A Rather Large Update

Lovely view in the market.

Mi escuela!


Typical midday snack.


Los castillos de Corpus Christi


Cajas


An old brewery!

Molly going through one of the many ecosystems we passed through.


Fields in the valley below.


The entire group looking quite attractive.
(Molly, me, Arthur, Reed, Scott, Zander)


Reed and I in the back of the truck on the ride back into Cuenca.


My only photo from Saturday night. Note the jerseys, and the headphones, and the moving hand indicating dancing.


View from Andacocha




Monday night. This was the highlight of the night. For me.


Just today with the girls, Mikaela and Anabel.

Hola queridos.

Sorry it´s been a little bit since I´ve updated... let´s see if I can recount everything that´s happened since my last update.

Saturday we went to Cajas National Park! It was incredibly beautiful, and we only saw a small portion of it. The weather wasn´t bad, but it was really really wet because of the rain previously. Our sendero (trail) was basicially a stream for half the way. We were all completely muddy and ridiculous looking by the end. It was a really difficult trail also, but a lot of fun. We probably hiked for about 3 hours or so. We had a bus take us there, and Narcisa´s (our director) son, Juan, took us and acted as ¨guide¨. We didn´t have a ride arranged for the ride home, but we managed to jump in the back of some American´s pickup and they drove us back into Cuenca. Mayra, my spanish teacher and the host mom of Scott (he has asbergers and speaks zero spanish, so he needed a family who spoke english and could really help him) picked all of us up and drove us to the stadium. We all bought Deportivo de Cuenca jerseys and tickets for the night´s game.
After the stadium we all walked home, ate, showered, and then headed off to our school for some pregame action. OH! This entire past weekend since Friday has been dry(of alcohol) because on Sunday the country had elections. You should all know, and be very proud of me, because I was able to convince a middle aged woman to sell me a big bottle of Zhumir (the local sweet cheap liquor) even though it was illegal. Everyone else had foresight and bought entertainment in advance, but luckily my spanish is good enough that it was all ok! Once we were all pumped and in matching jerseys we made our way to the stadium and the game was a blast. And Cuenca won! Woohoo! Dale! Dale! Tenemos que ganar!! Haha... After the stadium we went back to our school (they let us have the keys and the alarm code) and hung out.

On Sunday we went to Baños, a sort of suburb of Cuenca with hotsprings! It was only me, Reed, Arthur, and Zander who went. It was really really nice, we almost had the termas to ourselves, but there were two old men there as well, but they left us alone. That was all we did Sunday, I think. The rest of my time was spent at home, napping, and... napping. And watching TV. I´ve gotten in the habit of watching music videos late at night. Avril Lavigne is popular here, as is Pink, and Britney Spears, and of course a good dose of Reggaeton and more traditional music.

Yesterday (Monday), we didn´t have class, but we did have a field trip! We went to a famous pilgrimage site in Ecuador. El Señor de Andacocha, was a miraculous image of christ that was found up high on a hill. The people of the town tried three times to take it to the church in the town below, but it kept finding it´s way back on the hill. They decided if that´s where it wanted to stay, they would just build a chapel around it. Originally a site where people of the land would go to ask for help with their animals and land, it´s since turned into an incredibly important part of the migrants journey. Migrants, much like in Mexico, account for a huge amount of Ecuador´s revenue. Since the 80´s, and especially right around 2000 (in line with a major Economic crisis), millions of Ecuadorians went to New York, Queens specifically. Right here in the province of Azuay and Cañar is where most of the migrants are from. The networks were created way back when with the Panama Hat traders (which are made here in Cuenca, not Panama), and those links never died and that´s one of the reasons migrants are able to leave from here so (relatively) easily... So today migrants will go before their journey to be blessed, and families will make the journey to give thanks if their son/husband/daughter made it safely to the states.
Anyways, we did the traditional hike up the hill to the chapel (which is big and beautiful due to remittances from migrants) and it took an hour, and it was pretty brutal. The sendero was once again muddy and steep, but a whole lot of fun. I was definitely drenched in sweat by the time we made it to the top. When we were done I decided to run down and I made it back in twenty minutes flat. Woohoo! After Andacocha I went home, made hot chocolate, showered, and then rushed to school for salsa class. It was absolutely pouring though, and by the time I got to school I was soaked. Class lasted for three hours though! It was so much fun. Our instructor, Pancho, is ridiculously good. I always get to dance with him one-on-one after class has officially ended, and that´s when I have the most fun. It´s funny though, he´s really short, and for certain moves you have to be really close and the guy is holding you from behind, and his face is in my shoulders. Hahah. But even so, he makes it work and we dance up a storm. I really really enjoy dancing and I hope I can continue with it... unfortunately I doubt salsa exists in Baja (at least not in Todos Santos. hah) so I´ll just have to buy cds and practice by my lonesome self.
After salsa yesterday I went home for dinner and had delicious food, as always, and then Olga and I just hung out in her room and talked and watched TV. The whole group went out last night together just for a little bit, but I was home early and in bed by midnight or so. We have salsa again this evening. I can´t wait. And tomorrow we have another field trip to paint a mural with some school kids. I don´t really know why or where or anything, but I´m sure it´ll be fun. I can talk to kids easier than I can talk to adults. Haha.

We´re taking Friday off of classes to have a three day weekend at the beach! We leave Thursday as soon as our classes are done for a 6 hour+ bus ride to Montañitas, a really popular beach for young people. The whole group is going, even Scott. Mayra (his mom and my teacher and the school´s owner) hired a local guy to go with us to keep an eye on Scott so that we all can have our fun without having to feel like we´re babysitting. He really is pretty clueless about many social things.. we noticed him carrying around about 200 dollars the other day and we all freaked out and told him there was no reason to carry so much money. The next day he had about 80 and got mad at us when we told him that was still too much... So, we´re nervous about him going with us. We like him to be included, but it´s also dificult because he just needs help with things, especially since his spanish is minimal, and it can just be frustrating when you´re trying to have fun and you have to stop every other minute to translate or explain what´s happeneing to him or tell him how much he needs to pay for things and he can´t take a cab alone and he can´t walk anywhere alone because he has no sense of direction... It´s kind of sad, because his parents and our school didn´t tell anyone here what to expect. We don´t know if it´s ok that he drinks (he´s 22), and if so, how much. What sort of things we can expect him to do on his own... Everyone is upset with the school and the lack of communication, because now all the burden is on us students, and our teachers here who had no idea even what asperbergers was. And now I think Scott is suffering because we never know when to invite him to certain things and when would be best for him to do something else.

Anyways, right now I´m really tired, sore, a teensy bit sunburned, hungry, and irritated that I can´t rotate my images. That means there´s a ton of images I´m just not going to upload because neither the computer nor blogspot will rotate... and it´s frustrating... Oh, also, just so you guys know, I haven´t photographed absolutely everything we´ve done. A lot of our group photos we´ve taken on only one camera for simplicity´s sake, but don´t worry. Photos will be exchanged and shared...

But I did get an A in spanish for these first 4 credits! WOOHOO! Take that Cecilia Benenati! You horrible horrible woman who ruined my freshman year and forever taints my transcript... It´s ok. I forgive her. I learned a lot from that experience... Don´t. Trust. Argentinians. Ever.

Chao, amores.