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| My first class |
Halloween:
My students and I decided that we needed to celebrate Dia de Difuntos and Halloween here at SECAP. I was definitely the most excited about the parties with both classes. Dia de Difuntos is all about honoring loved ones who have passed on. It is a full day affair where Ecuadorians go to the cemeteries and clean the graves of dead relatives. They cook traditional food including Guagua de Pan (bread in the shape of a baby) and Colada Morada (Hot, thick, fruit beverage made of various Ecuadorian fruit). In my first class we elected random Señores and Señoritas like Señorita Colada Morada and Señor Cuchara. When I asked my students what all of this meant, I literally got nothing, “teacherrrr….porque”. When my students asked me what the history of Halloween was, I didn’t have much to tell them either. Have you ever stopped and thought about it? Where did Halloween come from? Each of my classes planned programs including crowns, sashes, and lots of colada morada, pan, and small trinkets. My students sat me right up front and at the end of the program I was presented with a life size Gua gua (aka baby bread). The rest of the time we just hung out and my students danced.
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| My second class |
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| Life size Guagua |
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| SECAP Ambato! |
Now my second class really went all out. I told them jokingly that I would give them extra credit if they dressed up. I think all of them but 3 dressed up. We spent the first hour decorating with streamers and banners, setting out food, and drinks. The costumes included a vampire, a pumpkin, 4 witches, Minnie mouse, and a clown/luchador. I ran out of time to invest in an actual costume and ended up making a TV for my head complete with straws for antennae. My class hosted the party in our penthouse classroom on the top floor. Krishna’s class and my class combined forces had a joint party. My students ushered me over and presented a bag of trinkets for me (2 mini tea sets, piggy bank, various pins, figurines, spoons, and a chicken whistle). I was truly touched. It was so sweet.
Cuenca:
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| Leslie and I in Cuenca in front of the Cathedral |
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| Mateo and his friends |
The Ambato gang decided to take advantage of the long weekend and travel 6 hours by bus to Cuenca. Cuenca has the reputation of being the most beautiful city filled with the most beautiful people. I have to say that Cuenca did live up to the expectations. Every corner is adorned with colonial style houses, plazas, and historic churches. We got into Cuenca and checked into Perla Cuencana Hostel. It was mismatched and random. It turned out that the only worker was a 17-year-old boy named Mateo who was pleasant and friendly. The hostel only had one key to the front door and on our first night Mateo asked us to either come back before midnight or after 2:00am. Kind of a weird request, but it turned out that these are the 2 hours he sleeps during the night. The next night after a day out we returned to the hostel. Mateo knocked on the door and ushered me into his room. He needed help creating a costume, so I called my friend Leslie into the room and we made him a toga out of an extra sheet. Then he proceeded to show us his dance routine to back-to-back Pussycat Doll songs (Buttons and When I Grow Up) that ended in the splits. It was phenomenal. When we made it back later that night Mateo and his friends were in drag for a costume/dance contest. Turns out Mateo turned out to be very gay.
Life in Ambato:
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| Llapingachos lunch: Delicious |
My life in Ambato is really starting to pick up. I am going to the gym, taking full advantage of public transportation, teaching, and meeting up with friends. My host family has been busy preparing the store for the holiday season with trips to Cuenca and Guayaquil to buy more merchandise for their store. I am always so happy when my host mom is back. It just isn’t the same without her. We have occasional family outings on Sundays. About a month a go, I went to the pool with my family. However, this was no ordinary pool…it had hot tubs, saunas, and all the perks. I had to wear a swim cap and hung out with my host mom as she showed me how the pool works. My host parents are incredibly patient with me. While I was swimming in the pool with Milena a camera crew approached me. I assume I was targeted because I was literally the only gringa in the pool. They asked me where I was from, how I liked Ecuador, and if I liked the pool. Apparently this was for a tourism show that aired on the local channel. Sadly, I never saw it. After the pool the family piled in the car and headed towards the food market in downtown for llapingachos (potato and cheese pancakes). For a $1.50 you can get a great lunch of llapingachos, sausage, avocado, beets, and lettuce. For an extra $0.50 you can get a delicious jugo (juice). I discovered CocoMora (coconut/berry) juice, and it is delicious. So good.
Ambato’s Independence Day:
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| Swamp Man from the military |
Ambato celebrated its Independence Day on November 12th. Leslie’s students had invited us to watch the parade with them downtown. Now, I was unaware of what a big deal this parade is. Ambateños really go all out. We had front row seats that Leslie’s students had rented for us. The parade entailed high school band after high school band passing by. There were literally 50 high schools with bands, marches, and color guard. Each band has several people (usually little boys) running around the band picking up dropped drumsticks and being the water boy. There were thousands of people lining Cevallos street. Naturally, when there are a lot of people they want and need food from vendors. Vendors wander the streets and yell, “papas, papas, papas” (insert specific food) as fast as they can until they catch someone’s attention. My favorite of the day was when an ice cream vendor stopped in front of me and started selling his goods. As he was prepping an ice cream (and standing RIGHT in the way), he dropped it. He put it back in his cooler and then 2 seconds later proceeded to sell the very ice cream cone that was dropped on the ground (aka dirty street). That is Ecuador for you. Apparently Rafael Correa was in Ambato for the parade, but I didn’t see him. The parade ended with the military bands, tanks, swamp men, and bayonets. Quite the spectacle.
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| Chiva! |
Chiva:
For our Director Kate’s birthday a bunch of WorldTeach people came into Quito to partake in the festivities. The easiest way to describe a Chiva is a party bus. It is open (no windows) with disco balls and lights, music, whistles, and free canelazo (alcohol). It then drives around Quito while the inhabitants get progressively drunk. It sounds kind of strange, but I am telling you it was incredibly fun. I hope I can go on another chiva here in Ecuador. It was a blast!
One thing that we were warned about during Orientation was that we would be robbed. This just so happened to me. Luckily I wasn’t assaulted or anything like that. I woke up the next morning and couldn’t find my wallet. My thief must have slipped his hand in my pocket or grabbed my wallet off of the table. Anyways, nothing too valuable was lost (no debit/credit cards) only a couple of ID cards and a couple of bucks. Lesson learned. I have everything replaced except for my worldteach id card, but that is okay.
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| WorldTeach Girls in Cuenca! |
This will be my first Thanksgiving away from home. I have to say that I have been a little homesick seeing facebook updates about snow, Harry Potter premiers, and Thanksgiving. I am missing Oregon, and all my friends and family. I can’t believe that I have less than 2 weeks of my classes left. I have combated homesickness by investing in Peanut butter and making PB & J for my students. They were adamant that they didn’t want to try peanut butter. However I insisted that they try it and brought in PB & J. Needless to say, it was a huge success. Some of them weren’t huge fans, but some of them LOVED it. Peanut butter is here in MegaMaxi and I suspect that several students have gone and bought it to eat. I also gave a sample to my host parents who loved it as well. I am pretty sure my host dad has been sneaking peanut butter out of the jar because it is significantly lighter. This makes me smile. That’s all for now!
Another blog post soon. I love you all and hope you have a great turkey day!
Caitlin
