Back home!

I made it home safely yesterday! (Not without Delta forgetting to load my luggage on my flight to Atlanta which caused me to subsequently miss my connecting flight to Detroit - but it's all good - my luggage should be returned tonight.) My first meal back in the States was some delicious home-cookin' at Bob Evans. Ahhh...until my next edventure... chao!

Last Days in Quito

Hello fellow Americans! Soon I will be joining all of you back home :) My flight leaves for the USA this Saturday night. After 5 weeks here it will be quite weird leaving, but I am ready to return. The tutoring schedule here has changed quite a bit in the last week and will continue to change as many tutors are leaving this weekend. For that reason, I am glad to be leaving.

This past week we have been relocated from our normal building to give space to the free dental clinic being run by a dentist and a handful of dental students from UM. It is quite a process. One day this week I was actually able to volunteer as a translator in the clinic (most of the students and the dentist don't speak Spanish very well). I really enjoyed it. I learned some new dental terminology too. Like "caries" for cavities and "calza" for filling. On the day that I translated, the clinic saw 79 patients. We stopped early though because there was a big soccer game at 3:30pm and everybody was watching the game somewhere. haha

Well, it has been great these past weeks. My favorite activities have been ziplining, white water rafting, and simply spending time with the other tutors at our house. Tomorrow, it will be hard saying bye to the kids that I tutor. I hope they find a future outside of San Martin (the barrio of Quito in which they live).

I hope you've all enjoyed my blog! This will probably be my last post. Hasta la vista bebe!

The Jungle

First of all...sorry to everyone about my delay in blogging. I have been very busy lately and the internet has not been working at our house.

Moving on...I had an awesome weekend in the jungle! More commonly referred to as Tena, Ecuador. We took about a 5 hour busride to the town on Friday. Saturday we went on a jungle tour with a guide named Juan. He was great - really knew his stuff since he grew up in the jungle in a Quechua family. We rode on a long river boat (just like a scene out of Jungle II Jungle) to a sandy shore where we dipped in the water for a swim. It was very pleasant. Once on land, Juan showed us lots of different cool jungle plants. Many of them have been used by Quechua people as herbal remedies for hundreds of years. For example, there was one tree whose juice heals rashes and insect bites. Later, we ate with a Quechua family. A woman cooked yuca (a starchy potato-like food), plaintains, and maita (fish cooked in a palm leaf over the fire). They were all delicious! And served on palm leaves! We also tried chicha (a beer-like drink also made from yuca that tastes like sour yogurt). That was kind-of gross. After that, we went to an old animal-trap museum (located inside a hut) that had different animal traps used by Quechua people to catch jungle animals like wild pigs, rabbits, deer, chickens, etc... Finally, we ended the day at an animal rescue center also located in the middle of the jungle. The animals were pretty neat. We saw lots of tucans, ocelots, water-guinea pigs (the size of real big pigs!), and the smallest monkey in the world. The point of the shelter is to provide a safe home for animals that have been poached and are in danger of extinction in Ecuador.

Day two provided more excitement: We went white-water rafting! Class four (the hardest). We had the same guide from the day before and he made it really fun. The waves were huge, the rocks as well, and we traveled really fast. We had to follow his commands like "adelante" (row forward), "atras" (row backwards), and everyone's favorite: "adentro" (inside) - used when a big wave is coming up and we have to all jump inside to avoid falling out. Everytime we made it past a challenging part of the river Juan would say: "remos arriba" (oars up) and we would put our oars together in a high five and then smack them on the water. It was too fun for words and one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Baños

Here's an update on my latest weekend excursion to the tourist hotspot: Baños. Saturday morning a group of us went ATVing (on Hot Wheels four-wheelers!) up a mountain with a great view of the city. The view was about the only enjoyable part of the experience, though. Our ATVs kept breaking down, our 15 year-old guide (I would guess that's how old he was) kept hitting on two of the girls in our group, and when we got up really high in the clouds we were inside this torrential rainstorm. But it was one of those "we all got through this miserable experience together" kind of moments. Later, we went to the "baños" which means "baths" in Spanish. These are very hot springs that you can bathe in. They were very relaxing! For dinner we went to "Casa Hood" which is owned by an ex-pat who was in the Residential College at U of M! A handful of people in our group are students in the RC, so it was fun for them to connect. It was funny because we were joking that the restaurant had a very "Ann Arbor" feel to it - the menu font looked like the type from Zingerman's. :)

Oh - did I forget to mention that I went bridge-jumping? (It's called "Puenting" (bridging) in Spanish.) From the picture you can see that it was an extremely terrifying jump (75 meters) but totally exhilarating. (What do you think about THAT Mom and Dad?!)

