A Smorgasbord

Merry almost Christmas! Here is a quick, random, stream of consciousness catch up of the last couple weeks (conversations with me may look similar...)

The first 2 pictures are from the Olimpiadas a couple weeks ago at Nuevo Mundo. Our scholarship students who we tutor in history are pic #2 (1,2,3 everyone say ¨I love trench warfare¨). Each of their classes came up with a dance and a cheer and the rest of us just got to watch and eat carnival food and play volleyball. It was a blast to hang out with those guys all day and all the money raised went to the Fundacion school where I work. That same Saturday we walked to the church for a bingo...and there was no power. So we had the bingo in our yard. It was a blast and felt really nice to be able to give a little something back to the church and the community. Here is a picture of all 200 people in our yard (can you find Brendan?) and one of Jon, Christina, Tierney and I with Yasu and Jose.

Last weekend we went to Bea´s (the daughter of our neighbor Francisca´s) baptism. They took me out to dinner with the family afterwards; we very rarely go out to eat so it was a treat to get a big plate of chicken and patacones out. Sunday I went into Guayaquil with Celso, Tasha, and Cynthia, who works with us at Mundo. We explored the Malecon (boardwalk) del Solado, rented a row boat and got some great seafood. I am determined to try everything here despite the tiny problem that I do not actually like seafood. The ceviches are delicious- a soup with lots of lime, onion, tomato and shrimp, though you can orer it with any kind of seafood (I tried it with conch). I am having ¨caldo de pata¨ for lunch Monday- foot stew, essentially- so openmindedness about food is a must.

My routine lately has been tutoring (aka hanging out and eating good food) in the mornings and teaching at Mundo or going to Semillas in the afternoons. I am on break from my adult classes at John Drury so have enjoyed having the mornings to ¨vagar¨ and hang out with people in the neighborhood.

We had a Christmas party a couple weeks back for our guards and their families. Each house was responsible for some kind of entertainment and, as singing and dancing are not our thing, Arbolito acted out the most popular (and over played) Chritsmas carol, Mi Burrito Sabanero, which sounds like the song that plays on the ride ¨It´s a Small World After All.¨ Brendan and Kipp, the musically talented, took care of the intrumentals while I dressed up as the donkey and carried Christina, pregnant Mary, around while Tierney fed me carrots. That night was the first night of rain so we took the dance party outside (all the Ecuadorians already think we are insane).

Our next Christmas performance (because the first was so good) is on Christmas Eve. I am a shepard and I think the people in charge think we could take our roles a little more seriously; we have nightly practice. I have 2 lines, though I do not think I have mastered them to anyone´s standards. For Christmas day we will visit with the patients of Damien House and then go to Sister Annie´s for dinner. We have a week off after Christmas so are putting together a trip to Vilcabamba (we put Banos on hold, too much volcanic activity) to do some hiking and explore the National Park.

Here is all of us at the baptism. That´s all on this end. I hope you all have a wonderful break and Merry Christmas!

Día de Acción de Gracias!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I actually forgot that it was Thanksgiving until around noon (not that I am not thankful...) My theory (regular theory, not a conspiracy theory) is that the consistency of the weather (75-85 degrees, sunny- tough life, I know) here warps our perception of the passage of time. Bring on the rainy season?

In a country where this holiday is obviously not celebrated, we have a couple festivities on our plate. Today at Nuevo Mundo our decimo class performed mini skits about the first Thanksgiving. They initially thought Squanto was a Pilgrim from Holland so we had some clarifying to do and they pulled through and did a great job (though I assured them only a couple people aside from the English teachers would understand them anyways). Tomorrow night my boss, Pat, has invited us all over for a big Thanksgiving dinner so we dont`t seem to be missing out on anything!

Last weekend I had my first Junta, a meeting in which the teachers talk about each student in each grade. It was immensely helpful to hear how my students were performing and behaving (or not) in other classes. Saturday afternoon I trekked out to an area called 28 de agosto with Cynthia. 28 is where Manos Abiertas, one of our 3 after school programs, is located and it is noticeably poorer and more rural than many parts of Duran. We met up with Tierney and Jessie and talked to Padre Liam (the number of Irish priests living in Ecuador..) about setting up a clothing fair of our donations.

