudad where I had been with my family on Sunday, only this time I could actually understand the tour guide. pictures to come....

Ciao

2007-02-02T05:18:00.000-08:00

Friday...the end of the second week. Today we have a field trip with the class to check out some places around Quito. I think we are headed to a museum, some historic churches and to a market. Buen fin de semana! xoxoxoxoxoxo

que chevere

2007-01-31T07:54:00.000-08:00

the above photo is of the Virgen de Quito cerca de Quito antigua (old town)....

In Quito, it seems that the most popular phrase is “que chévere” which translates as “how cool,” basically expressing awesomeness……

Nora & Me

2007-01-30T05:48:00.000-08:00

Amiga

2007-01-30T05:40:00.000-08:00

Nora (my best friend from Grinnell) moved to the apartment above mine! Our families are practically related and now we can walk to school and our families spend time together on the weekends! We had to promise to speak in Spanish and we are really making an effort. Also, there is a park where her father takes the dog for a walk, so we can run! I knew I would miss running, but the thirty minute walk to school and back helps. Pedro woke me up this morning, and for a moment I forgot where I was...but he was asking for my keys and it only took a minute to remember that I needed to respond in Spanish. This week we are choosing internships for the second part of the program....it is hard to decide because there are several great options in the health / social work fields.

2007-01-29T07:48:00.000-08:00

Below is my family...Maria Gracia (13), Pedro (7) and Maria Paz

2007-01-29T06:00:00.000-08:00

2007-01-29T05:35:00.000-08:00

First Weekend

2007-01-29T05:34:00.001-08:00

My first weekend in Quito was incredible. Saturday morning I awoke to salsa music and mi madre had just returned from the panderia, or bread shop. Abuelita (grandmother), Pedro, Maria Gracia, Maria Paz (mother) and I crowed around the kitchen table for our first meal together as a family. On paper, it says the father lives here, but I think the parents are separated. They invited me on an adventure and we all piled into the car, including the poodle-like dog, Chola. We went to a neighborhood just outside of the city to a piece of land they are thinking of buying with their current neighbors in order to build a house. We passed one of the most affluent neighborhoods followed by one of the most impoverished. The contrast struck me especially because most of the neighborhoods in L.A. seem to be separated by more space. The land was beautiful and I played my first game of futbol with the kids. On our way back to Quito we stopped in a small town famous for its flowers and ate a traditional Ecuadorian lunch (the dog sat under the table because it was too hot to leave her in the car). My family has been great about not eating red meat, which is somewhat difficult when the national food includes a lot of pork. They ordered for me and I ended up with a special potato dish (sort of like latkes) with tomato and avocado on the side. I spent the afternoon with Nora and her 19-year-old host brother. She wanted to buy a cell phone and I needed a chip for the phone that I have. It was my first time on the troley (tram) and these guys randomly asked if I was from Los Angeles…I was so stunned that I stupidly said yes, which led to them basically trying to get information out of me and Nora. Her host brother ended up telling us to get off and we took a different troley to avoid them…So we finally made it to the store and called our parents, which was a huge relief.

Sunday again started with salsa music, and during breakfast Abuelita told me about some of the folklore of the Churches in the city and places that I should visit outside of Quito. Then Maria Paz and the neighbor father rode in the front of a pick-up truck and the neighbors’ kids (Isabel, 10 and Alesandro, 9), my host siblings and I climbed into the bed and we drove pretty fast to el centro to see the famous churches in Quito. On Sundays the streets in this area are closed, which is perfect for riding bikes or walking and people watching. We walked into churches and observed a few minutes of services and went to an amazing museum about the history of the city dating back before the Incas. The kids all wanted to go to McDonald’s and I did not really know how to get across that it was pretty much the last place I wanted to go. Luckily, my host mom told me that she did not want to eat there either and that the two of us could do something different. We went to a family-owed restaurant with traditional food from the coast region – mostly seafood. I had a great conversation with her about education and her work as a real estate agent and I felt that for the most part I could understand and contribute to the conversation. After coming home, I took a taxi to Nora’s house ($1.50) because she was upset / not feeling well and we talked and alternated between the Australian Open Tennis Finals and Grey’s Anatomy. Upon returning home, Pedro and Maria Gracia were super excited b/c their mom bought the land for the house. We played cards and it kills me every time Pedro told me to “go fish.” I am finally feeling comfortable in the house and with my host family…they are incredibly welcoming and patient with my attempts at Spanish.

