Winter in Ecuador (minus snow!)

Hi!

Extra-long update to make up for the lack of updates! Happy Birthday Aunt Dawn, I hear there was a spotlighted sign involved in the birthday celebrations, nice work Grandpa....

Okay, synopsis of the last month of my life....

Peru for Christmas with the family was fun. Highlights included making the family try weird foods and fruits, playing translator, eating large breakfast buffets, buying alpaca yarn for knitting, and seeing a large amount of incredible Incan ruins.

See pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024054&id=40901960

The amusing part for me was getting to do the little things I had taken for granted in the States and had lived without in Ecuador. For instance, I took several hot showers WITH water pressure for the first time in 4 months, it was blissful. I also enjoyed putting toilet paper in the toilet (can’t do that in Ecuador, bad plumbing), sleeping on a bed with a mattress (I discovered that my ‘mattress’ in Ecuador is actually a layer of cardboard, seriously), drinking coffee that wasn’t instant (!!) (you’d think one of the top coffee-producing countries would drink real coffee, but no), using fake sugar, watching CNN in English, using a dryer for my laundry, the list goes on.....

Favorite story: Our New Year’s Eve involved Hal and I dodging fireworks in the central plaza in Cuzco with about 1000 other people wearing yellow. It was incredible!

Side-note: in Ecuador, the tradition for New Years Eve is to make dolls (munecas) of the people you dislike/want to forget from the past year, and burn them in the streets! George Bush and Hugo Chavez were popular targets this year, apparently. They think it’s really weird that we watch a big ball slowly drop on TV for New Years. How do you explain that tradition, anyway?

Also, Macchu Picchu and the Nazca Lines were incredible. Machu Picchu is like the Grand Canyon: you can’t believe how amazing it is until you see it. We climbed Wayna Picchu (at 7 in the morning no less), which is the mountain in the back of the typical picture of Machu Picchu, incredibly cool. The Nazca Lines, large figures drawn in the desert, are baffling. They’re huge. There’s no explanation that fits as to how they were created.

Anyways, on to life in Quito!

The first weekend I got back, we went to the beach, about a 7-hour bus ride from Quito. The Ecuadorian coast is much hotter and humid, and super fun. The beach is surrounded by these bungalow huts that serve all kinds of fruity drinks and HUGE fruits, and there’s people walking around selling everything: coconut shakes, sunglasses, body-surfing boards, Yuca bread, jewelry, etc. And there’s great (but salty) waves.

Interesting difference is that people don’t lay out on the beaches in Ecuador. Getting a tan’s not popular at all, it’s much more popular to stay as white as possible. People hide under umbrellas and play soccer on the beach instead, of course (where don’t they play soccer here, haha).

I've decided it’s just impossible not to get burned. You literally have to coat your entire body with sunscreen, if you miss a spot it will be bright red. I burned streaks on the front of my arms, the back of my calf, tops of my ears, etc, quite humorous-looking.

These days, I’ve been doing volunteer work in Quito. I’m working for an organization called Yachana, that runs a jungle lodge in the Ecuadorian rainforest, and with the proceeds from that lodge operates a high school in the jungle for indigenous students. It’s really cool: the high school has an alternative schedule, where the kids only attend for 21 days and then have 21 days off. This is so they can fulfill their family obligations and work on their family farms while staying in school.

It’s an amazing project: the graduation rate for the region is only 5%, but at Yachana over 40 students graduated last September. http://www.yachana.org.ec/index.php if you want to check it out.

I’m doing a bunch of publication stuff for them, mainly because I know how to use the internet and all the old folk don’t. It’s stressful but fun, and my boss is pretty relaxed. For instance, last Tuesday we took a 2-hour break to watch the Presidential inauguration in the states. It was quite the process because we didn’t have a television and Internet’s pretty slow. We had everyone else in the office stop using the Internet, then we got video on one computer and sound on the other, and managed to pull it off.

With this volunteer work, we have to write a 12-page paper in Spanish about our experiences for Kalamazoo, and present it to our fellow students. Side-note: you should hear my Spanish!

I've also taken up knitting, surprisingly. It's super cheap to buy yarn here (70 cents each), and it's a great way to pass the time in the bus. I actually really like it. Grandma Phillips would be so proud.

Next Sunday I’m off to the Galapagos! Our program will be spending an entire week there, visiting all the islands, swimming with the sea turtles, etc. I’m back in the States on February 22, and then have about a month off until I start school again on March 30.

Okay, I think this is quite long enough! Hope all is well in the States, miss you all!

Lisa