Sunday morning we participated in what turned out to be a highly amusing Cristo Rey procession (I don`t think amusement was the intent, but isn`t it better that way?) We met up at the designated launch point at 8:30. At 9:15 our priest rolls up in a car and begins driving at the head of the procession, with a large framed picture of Jesus balanced precariously on his windshield. We followed our fearless leader to the church as he pulled over from time to time to have conversations with passers-by. A woman at the front started yelling loudly about the evils of abortion, at which point some little old lady carrying yet another portrait of Jesus became tired and handed it off to me. We made quite the entrance parading into church, me at the front holding Jesus. Holding my lauhter= Christmas miracle.

Sunday night we went to see Harry Potter (in English, and I won`t say more because you know I could talk about Harry Potter forever) and then to the airport to pick up our first retreat group! 5 high schoolers from Cape Cod; this group is chiquitito but it`t been great fun to see what has become, in a small sense, our world, through their fresh eyes. 1 almost down, 13 to go (including a group from BC in January)!

Father Jim is in town so we are having taco night at Arbolito after the school bus brings me home! Happy Thanksgiving!

100 days

Flew by. Two weekends ago we had our first retreat to Playas. The weather made our experience more reminiscent of New England beach trips than Ecuadorian ones so maybe for that reason it was an especially nice weekend and you just cant go wrong with built in time for naps and swimming in big waves. To keep with the theme of critters I seem to have begun here, I got my first jellyfish sting (little blue guy, no harm done) and my first parasite(s)! The round worm living in my stomach has hopefully bitten the dust after $1.20 worth of antibiotics.

Last weekend was spent almost entirely in the neighborhood (the best kind of weekend). I had my first bowl of ceviche, and Ecuadorian specialty. After I got over the fact that I was eating shrimp it tasted pretty ok. Sunday afternoon we played our first bingo; bingo is a huge deal here so it was about time. We sat in the street in front of the panaderia whose owners we have befriended (bread making lessons to follow!) and Brendan won tupperware! Chevere. It means something like awesome. Sunday night Celso, Mark and I went to Cynthias, (another Mundo teacher) house for seco de pollo, one of my favorite meals here. We played Monopoly in Spanish (which I think I won, but who knows). Great weekend.

Sidenote- Christina helped the little guys at Semillas make Flat Stanleys, well, Flacito Estanleys. For those who dont know, Flat Stanley is a cut out of a little man that children send to people who are far away or taking a trip and that person then takes a picture with Stanley and sends the picure back to the little type and ships Stanley back home or someplace else. We are going to send these to a few people we know scattered around the U.S. and the globe so, if you are taking a fun trip (or not!) and would like to be the recipient of a Flacito Estanley, let me know.

Semillas de Mostaza

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from Semillas yet to date. Our latest amusement here has been dealing with a goat that our guard, Andres, seems to like to bring to work with him. (Sir, why do you need to bring your goat to work..) When I taught the adults on Tuesday I got a glimpse of the goat eating a notebook outside. Part of Monday was spent trying to recapture the goat who had then broken into the homework room (not distracting at all) and was wrecking havoc on the desks, chairs, crates of bananas, etc. The goat later came charging onto the cancha during charla (when we would really love 5 minutes to talk seriously to the kids- fail) and had to be escorted off by by Kipp, dragging it by the horns. Plenty of cheering. At least the goats presence has distracted us from that of the killer attack dogs... though perhaps the best conversation I have had with Andres so far involved my kindly asking him not to burn large fires near where the small children are playing. Guard antics aside, I think we are all agreed that Semillas is one of our favorite places in Ecuador. The first picture, clearly, is a pig pile on Christina and Daniel, our ayudante. Normal day. The second is of 5 year old Diego during recreo (if we were to pick favorites...)

