To Market, To Market

I am sorry this is a week late! This week I'm posting 2 entries because I never got around to putting this one online last week. I wrote this all last week though, so bare with me if it is a bit confusing. On Saturday morning my host dad dropped me off at the bus station at 5:30am so that I could catch a bus to Quito. I wanted to meet up with my friend Mark from the coast because he and his housemate were only going to be in the area for the weekend. They planned on taking a day trip to the market down of Otavalo on Saturday, and they were kind enough to let me tag along. Mark's friend Peter is from England and is studying in Ecuador for 5 months for his major in Spanish...then he will be off to study in France to complete his French requirements. Peter and Mark happen to live in the same house in Santa Elena, and they were a ton of fun to hang out with over the weekend. I love Eden and Aubrey to death, but I was beginning to miss some quality time with guy friends! So, I met the boys in La Marsical, our old stomping grounds in Quito, for a big American breakfast on Saturday morning before we headed to Mark's old Quito host family's house. Now, I had heard about this family for weeks during orientation and about how wonderful they are, so it was great to actually get to meet them! We took a tour of the house and the roof had the most amazing panoramic view of the entire city.

The family is just so incredibly generous and welcoming. They told me that their house is my house and that I am welcome there whenever I would like. I know I'll definitely take them up on their offer in the future. The family includes the parents Marci and Miguel, their children Miguelito, Vivi, and Javier (ages range from early 20ish to early 30s), Vivi's husband, and their beautiful 3-month-old baby girl, Estefania. We all pitched in to make lunch, and I finally learned how to make one of my favorite Ecua dishes- bolas de verde. The steps include mashing up green bananas (cousins of yellow bananas), cupping the mush in your hands to make a bowl, inserting ground beef, corn, onions, and eggs, and then closing up the ball with some more mush. The ball is then placed into the broth while it cooks...sooo tasty! We had a traditional Ecuadorian feast for lunch, before Mark, Peter, and Miguel (Mark's host dad) took us to Otavalo.

Miguel grew up in Otavalo and his parents still live there, so he goes there almost every week. It's about a 2-hour bus ride north from Quito, so we arrived around 4:30pm. Otavalo is famous for having the largest market in South America- the vendors practically take over all the streets and squares in the town. Behind Quito and the Galapagos islands, it is the most frequented tourist site in the country. I went to the Otavalo market last year and bought a painting of an indigenous little girl that I had hanging in my bedroom all this past year. Little did I know when I bought it that I would be back to the market so soon! But since we arrived so late, the market was beginning to shut down and people were packing up their goods. We did have enough time, though, for Peter to buy an original Panama Hat (if you thought they were just from Panama...think again! Ecuador is famous for them as well) and Mark bought a bunch of Christmas presents. I somehow restrained myself from buying anything because I am going to go Christmas shopping in the market town of Salasaca outside of Ambato during their festivals in December. One of the highlights of Saturday, though, was meeting up with our friend Anita! Anita is the Australian who was with Mark and I during our mountain incident in September. Since we last saw her, she has spent 4 weeks in the Galapagos and now has been in Otavalo for 2 weeks taking Spanish classes and volunteering. It was so great to see her and to catch up. It's amazing how Ecuador really does feel so small sometimes...and I guess in reality it is!

Miguel took us to his parents' house for bread and tea, and they were the cutest little old people I have ever seen. They were so sweet and caring, and they each looked like they were about 110 years old. They have 10 children, though, so that no doubt that has given them some extra wrinkles. Then we turned on the soccer game and watched the first half of the Ecuador-Paraguay game, which did not get off to a good start (we ended up losing). We left around 8pm to catch the bus back to Quito so that we could meet up with the other WT vols in the city that night. Sure enough, though, after about an hour on the bus, the bus stopped and we sat there for about 30 minutes. Finally we found out that there was a roadblock because the following day happened to be the Festival of the Virgin of Quinche (another name for Blessed Mary). That meant that hundreds of devotees were walking in the streets throughout the night to make a pilgrimage to this holy site where apparently many Ecuadorians have been cured of various ailments. And of course it had to be the same night I was traveling south to Quito...I am cursed with weird bus luck apparently. So we ended up having to turn the bus around and return to Otavalo and we stayed at Miguel's parents' house for the night. Always an adventure!
I really wouldn't have minded this change of plans at all if I didn't already have plans early Sunday morning in Ambato. I had planned on taking an early bus back so that I could meet up with Dan to go to our director's house in the country for the day. Sadly, I never made it back in time to go. I was really bummed to miss going to his house, but I know we will reschedule for another time.

On Monday morning I took my third visit to my student Marco's school to work on English with the children there. This time 4 of the English teachers observed my classes so that they could learn techniques on teaching English. All I could think the whole time was how I felt so unqualified for such a role, but they all seemed to really like many of the "total language" techniques that WT teaches its volunteers. I try to never use Spanish in my classroom and I use a lot of pictures on the board and acting out in class, which they seemed to find helpful! So it was nice to be able to share some of my teaching experiences with them, and hopefully they will feel more confident teaching English in their own classrooms now.

The rest of this week has been busy with classes and Thanksgiving preparations. In class we learned about house vocabulary and place prepositions such as behind, across, under, to the left, etc. Today, though, we had a Thanksgiving celebration because I canceled classes for tomorrow for Thanksgiving Day. I prepared a worksheet with the history of Thanksgiving, current Thanksgiving Day customs, and of course a menu for the feast! I even brought in photos of Thanksgiving food and from my own family Thanksgivings of the past to share with my class, and they really seemed to enjoy them (especially the photos of American football!). I was really touched because the students in my night class surprised me with turkey sandwiches for the whole class, because they knew how much I love the holiday. The generosity of people in this country never fails to amaze me. Finally, this morning Aubrey and I finished getting the ingredients for our Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow night...and we will be in the kitchen pretty much all day getting everything ready. I can't wait to see what all the Ecuadorians think about Thanksgiving, and especially of all the food. Full report to come on that next week.

I will certainly be missing all my family and friends back home tomorrow! Just know that I am thinking about you all and that I hope you all have a fabulous holiday. Gobble Gobble!