The start of Ecaudor was quick. The morning after I arrived I did a free walking tour of old town and historic center of quito! That was really helpful to learn all the information and know where you are headed. He also talked a lot about the fruits and food of Ecuador.. It seems somewhat similar however some things slightly different. A few of the fruits have different names. After the walking tour I checked out one of the cathedrals with two guys I met on the walking tour.
The hostel I stayed at in Quito was pretty unique. Pretty small and cheap and just run by one lady, her sister and mother who had kind of adopted this crazy indian guy who spoke no english and spanish and sits around and watches youtube clips of some sort of sport mixed with fighting and cricket? No one had any idea what it was! Some of the guys staaying there from argentina decided to organize a new years dinner. The following day we headedto the market to shop for that.. Originally it was about 10 of us then we invited everyone in the hosteland it was 35 people or so. It turned out to be an absolute blast.The picture of the group is part of the people before dinner. For New Years in Quito they have a few cool traditions like wearing yellow under wear, putting money under their shoes, and packing a suitcase to run into the new year with.. Fromwhat I understood anyways haha. There was a huge display of dolls with political messages and other messages on the street outside my hostel with tons of people walking down the street. It was really cool to see. At midnight all the dolls get burned to forget the bad things that happened that year. After ourdinner we all went out to dance some salsa in the clubs with some firewords and a countdown in a public plaza. Then dolls wereburning all over the place!! New years day everything was closed, I just headed to the parkto hang out and enjoy the sunshine. Quito is the worlds highest capitol city!
I arrived in the little village of Cuellaje with very little idea of what to expect! In fact because the coordinator only has access to the internet on sundays, like I do now.. he hadn{t even responded tomy email saying that i was arriving. People in the village were hanging out, playing volleyball, and attending church. I was reading on the bench waiting for a chance to use a computer when an american lady approached me and helped me find the coordinator and toldme a little about her experiences. I first headed to the coordinator, Ned and his wife Patricias house for a few days to see their farm. I helped patricia make some sausage with a freshly slaughtered cow, and helped to milk the cow. To get to their home, we paid a guy with truckto drive about 20 minutes from the village on a dirt mountain road where we would load all of the things they bought on a horse including my back packs and hike another 30 minutes up to their house. Patricia cooked delicious food from herfarm and made lots of great fruit smoothies. Ecuadorians seem to get most of their fruit from smoothies or drinks.
The next day I headed to Aida and Alfonsos house, my host parents. It was also another trip through the mountain roads on a dirt bike this time. It was another community over a ridge from Neds place. The home is another hike from where I was dropped off.. It takes about 25 ish minutes to climb the mountain to their home pictured with their grandson and freshly picked bean stalks. The (The beans are beaten with a bamboo stick so they fall out of their pods.) Living at the house is usually just Aida and Alfonso and their 24 year old son. He is heading to Ibarra in a few months for University. Their daughter is 30 and has 4 kids age 13 to 11 months! The younger two come hang out a few days a week and they all stay together on the weekends. I pay Aida and Alfonso 50 dollars a week for all my food and my room. I have a little room with a bed and dressed and a beautiful view. It gets nice and chilly at night and day time is usually sunny though its started to storm in the evening and cloudy afternoons the last few days.. Hopefully that changes again back to sun.
During the week I have a 40 minute walk down and up the hill to school to teach english everyday to the kiddos and somePE mixed in. There are 35 students there grades 1 to 7 with ONE teacher... What a saint. So my help is much appreciated. The kids dont have a ton of motivation to learn english beacause they think they will never use it as a90% ish of the kids will stay in the village their wholelives working on farms. My time is up but I will write more about my experience when I can!
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