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Published: March 4th 2010
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Patricia, Liz y Shari
Shari's maestra y la duena de la escuela de Espanol (Liz)Last Baños Entry
First off - we are far, far away from the terribly earthquake tragedy in Chile. WOW - this year so far has been one of the wildest, one of the most dangerous and deadly, weatherwise…hasn’t it? Snows, rains, flooding, earthquakes -- you think Mother Nature is not so happy with us?
Well…our last week here in Baños Agua de Santos is upon us. Already the girls are plotting their return. This is a really lovely, small and friendly place and we have to come to feel very comfortable here. “Quien sabe?” Perhaps we will return….travel to new and exciting places is very infectious and causes deep reflection of the important things…and the not-so-important things in life. We all certainly have a lot to reflect on.
The girls have had a very interesting time in their respective local schools. Of course, being there only for one-month, they weren’t required to do any school work and they did bring school work with them, from Bend, Oregon. It has been a bit of a struggle for them to stay motivated with their school work…but any CACO teachers that are reading this…please don’t fret too much and try not
Liz, Andy, y Patricia
La maestra de Andy (Liz) y Patricia to get too frustrated…the girls are learning so much about life and are growing in so many ways. As we have committed to making sure our children stay current with their academic requirements, we have also assumed that there may be some catching up to do when we return.
Nonetheless, we wouldn’t trade this for the world. Ansley walking herself up to this huge school and navigating her way around in the midst of everything being en Espanol; coming and going as she pleases in town. Making local and foreign friends. Getting more comfortable speaking Spanish. Marleigh making lots of new friends (“Mommy, I made lots of new friends, but I don’t know what they are saying”) and feeling a little more comfortable with her Spanish….both of them and all of us experiencing the day to day life here…and experiencing a little bit of some of the daily struggles…like not being able to find an opened supermarket….or enough food that they like/want eat…or realizing that mailing a postcard to a friend costs $2… or that animals are treated and valued very differently here.
Every day, we see so many struggling, hunched over, people - and struggling, hunched over
Actividades en La BIB
Playing 'Apples to Apples' (en Espanol) people hauling huge loads of stuff - and never complaining…I don’t think we’ll even know or realize the impact of this journey, or the things we’ve learned until much later.
Then there’s all this new and weird food, lots of fruit and veg…seeing hamsters (cuy) in the pet stores…not for pets mind you, but for food. It seems like everyday there is a new experience to be had - a new smell, a new sight or a new situation. How this all broadens one’s perspective!
Ansley is working on a very interesting project related to the forced evacuation of Baños in October 1999. Mama Turungahua was in a particularly feisty mood and because of that, the then president of Ecuador ordered the entire city to be evacuated. He apparently promised the residents all sorts of things…..but the saga of late 1999 through 2000 is apparently ‘un año negro’ en Baños. Ansley interviewed Alfonso Morales, who at the time was a city counsel member and was instrumental in organizing the re-entry of the residents.
What that story and other stories we hear about demonstrate to us is that the ‘vida aqui’ and throughout all of Latin America is so
Leaf Cutter Ants
Leaf cutter ants in Mera very, very different than our life in the United States. You see it, even on the youngest faces of the residents here. There is a burden of life here and a certain resignation to the daily difficulties. With that comes a bigger burden, a need to grow up faster - with more responsibility, and more independence than children in the U.S. have - and of course a much larger risk for sickness, injury and death.
A representative from the local civil defense came to the BIB to talk with the children about preparations for an earthquake (WOW --- just the day before the massive earthquake in Chile). He was advising them to stand under a support or door, in the event of an earthquake and if they were unable to get outside to the courtyard. Andy and I looked at each other with considerable doubt…the concrete blocks and construction here (and throughout Latin America) is about that of paper mache. The bricks crumble so easily that in an earthquake of relatively low magnitude, buildings would easily crumble. Does that make us worry? I suppose….but ‘Esta es la vida aqui… y… estamos aqui’ (‘This is the life here…and…we are here’).
