My creativity is definitely being put to the test! Right now we're doing numbers 1-50, counting and learning to write them. We've been doing them all week and we have them next week as well because the kids are taking forever to learn. Ok, so how many things can you do with 50 numbers? You might be surprised. Lots of counting, worksheets with all the numbers listed with some missing that they have to fill in, greater than/less than, go fish (or at least my version of it, because they have to be able to say the numbers!!! a favorite of [View Full Entry]

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Some Ecuador observations for ya... In the states the icecream truck is the one with music. Here it's the garbage truck. People can't put out their garbage early because the dogs will just go for it, so with the music they can tell when the truck is coming. It actually kinda makes sense, but the garbage song is really annoying! We know we've been here too long when we start humming the garbage song while walking down the street... PDA is rampant here in Ecuador, and I think in all of Latin America. I was actually kind of surprised. I expected [View Full Entry]

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Last Saturday (11th) was mostly just hanging out in Otavalo. We were going to go to Peguche because some people still hadn't been there, but it started pouring so we didn't go. Later on in the afternoon, Carly, Rosie and I went to the Cotocachi leather fair. We had heard there was something going on in Cotocachi (20 minutes away by bus) so we decided to check it out. Turns out it was their annual leather fair. So basically lines of stands selling stuff, some leather, some other random crap. We walked through them, but there wasn't really much to see. [View Full Entry]

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Thursday and Friday (April 9 and 10) were vacations from school because of Semana Santa, so Nicole, Troy, and I took advantage of the days off to climb Cotopaxi! It is a volcano south of Quito, the second highest in Ecuador at 5897 meters, 19,347 feet. Almost as high as Denali but definitely not as difficult! Wednesday evening we took a bus to Quito, had some dinner (a Thai restaurant!!!) and then went to bed. Thursday morning after an amazing pancake breakfast (they have every kind of food in Quito!) we went to the Moggely Climbing office to pick up our [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday (8th) at Larcacunga was fanesca day. Fanesca is the national dish for easter. It has 12 different kinds of beans/corn/chochos/havas/peanuts/other types of that kind of stuff (for the 12 apostles) and then also cream, fish, fried plantains, fried dough balls, tomatoes, onions, cheese, egg, all kinds of good stuff. It's essentially a stew. Then theres also mashed cheesy potatoes on the side. It's all basically amazingly delicious! Anyway, the moms at Larcacunga made it Wednesday for all the kids. We contributed a bunch of stuff and then each family brought stuff as well. For the first [View Full Entry]

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The kids have started bringing these massive ginormous bugs to school. I don't even know what kind they are but I am not a fan! Of course I'm not scared of them because that would give them even more reason to put them on my head and down my shirt and I this way I gain some respect because all the other volunteers are scared. But I'm still not a fan. They're massive! Like seriously as big as my fist sometimes! And they eat them too. Toasted... Yum... Katie left Wednesday April 1 which was really sad because she was probably [View Full Entry]

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Troy, Nicole, and I climbed Imbabura on Sunday (March 29) and it was definitely an adventure! We had to leave at 5 am, I think partially because they wanted to be back in time for the soccer game, but it was good that we left that early because we needed ALL day. We started from 3400 meters and summited at 4600. Our hike up was for the most part good. We started having warning signs about our guide's level of knowledge on the way up when we were bush-wacking through knee-high grass instead of going up the trail that we could [View Full Entry]

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Today was the last day for Maya, Susan, and Courteney at Larcacunga, which of course was sad. We're losing 3 of our Larcacunga family! We all bought matching scarves last week to wear to our weekly Wednesday potluck because ät Larcacunga, we're a family¨... When everyone was saying goodbye all the kids, of course, started asking when all the rest of us are leaving. Only 5 weeks left! That still sounds like a while though. None of the other volunteers who are here now will still be here when I leave! Weird... Next week our kids have exams every afternoon all [View Full Entry]

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If there's one thing that this trip has made me realize its that I LOVE kids! Especially all these Larcacunga ones! Yes, i often get frustrated with them, but then at other times i just want to hug them to death! I'm always so happy when we're up there. I definitely like just playing with them better than the actual teaching, but both parts are good. And I think I like teaching here better than I would in the states. Here we're there friends as well. We're encouraged to run around and play with them, tickle them, hug them, tease them, [View Full Entry]

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Maya, Aviv, and I went to Atacames for the weekend since pretty much everyone else was in Mindo. It's on the north west coast of Ecuador and is basically just a beach party town. It's really far away from Otavalo (9 hours on bus) but it was worth it. We took the bus Friday overnight so we were there by early Saturday morning. We took the bus to Quito, arriving at 9:30 so that we could get tickets for the last bus to Atacames, leaving at 11:30. We then had an hour and a half to kill. Not long enough to [View Full Entry]

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