More adventure fotos

Weekend(s) Recap

Happy Monday to all!
So, last couple weeks- ready...go! Last weekend was Beth´s birthday so we all slept over AJS for a celebration in her honor. Next morning we headed into Guayaquil for its independence day party and ended up staying in the city for almost 12 hours- nothing like a parade, good food, sail boat tours, fire works, and a free concert to keep a few thousand people entertained. This particular Ecuadorian concert was pretty amusing because the artists and songs switched about every 45 seconds (one would wonder if Ecuadorians have ADD when it comes to listening to music- this was reminiscent of a power hour mix). Perhaps the best parts of the concert were the continual interruptions by the host shouting ¨WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS, MY FRIENDS!¨ outrageously loudly and in English, when this phrase simply had nothing to do with whatever antics were happening onstage. Many audience members found it more amusing to watch us, the gringos (dancing, obviously) than the performers.
The week passed generally normally. I tutored a couple kids who live in the neighborhood (and was fed birthday cake for breakfast- not a bad deal) and had lunch with Lupe, one of our wonderful neighbors. She has informed us that she would like to have a one on one date with all of us to determine who she gets along with best- I asked her if our lunch was like a test and she said yes- no pressure or anything. We finished up our first partial (3 partials make up a quimestre) at Nuevo Mundo so things got a little hectic with grading (one of these days I will learn how to use Excel, but not yet..) This past weekend 6 of us- myself, Tierney, Jon, Christina, Mark, and Tasha- headed to the beautiful beachside town of Puerto Lopez and the national park Isla de la Plata. We got in around 9:30 Saturday morning and were under the care of our guide, Cherry, by 10, meandering through the fish market and stepping over 6 ft. long sharks, swordfish and the like. Just like a fish market at home, right? I was tempted to plop a swordfish down in the seat next to me on the way back to Guayaquil. A few men did end up bringing live chickens on the bus home so next time I must not let animals be a deterent. Anyway the boat ride to the island is about an hour and a half- a complete blast (and for those whose stomachs didn´t love the boat ride in its own right, it seemed the wildlife made it worth the rocky trip). We hiked the island for a couple hours and checked out a few species of birds, including the blue footed boobies, which are native only to the Galapogos and this island. From the boat we saw sea turtles, dolphins and one humpback whale (apparently whale mating season has just ended, so we were lucky to glimpse one). We snorkeled off the boat all afternoon by this gorgeous coral reef (first time snork-ler) and saw a million, as Cherry put it ¨Nemo and Dory fish.¨ Saturday night we ate at a local seafood restaurant on the water and stolled along the beachside bars and shops, stopping to have a beer in a hammock on the beach. Sunday we ate a breakfast overlooking the water in an awesome cane hut at our neat little hostel and spent the day at Las Frailes, famous for being the most beautiful beach in Ecuador. Encased by cliffs on each side, the beach was nearly deserted and we spent the day swimming, snakcing, and hiking a bit. The view from the mirador reminded me of the view from the lookout point at Gay Head (water was warmer, though). We were back by 9 Sunday night. This Monday morning I hung out at our neighbor Francisca´s with all her kids and will head over to Semillas, our afterschool program, soon before tutoring 5-year Jon-Pierre in some English. That´s about all the ¨new¨ stuff here for now, hope everyone has a great week!

Baby´s First Coup

Yesterday morning the opposition party tried to dislodge President Correa from office. He was released last night from the military hospital in Quito where he was being held. There were riots and protests in Guayaquil yesterday and access to the Puntilla and Guayaquil was cut off because the bridges were blocked. I was in Duran all day. One of my adult students in my morning class got a phone call (yes, I let them answer the phone in class) telling us what was going on and so I knew not to go to Mundo. Those who came back from Guayaquil said the streets were hectic with people protesting and burning tires. Everybody is safe; Kipp and Celso picked everybody up from work (only took a few hours..) and brought everyone back home. From where I am it doesn´t seem like we are in the thick of things. Life is going on as usual.