Tamara: la Viajera

Early departure....

2011-06-23T16:20:00.000-07:00

Buenas,

My apologies for the long delay in posting but the delay came in part because after agonizing over the decision all of last week I decided to return back home a couple of weeks early. So this past weekend I traveled into Managua as planned but instead of heading north to study more Spanish I changed my flight and flew home on Sunday. I am not going to get into the details of the decision here since I sincerely believe that blogs are not really public journals so if you are interested in more info please feel free to call me or send me an email.

But, I did do some more interesting things before departing so here is one last post along with some photos!

Last Thursday afternoon, my fellow students and I decided to make an afternoon trip into the city of Granada. At one time I had been thinking about doing a week of study in Granada but since I was planning to go north I wanted to at least get in to see the place. Granada is touted as the most beautiful city in Nicaragua and it certainly has very impressive colonial architecture. It is situated on the gigantic Lago Nicaragua and for a time was the national capital. It was also frequently burned to the ground in the past by pirates since it's location on the lake makes it accessible via the Rio San Juan to the ocean, and thus, was a central trading hub - and apparent bull's eye for pirate pyromaniacs!

After waiting a quite long time to hail a cab from the middle of nowhere (we were told it was easy to pick one up and then told it was near to impossible....but thankfully the locals helped us out with a phone call!), we made it to the city where we spent a few hours wandering around, seeing the sights, and treating ourselves to some non-traditional food at a restaurant (hummus....yummy.). Granada is also very touristy so I saw the largest number of gringos that I had seen in some time.

Here are some photos from Granada:

Some fellow students: Emil (from Denmark), Ali (USA), and taking the pic, TJ (from Australia)

The next day I left the Laguna and headed for Managua where I met up with Jes Buller, a '08 GC grad! She was in town doing orientation with the MCC SEED program which she now co-coordinates in Colombia. We ended up doing some sight-seeing with the SEED group as we visited. It was delightful to see her.

We hit up the standard views in Managua which included the empty and somewhat run down National Cathedral, the Palace, and a mountain top view of the city where a large silhouette statue of Sandino stands. Managua's city center was destroyed by an earthquake in 1972 and has never been rebuilt so it is a bit of a stark city and not particularly beautiful but here are a few photos from my two days there. Oh, and one of the bus terminal in Masaya that I bused through en route to Managua:

Sandino and a view of Lago Managua with distant volcanoes

The national cathedral (has not been restored since devastating earthquake)

Well, I guess until my new travel adventure - this is la Viajera signing off!

Be well!

La Laguna

2011-06-14T16:37:00.000-07:00

After a number of days without access to the internet, our electricity is finally on at the same time as the interet is working!! I am now almost finished my second day of studying Spanish at the Laguna de Apoyo but I have been at the lake now for 4 days. I came to this gorgeous volcanic crater lake on Saturday already with the Goshen SST crew to finalize details for 3 student service sites and then spend some time lounging and enjoying the lake.

Swimming in the lake is phenomenal. It is cool enough to be refreshing but stunningly warm to this Canadian´s touch. The water is clear and at points you can see quite far below the surface. Jen, Lisa, and I went for a night swim after we were convinced by locals that the hundreds of fish we could see by the dock lights would not in fact swarm us upon entry into the water! We conquered our squeamishness and had a lovely dip. On Sunday, the students also came out and joined us for a day at the lake.

I then said farewell to the SST group and struck out on my own although still at the same location. My spanish school is at an ecological research station and it is VERY rustic. I confess that it is a little less exciting than I had imagined and I have decided not to stay for two weeks here. It is beautiful, there are howler monkeys howling in the distance as I type (and I have seen a number of these monkeys in the trees) but I am feeling restless and have decided to head north to the city of Esteli for my next two weeks. The GC students highly recommended it and I´m excited about cooler mountain air. It has been very humid here and while sleeping has not been too bad, I think that a week of this will be enough.

Here are some photos from around the station:

The daily swim continues to be lovely and tomorrow we will make an excursion to a look out over the lake and a small town that is known for its ceramics. I already visited San Juan del Oriente on Friday with the students but I will be happy to return again. This will probably be my last blog post until I am established in Esteli since the internet service here is so spotty.

