Blogs from Otavalo, North, Ecuador, South America - page 10

Day 750 (18.04.09) It was distinctly possible that we'd leave the Otavalo market looking more like 80's weathermen than backpackers due to the mountains of brightly coloured llama covered jumpers on offer there. Thankfully our knitwear tastes are a lot more tame than those of the TV meteorologists of our childhoods but we nevertheless managed to overdose on woollen items in the short time that we spent there. We left Quito early and jumped on a bus to Otavalo, north of the city and normally around 2 hours drive away. It took longer than that today as we got held up by what looked like a large bike race on the winding mountain roads leading to the market town. We eventually arrived to find the market in full swing and set off to wander our way ... read more

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 hour and a half or so all the kids, a couple of the moms, and us peeled peas and beans and took corn off the cob. It of course involved mostly food fights, throwing the peels at eachother, in ... read more

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 week so mornings are going to be mostly review. I'm kinda really scared for these tests because the kids for sure don't know everything that they're supposed to. They really only started actually having real ... read more

Sunday (15) we got 4 more volunteers. All of them had been in Peru for 6 weeks so they've all taught before. 2 of them are at Larcacunga, Rosie and Kaitlyn. They will be taking over from Susan and Maya when they leave at the end of next week, so for these first 2 weeks they're team-teaching. Maya only has 3 kids so they don't really need 2 teachers, so Rosie is working with me. It's nice to have another teacher, but sometimes, when we have both of us and Lucila it almost seems like we could be better used elsewhere. But I guess it's always better for the kids to have more personal attention. Especially when they're learning somehting new that's somewhat challenging for them... Tuesday was the first day of subtraction for my second ... read more

Saturday (14) we spent the morning in the market. I actually bought some presents for people this time! Then at noon Kelsey, Katie, Betty, Maya, Aviv, and I got on a bus to Quito. We spent the later part of the afternoon wandering around Old Town a little, eating the biggest sandwiches of my life which were amazingly delicious with a really good sauce on them, and buying tickets for our evening adventure. We then met up with Tracey and Sophie to head to the Rumiñahui Stadium for the main reason for our visit to Quito. And guess what it was? A live Santana concert! Basically it was amazing! And spectacular! And anything else you can think of to describe it, it was that. Really really good! Santana is amazing live! He did a bunch of ... read more