On Sunday we went on a bikeride that took us past all these beautiful mountains (mountains in Ecuador - what a surprise!) and waterfalls. It was awesome! There was one part where we had to ride through a pitch-black tunnel. It was petrifying! All we could see was a tiny light at the end of a tunnel (haha). It was like riding your bike through a haunted house.

At the end of the route we stopped at the "Pailon del Diablo." You have to get off your bikes and hike to a bridge over this torential waterfall. It was really cool (I don't have a picture though because it's kind of hard to take one when you're on a bridge and it's pouring rain.) At the end of the route, instead of hiking back, we rode in the back of this shady truck. There were petrol tanks rolling around and a man sitting with us who had about 5 teeth (which we didn't know until we asked him a question and his reply sounded like garbling). It was very funny.

So - another memorable experience! Hasta luego...

Visiting the Equator in Ecuador

Yesterday a group of us went to the Equator! And did you know there are two of them? One was from before GPS and the other was established afterward. We went to the real one first. It was like a mini-epcott with all these little huts where a tour guide would take you to learn about the indigenous peoples who lived on the equator many moons ago. It was really cool. We learned about the Tzantza technique of shrinking decapitated enemies' heads and wearing them around the neck as a symbol of honor. We also got to do all these cool tricks that only happen on the equator - like balancing an egg on a nail - which I successfully did and received a certificate for!
At the fake equator (which was much more grand since it has been around for much longer) we went up this tower that offerred great views of the city. Surprisingly, it wasn't hot on the equator. It was actually kind-of chilly with the wind. Well - you can't visit Ecuador without visiting the Equator, can you?

Mindo

Hello everyone! Sorry it’s been a week since my last post. I had an exciting weekend and wanted to wait until afterwards to write again…

This weekend the Education tutors went to Mindo. It is a LITTLE tourist town about 2 hours north of Quito in the jungle. Our group arrived early Saturday morning to a nice hostel (nicer than the house we are currently living in and equipped with a hammock!). We went on a tough hike with our host dad that ended at a waterfall. Some people decided to be brave and jump off a cliff into the pool of water. They regretted it after they had bruises on their backsides from the water impact (!) Later we went zip-lining on 10 cords! It was great! We got to do it in superman and upside-down positions. Later that night we ate a delicious lunch/dinner of trout, rice, lentils, hearty chicken soup, and fried plantains – served with delicious ají (hot) salsa. The next day we had a tour of an orchid and butterfly garden. It was awesome! (Check out the picture of the butterfly whose wings look like an owl’s face. It is an evolutionary mechanism that wards off predators!) That was followed by a really fun (and cold) white water tubing ride. We rode in two groups of interlocking tubes down a rocky, fast river with two guides in each group to navigate. It was a great weekend! Stay tuned for more edventures… :-)

Fundacion - kids' interesting names!

Work at the Fundacion has been good. Some old tutors left earlier this week but some new ones just arrived so we have a new group for at least the next couple weeks. The kids are too adorable for words. The names down here are about half Spanish and half English - all of them being quite interesting! For example, here are some of the kids names: Jazmin, Edwar (yes without the d -- he also goes by his middlename: Stalin (!) ), Rosa, Henri (goes by his middle name "Santi" - short for Santiago), Brayan, Diego, Angelo, Jacqueline, Milton, Estafani, Jose, Aurelia, Aida, Jordi, Diana, Wendi, Luis, Gabi, Lexi, Sara, Alfonso, Alejandra, Kelli, and get ready for these: Robinson, Edison, Wellington...and the list goes on.

I have two eight-year olds (my age group) - a boy and girl named Wilmer and Jocelyn. They are both bright and I feel lucky to have them. All the tutors and kids start each morning at 9am with a warm-up activity. Today we played a game where you split into two separate lines and each line has a ball that you have to pass from the front to the back of the line. Then when the ball reaches the back, the last person has to crawl through everyone's legs in front of him or her. And the process continues... The kids had a great time playing it and we had a hilarious time watching it. After a warm-up activity, we head inside the building (a former cinderblock and brick house) to work. Each tutor has a table for their group. Today I worked on teaching units, tens, and hundreds places in math, as well as english numbers 1-20, bingo, and reading a story while the kids write down what I say (dictation). We have recess that lasts anywhere between 45 minutes and an hour where usually the kids play soccer on a dirt field. Today it was sooo windy and dusty! Not enough to make the kids stop playing though (I don´t know what that would take!). When I got home I had to wash my face and clean my ears to get all the dirt out. At around 12:45pm the kids come back to the Fundacion with their cups and bowls for colada (a warm oatmeal protein drink that is quite tasty) and usually some kind of soup. Then a little after 1pm the tutors leave for the bus and ride home for lunch. The rest of the day is up to us!

P.S. The pictures are from the day we presented our play Snow White. Can you figure out who are the 7 dwarfs?