27 June, 2007: Matthew
So if you have looked at any of our pictures, you´ll see that we are completely surrounded by beautiful hills and mountains. This has not passed by the attention of local kids any more than the joy of riding a bicycle has - and so when you put the two together this makes for a great place for mountain biking. Carlos, the older of the two boys that we live with, utterly lives and breaths to hitch a ride in a camioneta (flatbed truck, among other moving vehicles) to the top of anywhere and ride back down from the highest point that can be achieved. These kids come from a big family, and so Carlos has a choice of some 30 cousins who live nearby to accompany him no less. Yesterday the cousins scored me an old borrowed bike from somewhere so that I could join them on a trip down the mountain. The views at the top were wonderful and the route was plenty challenging - especially as my rear brake worked marginally well at best. I took my tumble early on, so I was better aquainted with my bike the rest of the time (which means I slowed it down a bit). I can only imagine how those trails would get more and more fun as the days go by with getting to know the trail, and riding a real mountain bike... with real brakes.
So last night we go out for dinner with the family to this little restaurant that serves typical high country food near Yoli´s dentistry office when she got off work. We walk in and secured the biggest table there, as we are a family of six now, and Yoli (the mom that´s ¨in charge¨) goes up to the ordering area to make orders for everyone. We have learned that it is pretty strong in the culture here to have a bowl of soup as the first course of a meal, and the menu suggested that the meal following would consist of chicken, rice, and potatos; rice, potatoes and chicken; or rice, chicken and potatoes. We´re all sitting comfortably at the table and chatting about the day: Carlos excitedly explaining to his mom how I did three flips in the air before hitting the ground while mountain biking with him earlier that afternoon (not really, mom) and Marcos trying to find ways to interupt his brother, etc. stuff like that. They bring soups out, and I notice that Nina has what looks like the end of a drumstick sticking out of the side of her bowl. As Nina has been pushed to a whole new world of limits since in Ecuador with regards to what meals she will participate in that have certain given animal parts in them, I lean over to her and joke with her saying that I´m glad she got the chicken foot and not me. She laughs and we all start to dig into our soup. I´d say maybe two bites later I am jolted with muffled shreaks, and deffinate tears coming from Nina indicating that she had picked up the other end of the ¨drumstick¨ in her bowl only to reveal that it was indeed the rest of the foot/claws of the chicken. Nina did amazingly, remarkably, marvelously well in calming herself and politely handing off the morsel to another more willing family member. The remainder of the meal was an uneventful medly of chicken, rice and potatoes.
24 de Junio, 2007: Nina
Well, not a lot of time to write now. We have to get back to the house for our 8:00 dinner. Sometimes dinner is even as late as 9:00! But we wanted to say a few things about our week here in Otavalo. It has been awesome. To start, we have the best family in Ecuador to live with. Dad Marcos, Mom Yolli, 13 yr. old Carlos and 10 yr. old Marcito (little Marcos) have made us feel completely at home and part of the family. They each have their distinct personalities and we adore each of them. We have so much fun laughing and joking around at the kitchen table. Most of the jokes are on Matthew, but he can dish it back pretty good too. They like to tease me about my inibility to look at the heads of animals hanging around in the markets, or the roasted guniea pig in the oven. ¨La cabeza para Nina!¨ says Marcito- the joke never got old.
Last night we celebrated the first night in a week long annual festival here in Otavalo. It is a Pagen turned Catholic festival (by the Spaniards), that they call the festival of San Juan (St. John). Matthew, Marcos, and Marcito, all dressed up in animal skin pants, wore silly masks, and danced in the parades! I think Matthew loaded some of the pictures on to Picasa today, go check them out, you can´t miss ém!
Ok, we will write more later! One of the reasons we haven´t been keeping up with the blog as much is because we have so much fun hanging out with the family, we dont feel like walking all the way to town to use the computer! We will work on that...
But for now, adios!
18 de Junio, 2007: Nina
Well, it´s good to be back in Latin America! Our visit to the states was great- sorry we didn´t get to see everyone that we would have liked to see, but it was really good to spend time with our family and at least see most of our friends!
It took us almost 20 hours to get to Ecuador, because our itinerary included a 10 hour layover in LA! But, we couldn´t have been more thankful for it because it allowed us to see a good friend of ours and meet his wife for the first time. We went to dinner with Daniel and Victoria and some of their friends, (hi to Donny, Carlos, and Lydia!) for Daniel´s birthday. It was super fun hanging out, catching up, and reminiscing about the old days. Haha.
Within our first 24 hours in Quito, we felt welcomed back to our beloved Latin culture as we couldn´t help but notice many familiar aspects that made us feel "at home". For example, we were pleased to find that Ecuadorians love ice cream just as much as Central Americans, indicated by just about 1 in 3 people walking around licking cones (only a slight exageration), the many heladarias (ice cream shops), the cold cases of little "novelties" as we call them in the states, and the road side ice cream carts and walking vendors. Another great love, even greater than ice cream, is Zapatarias. Shoe stores. You would not believe how many shoe stores exist here. No joke, there are probably 3 or more shoe stores per block, on each side of the street... on every block! It´s incredible, and it is similar to Central America. I guess that would mean they really love shoes, but I don´t know because they only wear one at a time and I have not seen inside their closets. All I notice is the gazillions of shoe stores, so that is my conclusion.
Now, one thing we noticed, that is different from Central America, and from the United States for that matter, is that there must be a lot of winners here because we saw several trophy shops within a 5 by 5 block area. Hey, thats cool.
14 June, 2007: Matthew
Wow, this has been a very full and busy month... and updating information has not always made it to the top of the priority list. At this point Nina and I are looking to head to the airport in about 45 minutes to start our journey to Ecuador. We're feeling pretty good, excited, and mostly packed up. There were only a few traded items to pack and we're on the way.