Hasta luego!

Street Scenes

2011-06-09T19:14:00.000-07:00

Without having the luxury of photographic support, here are a couple of observations from the streets here in Jinotepe:

Cambistas:
Yesterday afternoon, Austin, one of the GC students, helpfully showed us the way to the main market where we could change our American dollars into the Nicaraguan cordoba at one of the many 'cambistas' that station themselves at the street corners. These men stand with large wads of cash in their hands, often waving the bills at passersby as they solicit business. 22.5 cordobas buy you one American dollar so you can imagine that changing money can lead to very full wallets.

Funeral Observances:
As a couple of us were returning from the afternoon lecture (Goshen students study Spanish in the morning and then often have an afternoon lecture on a variety of subjects), we noticed a procession passing a few blocks ahead. In place of our kind of limo-hearse, there was a small pick up truck with a coffin placed in the back. It processed through the streets slowly as the mourners followed behind on foot.

Whistles in the night:
Our first two nights in the country were quite quiet and pleasant. Nicaraguans have a penchant for fireworks so other than occasional blasts sounding off, the night has not been too noisy. Last night however, our attempts at falling asleep were interrupted by shrill whistles from out on the street. These whistles would continue for a number of blasts followed by silence until another round of blasts sounded again. When I looked out the window, I saw what looked like our hotel's night security guard pacing the street with a rifle slung over one shoulder and a whistle in his mouth. After a number of sleepless hours, I finally made my way downstairs around 1:30 a.m. and I guess the hotel staff asked him to stop because thankfully silence soon followed. I'm hoping for a quieter night tonight!

Arrival in Nicaragua

2011-06-08T10:27:00.000-07:00

Hola Amigas y Amigos!

After weeks of feeling great anxiety about how hot Nicaragua was going to be, I have been pleasantly surprised to discover that it is quite comfortable here right now. To be sure, I am still happy to indulge in a few nights of air conditioning at our Jinotepe hotel, but in general, the weather here has been beautiful thus far.

Upon arriving at the Managua airport, Deanna and I were first greeted by an old 'boss' of mine, Gonzalo Duarte, who I worked with back in Ontario for a summer. In one of those classic small world moments, I discovered last year that Gonzalo has moved to Nicaragua to further develop his non-profit organization, Companeros, and this is the organization that employs Goshen College's SST in-country coordinator, Dalena.

It was lovely to be greeted by a familiar face and we spent the night at his house and enjoyed a brief intro to Managua before traveling south to Jinotepe. We began our visit with the SST unit by attending their afternoon lecture on Nicaragua's relationship with its neighbouring countries. By far the highlight thus far was our evening last night when the whole group went to one of the students' host families for a surprise birthday party. Her host sister had organized a number of games including a fabulous pinata, a Spanish version of 'Fruit basket upset', pin the tale on Eeyore, and a particularly amusing dancing lime game! The whole evening was quite entertaining and the food was delicious. I am already enjoying the proclivity of tropical fruits.

Nicaragua is a beautiful country and I am looking forward to seeing more of it on Friday when we travel to Volcan Masaya for a field trip. I am afraid that I will not be able to post photos as I left my camera cord behind at home. Sorry!

Hasta luego.....

re-entry

2009-07-28T18:04:00.000-07:00

So now I'm back in Goshen and working at re-entry. I was ready to return and the 30 plus hours in transit helped increase my relief at seeing my house. The laundry is done, the mail is all opened, tomorrow I deal with the few bills that need paying and other such fun. Two months, of course, flew by, even though I was ready to return by the end. Returning home is often an unpredictable experience for me. at times I'm resentful of home, and want to return from where I came. sometimes it is an intense relief and reunion. this time, it was almost nonchalant. a kind of, heh, home, this is normal.

Right now, I don't miss things about Ecuador, or Paraguay. I'm guessing that stage will come. Probably once I get around to organizing photos. And maybe once I'm feeling overwhelmed by work I'll be ready to be free and traveling again. All in all, it was a wonderful summer. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to do this, and I'm already making plans for future summers and ways to return to South or Central America again, maybe to Colombia next time. I am hopeful that I will keep working at learning Spanish but I also recognize what a challenge it is to keep at it, especially with what will surely be a crazy schedule for me this coming year.

