November Visit to Palmar!

In early November, Adam and I visited a fellow volunteer, Stephanie, in her site of Palmar. It was great to see her projects and also visit the coast to get some change in weather and environment from the southern sierra. She was a great hostess and showed us around her town, introduced us to her counterpart and people that she works with in her town (as well as the man that sells delicious homemade avocado ice cream from his bicycle). I have to say, she has a really nice view from her house- right onto the beach and the Pacific Ocean!

During our time in Palmar we helped her prep her new garden, showed her kids' group how to make origami birds (they were so creative in Ecuadorian standards- making eggs out of pebbles and creating nests in the dirt!), sat on the beach watching crabs, sand dollars, and starfish, and tried to make a fire pit in the dirt to bbq fish (no luck, we ended up baking them in a campo stove). She also teaches an aerobics class to women in her town, but it was too early in the morning for me so I didn't quite make it. Maybe next time. It really is amazing to see such different sites from our own. It almost doesn't feel like the same country- the accent, the attitudes, the clothes, and the people in general.

Stephanie prepping her new garden in the beach sand

One of her friends prepping some poles with a big machete

If you click on the picture you can see the starfish on the beach!

Trying to get the beach pit bbq going- no dice!

Stephanie keeping track of all her well behaved kids!

We stopped in Guayaquil (largest city in Ecuador) on the way back to Loja where we were treated to a delicious meal made by Molly (second from right) and the fun company of other PC volunteers from our training group

Happy Holidays!!

Adam and I are currently sitting in our friend Mary's house in the beautiful little town of Cotacachi, in the northern sierras of Ecuador. Essentially on the opposite end of the sierra, just a hop, skip, and 18-hour bus ride away from Loja. It definitely doesn't feel like Christmas Eve, although there is celebrating in the park and fireworks not too long ago.

Of course we have been getting into the holiday spirit over the past few weeks- we passed out candies and cookies to kids in Loja for Christmas, we handed out flyers about the donation drive to give to families in need, we made a special Christmas turkey dinner for the kids at the orphanage (more about that later), I made hundreds of gingerbread cookies and sugar cookies with green, red and white sprinkles to share with the organizations we work with and people that we know in Loja, and we also attended a Noche de Velas where we lit candles and sang Christmas songs like Joy to the World in Spanish. Yet there is something that seems to be missing, and perhaps it is the fact that we weren't heading somewhere to spend time with our families (like Hong Kong and Taiwan last year, or Key West, FL the year before). But we are enjoying our time here in Ecuador and are glad to be spending our first Christmas in Ecuador with some great friends that we have made here...and in a very beautiful part of Ecuador (tomorrow we might go take a boat ride on the lake by a volcano!). Hope you all have a feliz navidad!!

So something awesome came in the mail last Friday!

Before I forget, Adam and I had the most exciting Friday because when we went to the post office, a package that we thought was forever lost finally showed up! Jennifer sent us a totally fun package full of exciting goodies and hilarious notes and it only took 2 months to get here! See, you can depend on Ecuadorian postal service after all! (Thanks Gamble for the old tabloid news on J+K+8, Halloween goodies, friendly reminder that corn syrup is not "bad" for me, delicious bread in a box, and everything else! It made our week!)

My reaction

And this is only some of the goodies!

Same Same...But Different

There are often times where Adam and I don´t feel like we are living all that different of a life here in Ecuador because we live in Loja. However, there are often little things that remind us that although things here might feel ¨same same¨...they are definitely different (do you like that Jennifer???). For example:

1. They use the U.S. currency here in Ecuador. Same same right? But different because you are more likely to see a Sacajawea dollar coin than a $1 bill. And forget trying to get change for a $20!

2. It is totally ok to publish photos of dead people in the newspaper. Recently a woman's body was found on the old road from Loja to Catamayo...and La Hora printed a nice close-up of her face as found on the side of the road.

3. Adam and I have running water and a pretty modern apartment (like we mentioned before, this is not a mud hut in the jungle!). But as with most homes here in Ecuador, there is not hot water so we have grown accustomed to washing dishes with cold water and using an electric shower head that heats up water as it comes out (kind of scary with all the wires hanging over your head!).

4. You can get DSL here...maybe...if you wait long enough... Our landlord tried to sign up for DSL so that we could share internet at home. However, one week turned into one month turned into 3. And still no internet! But Easynet is supposed to install it by December 15 at the latest. Oh wait...

5. We have fabric shops, hardware stores, and clothing boutiques in Loja, just like home! Except that you can fine more than a dozen fabric shops in 2 square blocks, hardware stores every other block, and the clothing boutiques all sell the same thing- Abercrombie, American Eagle and Hollister.

There is plenty more that is same same, but different. I just can´t think of any because now this is our daily ordinary life!

Our Ecuadorian Thanksgiving!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately! Adam and I were on the coast a few weeks ago visiting a volunteer and this past week was pretty busy for us running errands and such! Overall we are doing pretty well. There are some days where we feel pretty useless and don't feel like we are serving any purpose here. And when combined with a bad Spanish day (where we can't seem to speak coherently), it can get pretty tough. Luckily Adam and I have each other to talk to on a daily basis when we need someone to process with.

In other news, though, we had an AWESOME Thanksgiving. We had thought it would be hard to pull together a real Thanksgiving dinner, but in the end, that is exactly what we had! We were invited by a girl we met in Loja, Jamie, to a Thanksgiving dinner that she was organizing. It was a pretty large group of us- some World Teach volunteers, some English teachers, some missionaries and Adam and I. We had waaay too much turkey (we even got to bring home leftovers!), mashed potatoes, gravy (Adam did a good job making it!), stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes and rolls. Adam and I brought a pumpkin pie and an apple pie too. In total, we had 3 pumpkin pies and 2 apple pies...along with Baskin Robbins whipped cream and some homemade oreo ice cream. We were totally stuffed! And it didn't help that Sister and Elder Harrison (the older missionary couple that we met back in September) invited us over for some apple cobbler and ice cream in the afternoon too!

Adam's homemade apple pie (pre-oven)

Steven carving our 11 kg (24 pounds!) turkey that was amazing!!

Needless to say, we made a lot of gravy

Plenty of white and dark meat for everyone

My first serving...I did end up going back for seconds...and possibly thirds...=D


And this is only a handful of all the Americans living in Loja! (ok ok, 2 of the gals in the photo are Slovakian, one person in Ecuadorian, and one person is French, but still!)

There was a Thanksgiving gathering of Peace Corps volunteers in Vilcabamba, but since we had already committed to the otherThanksgiving dinner, we didn't end up going. But we did help Jason, the PC volunteer who lives here in Loja with us, with prepping the turkey and watching him make his cranberry cokaputzy (I have no idea how it is spelled, apparently it is Yiddish!).

Jasing putting canned cherries into his cokaputzy...but it was a much more arduous process because they still had their pits in them!!

Mixing up the canned cranberry sauce, since real cranberries don't exist here!

Early in the week we also worked with the kids at the orfanato and shared with them a little bit about the idea of Thanksgiving and how people usually celebrate the holiday in the U.S. (yeah PC goal 2). We made handprint turkeys and then on the feathers they wrote down things that were thankful for. The difficult thing is that kids here are so used to copying things in school (rather than being creative and making it their own) that a couple of the kids copied exactly what I had written down on my example...meaning that a couple of them wrote down that they were thankful for their esposo (husband). And they are old enough to read and understand what I had written down, but it was so automatic for them that it didn't register.


I hope everyone else had a fabulous Thanksgiving back home! And how did all those Black Friday sales go??? =D