Okay, so I’ve been slacking on the blogging recently, and I’m sorry. We’ve had a lot of things going on these past few weeks (including me starting grad school applications), so I haven’t had much time to write. But here goes my attempt to make up for it.
Another note, we went to the beach two weekends ago, but I’ll write about that trip in a separate post.
Things in Cuenca
Ecuadorians have a special food tradition for All Saint's Day, which of course was November 1. All over the country people make and eat "Guaguas de Pan" (bread babies in a mixure of Spanish and Quichua) and Colada Morada (or Purple colada).
The babies kinda reminded me of king cake at Epiphany/Mardi Gras, and the Colada was amazing! It was made from all different kind of fruits and is really complicated apparently. I'll have to try to find a recipe and make it, but a lot of the fruits can't be found outside Ecuador. Bummer...November 3 is the celebration of the Independence of Cuenca, so there was a lot going on that weekend. We went out of town (to the beach... see other post to come) for most of the weekend, but we did get to see President Correa speak and some of the festivities on Tuesday night, including dancing and singing and lots of traditional Ecuadorian celebrations. It was the most tame celebration, because everyone had to go to work the next day. Apparently Thursday through Monday nights were pretty crazy in Cuenca, but we were out of town, so we had no idea.
Last weekend we mainly hung around town, washing clothes and doing other chores. Sunday for lunch we to Paute (a town about an hour and a half by bus from Cuenca) because they supposedly have the best hornado in the area. Hornado is essentially just pulled pork - and they pull it off the pig right in front of you. It was really good, but I think mainly because of the sauce - tomatoes, onions, and cilantro in vinegar. Hornado is also traditionally served with llapingachos, which are pretty much just fried mashed potato cakes. So good...
The bus ride to Paute was one of the more interesting aspects of the trip. In Cuenca, people are generally used to Americas (or white people) being around, so they might stare at you a little but not too much. However, I guess the people on the bus to Paute had never seen a white person before, ever. They stared at Slocomb and me like we had lobsters crawling out of our ears (to quote one of my favorite movies - A Christmas Story). It was quite uncomfortable. Also, the bus stopped about every 10 minutes or so to pick people up or drop people off on the way to Paute. It was weird because most of the people that got on after we left Cuenca stood in the aisle. Slocomb and I have learned to prefer the back of the buses because people are less likely to stand back there.
We finally got our uniforms for school on Friday, so I’m very excited about that. I don’t have any pictures yet, but it is essentially a black track suit with aqua sleeves and accents. We also have a grey t-shirt (i bought two) and polo shirt. I’m excited because it means I don’t have to wear my own clothes to school every day. At least two days a week, I have something else to wear!
Friday night we had dance class where Slocomb and I worked some more on dancing together. We essentially have a private class because none of the other international teachers want to take dance classes. We’re working on the meringue right now before moving on to salsa. Slocomb and I still need to work a lot more on our dancing because we have very different styles of dancing. Mine is mostly influenced by the ballet classes I took when I was young, meaning that I take small steps and try to be very light on my feet. Slocomb on the other hand played basketball when he was young, so he’s good with the footwork, but not so good with the artistry of dance. And then there’s the problem that I don’t exactly like to follow... but we’re working through that. Hopefully this week we’ll get some time to practice...
Party bus/tour (and aborted trip Thursday)
Saturday morning I went to a birthday party for one of my students. Apparently, he specifically asked that I and the national kindergarten teacher, Vero, come to the party. I was actually very honored, so I decided to go. Turns out that it was a good thing because there were about 40 kids there and only the birthday boy’s parent and grandparents in addition to a couple of teachers. Also, there is a new student in the kindergarten class who only speaks English, so I spent most of the time with him (since I was the only adult who spoke English). We all went to a movie - The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - and then to KFC for a small snack and cake. The movie was in Spanish, but either my Spanish has gotten really good (unlikely) or TMNT is the same in any language (more likely). It ended up being sort of like another day at school in that I was supervising lots of kids, but it was a lot better because I didn’t have to try to teach anything or be in charge. It was also fun to see my students in their ‘natural environment’ - meaning not in a classroom.