Thanks for reading along with me, whatever amount you did, and this will be the official end to this blog, at least for now. Perhaps I'll pick it up again when I am 'viajera-ing' (as Jana puts it) once more.

red soil, trampolines, dialects and more

2009-07-28T17:48:00.000-07:00

As promised, I would like to reflect a little bit more upon my experience of visiting my family in eastern Paraguay. It was one of those life experiences where it's really incredibly fascinating and important but at times, from moment to moment, also incredibly boring! The challenge for me of course was language where the majority of the conversation was in low German and my mother and I traded roles as translator and one in need of translation. The most interesting aspect of the language piece for me was finding that, not surprisingly, the men were the ones who spoke Spanish while the women had little opportunity to learn Spanish because their lifes were centered in their German colony with little interaction with Spanish-speaking Paraguayans. So here I was in a culture that still separates the men and women more than my own culture, only able to communicate with the men. I really enjoyed my conversations with my cousins, especially the sons of the cousins we were staying with, but it felt really strange to be cut off from direct communication with the girls. Although I think I managed to still bond with the youngest cousin through games and random faces!

while on the gender theme, one thing I noticed here in the Paraguayan Mennonite communities, as well as in the indigenous communities in Ecuador was how women were the ones who maintained traditional dress. The men in most of these communities showed the most signs of westernized dress. And while the Old Colony community had started to allow things like cars and cell phones, as far as I know, nothing about the position of women in the colony had shifted. I'm sure there are essay length reflections in here so i'll just leave it at this basic observation.

I learned quite a bit more about how the colonies work and they certainly are much more communal than we are. Dairy farming and cattle are primary vocations in this region and we got to see one of my cousin's yogourt/milk processing factories - yummy!

Our visit to Iguazu Falls was fabulous - a wonderful day. We started the day with a boat ride that took us to both sides of the falls and at the end took us 'into' the falls. Needless to say we got soaked but it was a great time and we got to see the falls from views that wouldn't have been possible from anywhere else. Along with various trails and lookout points, the park has a long, long walkway that you take to the point where you are literally feet away from the top point of the falls where the water begins to rush over the edge. Phenomenal. That section is called 'Devil's Throat' although it's more dramatic in spanish I think.

We were hit by an incredible cold spell our second night in Brazil so I was ready to get back north to get warmed up! Since most of the buildings don't have heat we had two night of layers of blankets and staying curled up to keep warm. Once we were back in Paraguay the temperature almost hit freezing! Apparently this is very unusual even for their winter.

new kind of mennoland

2009-07-22T17:54:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Since I last posted, my mother and I made it safely to Paraguay where Mennonite World Conference has come and gone and now I´m writing from just inside Brazil at a hostal close to Iguazu Falls. MWC was a pretty good week. I will admit that it was not as good as I was hoping. I really enjoyed getting to see a variety of people that I have not seen in a while and live a world away (literally for some), I attended some fabulous workshops and enjoyed seeing some of the Paraguayan Mennonite context. However, the plenary sessions were disappointing and at times just downright boring. Part of this was due to translation challenges, part was due to what I thought was an excessive amount of talking and quite frankly, not very good preachers - although I found 3 speakers to be very excellent. The biggest issue that came to the fore for me at MWC was the imbalance in attenders. There were almost 2000 North Americans and not even 200 Africans in attendance which is in opposition to the number of Mennonite living in these continents, respectively. I am hoping to reflect on this further with other participants and consider how we might work at changing this for next time, if there is another world gathering planned.

I am now visiting my mother´s cousins in one of the Old Colony Mennonite colonies in Rio Verde, Paraguay. My uncle, aunt, mother and I are staying with cousins for our final week here. It has been quite fascinating so far. The majority of the family is still a part of the Old Colony church and we have spent the last two days hopping from one home to another, meeting people, eating good food and me listening to a lot of low German and observing what life is like here. The family we are staying with is no longer a part of the Old Colony group so this has also been very interesting. They are the ones we are here in Brazil with. I am really enjoying getting to know them. An example of the many paradoxes of life here is last night at dinner when one of my cousins pulled out there laptop and I found out that they have wi-fi set up in their house! So in addition to everyone having cell phones, here we were in a home with pretty basic hydro with women still in traditional dress checking our email and adding each other as friends on facebook.