First Days

2007-01-29T05:32:00.000-08:00

Arrived in Houston… almost died of excitement and ran the wrong way on the moving walkway when I saw Nora and Allie. On the plane, Nora and I met Maria, a young women from Quito. She basically told us her life story and through tears explained that her fiancé lives in San Diego and she is trying to go through the immigration process to move to the U.S. She described leaving the city she loves, her family and friends for the unknown and her fiancé.

The descent into Quito was spectacular with shimmering lights and the Andes Mountains surrounding the city. We spent our first night in the tourist district in a hostel before the orientation. Around midnight most of the group went for a walk and we entered a karaoke bar. Hearing “Hotel California” was definitely a strange experience. Back at the hostel, I ended up staying up until 3 am talking with another girl on the program, Angelica, who had just spent a month in Colombia.

People from CIMAS (our school) were supposed to pick us up at 9:00, but showed up at 10:30 or so…The orientation was long and we had to stand up in front of everyone (students and staff) and introduce ourselves in Spanish. I went last because I was honestly so nervous and I was not feeling too well. When it was time to meet our host families, my host mom was the only one who was late. Mi madre, Maria Paz finally came and she is really nice and works as a real estate agent. On the way home we stopped at a small produce market and there were all sorts of intriguing fruits I had never seen. She bought so much produce and it came to around six dollars. I met her two kids, Maria Gracia (13) and Pedro (7) as well as her mother who lives in a connecting apartment. I have Pedro’s room and he is adorable, although I cannot understand most of what he says because he talks so fast! I gave the kids small California license plates with their names on it, and they loved it! Then we played Uno and cards before I went to sleep completely exhausted at 9:00.

We were running late in the morning and drove to school, but it is close and in the future I will be able to walk. At school we had to take a Spanish assessment test followed by a very tedious biology lecture. Nora and I walked to a panderia for lunch and all of the rolls and fresh bread were 10 cents. The afternoon classes were more interesting and we discussed an upcoming trip and places to visit within the country.

Nora’s host brother, Victor, is 19 and super nice. My host mother had an obligation and he and Nora walked me home and got to see where I live! After they left, I had a great conversation with my abuela and she told me that Maria Gracia is stubborn “como un burro.” MG surprised me by sitting with me while we had dinner and tried to explain the novella, or TV show that she was watching. The soup had quinoa and was incredible…

Arrival!

2007-01-25T03:48:00.000-08:00

I am here in Quito and everything is going well. I will write more when I have more than a moment to use the computer. Off with the group for a two day trip.

con mucho amor

Con Amor

2007-01-22T00:34:00.000-08:00

I am still packing with about five hours until we leave for the airport...

Thank you for all of the goodbyes.....
Noelle - it was wonderful to see you and the girls today. Thank you for the great workout ideas.
Rebecca - for the travel advice / warnings.
Jamie - the first meeting / pictures / lunch
JH - incredible Thai dinner and our talk
coco - the scarf and you
Shannon - the patience for sitting with me while i tried to pack.
Dad - for closing the suitcase and everything
Mom - for alba, lunas and everything....

One Day Left

2007-01-21T01:32:00.000-08:00

One more day in Los Angeles before leaving! I found small gifts for the families and now.....time to pack.

Passport!

2007-01-17T11:52:00.000-08:00

My visa came today! I can now officially leave for Ecuador now! Also, two more days of typhoid medication...

Mi Familia

2007-01-16T17:10:00.000-08:00

I recieved information about my host family today! I am living with 35 year old parents named Guerrero Diego and María Paz Negrete. They have two children: María Gracia (13) and Pedro (7).

phone #:(593-2)2262681

Contact Information

2007-01-10T13:41:00.000-08:00

Phoebe M. Souza
c/o Fundación Cimas del Ecuador
Ave. América N34-274 y Abelardo Moncayo
P.O.Box 17-21-942
Quito, Ecuador

Motorcycle Diaries

2007-01-10T13:40:00.000-08:00

“What do we leave behind when we cross each frontier? Each moment seems split in two; melancholy for what was left behind and the excitement of entering a new land.”

- The Motorcycle Diaries (as read from Che's diary)

Los Angeles

2007-01-10T13:23:00.000-08:00

The countdown begins: 12 days until Ecuador! I am trying to get everything together...medicines, clothes, camera etc....