Today we went to the international food fair at the Mall del Río. They had food from all over, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Spain, Taiwan, Japan, and a bunch of other places. Interestingly, the United States table was all desserts. A lot of people think that there’s no such thing as traditional American food, but they could have had hamburgers or hotdogs or (even better) turkey and dressing and other sorts of Thanksgiving foods. Either than or the American-Eucadorians have figured out why Americans have such weight problems - the really traditional American foods are all cakes and pies!
We ended up spending a good bit (on Ecuadorian standards - $16) on food there, and everything was good except the paella. I didn’t think that it was that bad, but Slocomb (having lived in Spain and having eaten lots of real paella) thought it was gross. But it was a fundraiser for the cancer society, so it was worth it.
We walked around the mall a little bit afterwards, and it was all very similar to American malls (including the prices...). There weren’t any stores specifically that I recognized, but it was mostly clothes and toys and other quasi-luxury items. I don’t really plan on shopping there, but it was interesting to see.
After the mall, we went up to the University of Cuenca to meet up with some of our co-workers to play racquetball. Slocomb played with Pepe and Jonathan (who apparently used to play competitively)... Pepe is sick, so he was dragging a little bit, and it was only Slocomb’s second time playing racquetball ever, so Jonathan pretty much cleaned the floor with them. But its really good exercise and its always nice to hang out with our Cuencano friends.
I went swimming while the guys were playing racquetball. I only swam about 1200m - not a whole lot for me, but considering that I haven’t worked out really at all since we got to Ecuador, it was pretty good. Towards the end of my workout, there were these guys, probably about 20-ish who got in the pool and were horseplaying like crazy. The first indication of trouble was that they all dove into the 4-foot pool. Not smart. And then they were just swimming across the pool the short way (so opposite the lap swimmers) and getting in people’s way. One actually ran straight into me while I was swimming a lap. So I decided to intimidate them a little and swim a few lengths of butterfly (the international don’t mess with me stroke). They left me alone after that, and one of the other patrons told me that I was a very good swimmer. I haven’t really thought of myself as a good swimmer since I got to college because I’ve always been surrounded by friends who are better than I am (and working out with some of the swim team was bound to give me a complex), but I was definitely the best swimmer in the pool today. While it seems like a good few people swim for exercise, it was clear that no one had ever swam competitively. I guess when there are only one or two lap-sized pools in the city, swim team becomes somewhat impossible. Just an interesting cultural thing - in a town where people could definitely afford to participate in competitive swimming, they all pretty much prefer to play soccer. I wonder if I could make some money on the side teaching swimming... Not that I have the time...
That’s pretty much all that’s been going on recently in Cuenca. We also went to Playas during the long Fiestas de Cuenca weekend, but I’ll write about that in a separate post. We are also planning a trip to Otavalo (north of Quito - actually in the northern hemisphere) for my birthday in a couple of weeks. And we’re planning to have a big Thanksgiving party for our co-workers, mainly because I want to have Thanksgiving food and the only way I’m going to get it is to fix it! So lots of fun things coming up.
Funny kid story to make you laugh: There is this one preschooler who loves drinking water. Like loves it. If there’s not a cup handy, he will put his mouth straight onto the spigot out of the big 5 gallon jug and drink it that way (gross - and I’m trying to work on this habit with him). The consequence of him drinking all of this water is that he has to pee all of the time. So one time last week, he had a cup in his hand (probably because he had just had a bunch of water) and was literally 3 feet from the bathroom when he realized he had to go. I guess he didn’t think he could make it (or wasn’t aware how close he was to the bathroom), so I ended up catching him peeing into the drinking cup. I helped him to the bathroom and made him pour out the contents of his cup, but while I was flushing, he was already back at the water jug filling the cup up again!!! So I took the cup away and tried to explain to him that he couldn’t drink out of the cup that he had just peed into. He was quite skeptical of my hygienic suggestions, but he was okay once I got him a new cup. Lord only knows what he did with the new cup. Sometimes these kids crack me up...