I will reflect on this experience more once I am back in the States. For now I will stop here to let others use the internet. We are headed to the Argentinian side of the falls tomorrow and I´m pretty excited to have another day of hiking and exploring the jungle around the falls. Friday we head back to the colony for one more night, then into Asuncion for our final day before heading back to the States. I look forward to seeing many of you soon!

lap of luxury...take 2

2009-07-13T13:29:00.001-07:00

hi again,

I just realized that I titled my last entry 'lap of luxury' and then proceeded to not write about that. After coming back to a $5 a night hostal here in Quito (which wasn't terrible....just frustrating at times - but with a lovely view from the rooftop terrace), my mother and I changed over to the local Radisson for one night. Hah! So it's been a bit of shameless luxury for the last day here. Obscenely expensive breakfast buffet, really fast internet, and over the top service at the door. I have to confess that I was loving the english movie options last night! Certainly not the way I like to travel usually, but for one night, it was fun.

Starting tonight though, I'll be returning to host family land. My mother and I will be staying with a German Mennonite family in Asuncion for our time at Mennonite World Conference. I'm starting to get excited about all the people I will get to see, and meet, at MWC. I'm expecting lots of surprises. After conference my mother, aunt, uncle and I will be visiting cousins who live in the Chaco region of Paraguay. This will be a fascinating visit as this family is from the Old Colony Mennonite tradition (although not all of them still belong to that church) and while I know a lot about this side of my family history in theory, I have very little experience with it myself. I'm looking forward to learning more about my family.

ciao!

lap of luxury

2009-07-12T17:15:00.000-07:00

Today marks the six week anniversay of my time here in Ecuador...and also my last night here. My sister and bro-in-law left for Peru this morning and my mother and I head to Asuncion, Paraguay tomorrow night. I am increasingly amazed by many of the friends I have made here who are on long term travel treks - I have enjoyed my time immensely, but I'm starting to get tired to traveling and am starting to look forward to being back in my own house and with a kitchen to access food when I want, and what I want!

Our week at the coast was disappointing weather-wise - it was cloudy all week except for a 40 minute sunny spot one day. And of course as we were leaving on Friday, a full blue sky greeted us when we awoke. Alas. But by far the highlight of our time of traveling as a family, at least for me, was our day at sea whale watching and visiting la Isla de la Plata that I wrote about briefly last time. Phenomenal. We followed one humpback whale in particular for a while and she was really playful, slapping her fins and jumping out of the water quite a bit. But the birds were just as fascinating. The frigatas in particular where incredible - they´re the birds with a red throat-pouch thing that expands like a huge balloon during mating season in order to attract a mate. Wow.

We flew back to Quito on Friday and headed for Otavalo yesterday. It was a great day weather wise so we actually had wonderful views of Cotopaxi and Cayambe (another volcano nearby) and the rest of the mountains all the way north to Otavalo and back again.

We have discovered what a small tourist world Ecuador is as we have run into someone we 'know' at pretty much every site we've visited. Starting with our fellow guests at the first hostal in Saquisili, we have run into our hostal-mates at every point of the journey. Atests to the power of the Lonely Planet itinerary. My favourite run in though was when I ran into Aaron, a student from the school who lived with my host family as well for one week. I was just strolling down the street in Montañita after my last blog post and there we Aaron and his friend he is travelling with! wild. but somehow not surprising.

So my time in Ecuador has come to an end. I have enjoyed it, learned a lot, seen a lot and feel so blessed to have had this opportunity. I am happy to be heading into the home stretch of my journey and look forward to seeing lots of people from home in Paraguay. My next post will be from the southernmost point that I will have been thus far! Until then, take care.

internet free zone

2009-07-09T08:35:00.000-07:00

Lo siento amigos-as! I apologize for the long pause in communication. My last few days in Quito were spent sermon preparing and then the 'end of visit see everything' craze began. And since the family trip began we've had next to no internet access. So there´s my excuse. Now for catching up!