La Cima de La Virgen
We all climbed up the 600 steps to the top of the vista The week after the ‘gran circo de titeres’ ended (okay…fess up…how many of you loaded up the huge video to watch the entire show???) things were very, very quiet at the BIB. Not too many children showed up. Andy and I started the photography classes and will do more next week. I also held an activity making paper beads out of strips of magazine paper.
On Saturday, February 27th, we took a trip to a wildlife rescue center in the town of Mera. The name of the organization is called “Merazonia”. You can read about it here: http://www.merazonia.org/
It was a very interesting experience (we went there with a former volunteer) and quite different than the monkey refuge in Puyo. At Merazonia, the hope is to release those animals that can be released, back into the wild. Therefore, the staff discourages too much human interaction. Still, we got to touch a baby wooly monkey, see tamarin monkeys up close and see a 3-week old capuchin, being nursed 24/7 by the vet. We help build a piece of a muddy trail and soaked in the ‘Rio Tigre’.
As we walked out of the jungle (it was a
½ hour hike in and out to the place, crossing over this crazy, ½ broken down bridge (ah-hum study the photo), and while we were waiting for our taxi (truck taxi), a black cat appeared. There aren’t that many cats around here - mostly dogs….lots of dogs…lots of dogs without collars…without shots…without being neutered or spayed….this black kitty was very friendly and the girls really enjoyed him. As we snacked on our yucca chips (kind of like potato chips), the kitty decided it wanted some too. So Marleigh fed the kitty yucca chips and decided that the kitty’s name should be “Yuca”.
Well, we finally made it as a family, first up to ‘La Virgen’ (the hike) and then over to the ‘piscinas’…aguas termales - La Virgen. At first the girls didn’t want to go, but as Baños is named Baños because of the hot, steamy baths (thermals from the volcano), we figured we’d better have this experience before we left. Lovely…absolutely lovely…there are four or five different pools, located throughout the town. You pay your $1 or $2, then get a plastic tub to put your stuff in, you get a wrist band, take a shower and then
BIB kids
What a great place and what a great bunch of children go from pool to pool. There’s the HOT pool, the tepid pool and the REALLY COLD pool. We stayed there for about an hour, enjoying the pools, the people and of course, the scenery.
We had the pleasure of having one of the local folks here (Marcial) take us up and around in his Toyota land cruiser. He took us up this dirt road up, and up and up and up and…we tried hard not to look down as he went up over these steep and narrow switchbacks…up to the top at the antennas - probably at around 10,000 feet in elevation. Then to his property, where he is cultivating ‘arboles de tomates’. What an exciting morning we had and just the drive up, with the altitude, dust, and diesel left us tired and headachy….
We have begun to pack up our belongings and are giving away lots of things we no longer need. I have not had any luck selling the violin, but perhaps in Cuenca. We are hoping to leave our largest suitcase here (empty, of course) and consolidate the rest. As we enter into Peru, perhaps we will even have less stuff to worry about.
Typical view of Banos
Typical view of Banos from our apartment with Mama Tungurahua spouting off some ash. I believe our journey will shift as we travel south. We hope, after a few weeks of travel, to land in Arequipa for awhile and settle into new digs. We are working on finding an appropriate project for us all there - and if the weather, roads and opportunity allows - we hope to get to Cuzco and to Machu Pichu.
We hope this travel blog finds you all healthy and well….I'm a little on the low energy side and either ate or drank something funky (not hard to do). Oh well, ' es la vida aqui'. We’ll report on our last few days in Banos and our upcoming bus adventure to Cuenca in our next email.
Ciao - La Familia Dunning
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Cynthia
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the blog
Thanks, Shari for keeping this up....it's so interesting. After all, it's not the arrival that is formulative but the journey to get there. Enjoy. Cynthia