Last days in Quito:

By the end of my four weeks of studying, I was feeling ready to be done with school. So much more to learn, well really, practice, but I had had just about enough of the subjunctive case. En serio! On the last Friday of my time at the school, a group of us headed out to check out la Mitad del Mundo, or the middle of the world. That´s right - the equatorial line. Woo! It's actually turned out to be a pretty great trip. You take a bus out of Quito and suddenly you are at this massive touristic disneyland of the equator. They've got a huge monument built up with shops and the usual tourist trappy activities but the entertaining part is that 12 years ago, thanks to GPS, they confirmed that the line is in fact inaccurate and that the indigenous marker for the equator had been correct all along (duh. turns out indigenous knowledge is actually pretty brilliant....who could have known? insert sarcasm if that wasn't clear). So in addition to disney-equator, there is also a museum built along the 'real' line, not far away.

But the highlight of the trip was taking a tour up to the crater of the volcano nearby and learning about a small farming community that is based in the crater. People live in the volcano! The village houses about 40 families - the primary way in and out is a steep climb that takes half an hour going down, and an hour up. The school teacher commutes in from Quito via. this path every day in order to teach the 15 school children. It was a fascinating visit.

Saturday in Otavalo:

My last Saturday in Quito we headed out of town to the north to visit Otavalo, one of the largest Saturday artisan markets in all of South America. We had some great views on the way there, including my first, and probably only, full view of Cotopaxi (a volcano - one of the largest in the world I believe....closest point to the sun....). The market was great, especially the food section. I bought a lot of great stuff including a hammock (I'm very excited about this...), a sweater and a nice wall hanging.

Sunday at church:

Sunday I preached at Quito Mennonite - it was actually quite a lot of fun being translated but I think it definitely made for a boring time at points. 40 minutes in all! I enjoyed getting to know the church a little better and a few of the members will be at World Conference next week as well. Mom and I will also return to church this Sunday when we´re back in Quito.

Family time:

Monday I moved into a hotel in the old town and spent some time with friends until it was late enough to head to the airport to pick up my mother. It was a late night but everyone arrived safely and we headed into our time of traveling together as a family (my mother, sister, bro-in-law). We spent a day in Quito, then headed south towards the Quilotoa loop via the avenue of volcanoes. The views from the buses have been great but we didn´t get to see any of the peaks due to clouds. It's cloudy season here so that's a little disappointing.

We went to a market in a small town called Saquisili which was much more everyday than the one in Otavalo. Fewer tourists, more interesting foods, and second hand items. Unfortunately, the animal market was closed due to an illness in some animals - that animal market is supposed to be incredibly fascinating but what can you do! We JUST made the bus we needed to our next destination and we were off into the mountains.

We had a good time in the moutains - we did a 5 hour horseback ride...yikes!....a hike to the lake of Quilotoa volcano and then headed to the coast where we still are. On the coast we´ve been staying at a beautiful lodge right on the ocean and today we´re in Montañita, a surfing town, for some time in the waves. Yesterday was our best day so far - we went whale watching and saw some incredible humpback whales really close up. Yay for being here during mating season! We toured the Isla de la Plata and saw blue footed boobied (really interesting birds), fragatas mating, and other cool animals. We snorkeled a little and saw more whales!

I need to head out to the beach now but there´s a quick and dirty update. We head back to Quito tomorrow, and then we part ways - Mom and I head to Paraguay for World Conference.

Until my next internet access....take care!

Mindo and back in Quito

2009-06-23T16:03:00.000-07:00

I managed to make it back to Quito in time this past weekend to head out to the town of Mindo for the weekend with 7 other students from my school. I arrived in Quito at 5:15 a.m. on Saturday morning, came home and repacked and left again by soon after 7 a.m. Mindo is set in the midst of a cloud forest which basically means green mountains that often are surrounded by misty clouds. Very beautiful.

It was an insanely high energy weekend after almost no sleep so I´m paying for that a little bit now. We went tubing down the Mindo river (which was FREEZING cold) - 7 tubes tied together with two guides. This was border line white water rafting but in tubes. Kind of scary but really fun. We went to a lodge with a 'frog concert' that turned out to be a bit of a rip off especially since it couldn't hold a candle to the night canoe in the Amazon. But we did see a tip of wood that when decomposing glows in the dark! Amazing bioluminescence. That was really worth the $3.50 entrance fee altogether. Sunday we rose at 6 a.m. and headed out bird watching with a guide. We saw quite a few birds including 3 different varieties of toucans, 2 quetzals. Incredibly beautiful. And it was a gorgeous morning for a hike.

I had planned on going ziplining through the canopy but just didn't feel like it so 3 of us took the apparently tame route of hiking more with our guide and checking out a butterfly farm. Our hike down was actually a little treacherous and my friend Liz just about fell off the mountain. But the worst moment would be the ant attack. We had to walk for quite a while over swarms of ants, big ones, that decided to climb up our legs and bite us. So I now have 10-12 nasty bites on my legs. Stupid ants. We also managed to hike to one waterfall in a series of 5 before we ran out of time and needed to catch our bus back to Quito.

Now I'm back in Quito for my last week of studies. Yesterday I had lunch at Daniel Moya's family's place and got to meet Juan who will be a first year student at GC this coming fall. We had a nice time and it was nice to have a blending of English and Spanish around the table. And now I need to get to my sermon preparation for Sunday! And thankfully, they will be translating for me so I don't need to attempt writing a sermon in Spanish just yet.

shamans and the culture of the jungle

2009-06-23T15:46:00.000-07:00

As promised, I am going to write a little bit about all the fascinating things I learned while traipsing through the Amazon with our guide Rafael. We didn´t really hike particularly far when we were out in the jungle, but our excursions were fairly long because we would stop fairly frequently to hear about a particular tree or plant and its medicinal properties.

A few highlights:
- little bright orange plants that grow into the shape of a cup and feel exactly like plastic. They are called the monkey´s cup and are used to hold the hallucinogenic drugs that shamans use for treating patients. But regular people might also use this drug. For example, if someone has been robbed and doesn't know who did it, they can take this drug and enter into a conversation with the leaves of the plants around them, and the leaves will tell them who the culprit is a, and where to find this person. Fascinating!
- a tree named el sangre de dragon or dragon´s blood because it bleeds red. This sap is useful for treating wounds and illness but will also get all frothy and lather like soap if you rub it.
- a tree with white sap that if taken regularly can cure cancer.
- I smelled the garlic of the jungle (tree bark) and tasted the inside of a branch that was distinctly lemon-y (and ate a few ants that feed on this branch with it!)

For the indigenous people of this region the medicinal uses of the plants and trees continue to be very important. In part because they find these medicines to be effective, and in part because they either do not have access to other health care or they can't afford treatment even if they are in proximity to a clinic. Apparently the only government provided hospitals in the region we were in are for military personnel alone and the other private clinics are extremely expensive.

On Friday morning, our last day in the Amazon, we visited the home of an indigenous family. It was set up like a living museum which I really appreciated as it was their business and set up for the intention of education rather than us visiting a home and feeling like we were observing a family in a zoo-like atmosphere. We got to see their various agricultural and artisan products. I tried some sugar cane and raw cacao. Well, I was only supposed to suck on the cacao (there is a sweet membrane around the seeds) but I didn´t know that so I chomped into it and whew, that stuff is biiiittter! I promptly spit it out, much to Rafael's amusement, and lo and behold, turns out that raw, undried, cacao is bright purple when chewed!

We had the opportunity to try some chicha which is a traditional drink that is brewed from yuca and left to ferment. The families drink it for breakfast and for sustenance on long days of work before it ferments, and after a week or so, only the adults partake.

All in all, it was a very interesting glimpse into the Quichua culture.

re-entry...

2009-06-19T15:37:00.000-07:00

Hola Amigos-Amigas!

I am fresh out of the Amazon and experiencing my traditional resentment of human existence after a time in the wilderness. I miss the sounds of the crickets, the calls of the birds, the screams of the monkeys and the song of the frogs - but I will adjust once more as I always do.

I have spent the last 5 days at the Yarina Lodge about an hour by boat outside of the city of Coca. In Ecuador, this region is called the Oriente but it is a part of the larger Amazon basin. We were located off one of the Amazon River's main tributaries, the Rio Napa. This is also oil country and as we floated down the river towards our destination on Monday I could see a few distant oil flares rise above the tree line. There are a variety of indigenous communities in this region, the Yurani, the Quichua, and one other that I am forgetting right now. Our lodge is run by mostly indigenous men and our guide for the week, Rafael, was a lovely Quichua man who had an incredible knowledge of the selva (jungle), its inhabitants, and the plant life we were surrounded by. As expected, it has been a hot, humid week, but thankfully the nights cool off and sleeping wasn't that bad! It was a beautiful setting and a variety of excursions into the jungle were scattered between my 5 hour spanish classes. We usually hiked on the trails around our lodge and sometimes took a canoe to a lagoon nearby or to visit a local Quichua family's home (set up as something of a living museum to learn about their culture and traditional practices).

I was joined this week by 4 other students and 2 teachers. My compañeras were from Norway, England, and San Francisco. I have enjoyed studying in Quito, but the city could hold no comparison to studying in an open air lodge with hammocks hanging, and monkeys feasting on bananas within sight. Some highlights of the week:

- 3 varieties of monkeys: squirrel, spider, and a third I can't remember the name of...
- tapirs - I had never heard of these before, sort of like a small hippo, but I also heard it referred to as the elephant of the jungle....I think these were my favourite
- toucans and parrots - up close because the lodge had a little animal reserve where they were re-introducing animals into the jungle that had been illegally removed from the jungle
- cayman or crocodile- within 2 feet of our boat!
- tarantulas - but not in my room!
- many fascinating plants with incredible medicinal properties (saw one that will provide birth control for around 4 years!)
- incredible food
- not bad sleep
- a 35 metre tower built around one of the largest tree in the Amazon with an incredible view over the canopy

Last night was probably my favourite excursion with 2 of us heading out into the darkness in a canoe with our guide. It was literally pitch black and without a light our guide paddled us safely to our destination and back without hitting even a branch. We went to a nearby lagoon where we paddled around listening the choruses of frogs, watching the stars, the lights of the fireflies and various larvae floating in the water, got really close to a crocodile and later saw 2 baby crocs a little ways away, and saw one massive frog. It was a phenomenal night.

I will write more about some of the cultural things I learned while at Yarina. In a few hours we are headed back to Coca on what I've heard is an extremely intense overnight bus. The plan is to hope right on to another bus in the morning with my friends and head to Mindo for the weekend, but we'll see how I feel come morning. Mindo is just outside of Quito and is in the heart of a cloud forest reserve that's supposed to have a pretty incredible zip-line and great hiking and butterflies. If I don't make it out there, I'll stick around Quito, recoup, do my laundry and get to a few museums I've been meaning to get to. and maybe even a movie....

I hope all is well wherever you are.
Tamara

fodder for revolution and un ladron

2009-06-14T18:12:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

I can only write briefly tonight because I am preparing for my departure into the jungle. I will not have access to internet again for a week. This last week has been really good until this afternoon when I was robbed while walking from the Mennonite church here in Quito to a bus stop to head into the old town. I probably took too big a risk in walking to the stop (about a 15 minute walk) but I thought the early afternoon was pretty safe. Unfortunately, I had my camera on me so I´ve lost all of my photos thus far. So I cried for a little while this afternoon and now am working on moving on and being thankful that it was just my camera and I´m perfectly safe and good otherwise. I bought another camera this afternoon so I can capture my experience in the jungle.

But aside from being robbed, the week was really good and Friday I was feeling very good about my Spanish. My 11-year old sister, Maria Jose, and I had lunch alone on Friday and I managed quite well and she complimented my Spanish! Of course we were covering topics where I knew the vocabulary. But it felt good anyways.

Thursday was my first full day in the old town of Quito. My teacher and I went in the morning and toured a variety of churches as well as a museum. It was quite interesting and my favourite historical tidbit was learning about the Ecuadorian version of the Boston tea party. In the States (according to my limited knowledge of American history), the last straw for the revolution was taxes on tea...here in Ecuador, the issue was taxes on liquor! This helps me understand Ecuador that much more. After my teacher left to go back to the school I continued touring and got in on a Spanish tour of the presidential palace. And this is one serious tour, I got to see the room where the cabinet meets, the banquet hall, and at one point Correa, the president, left and was probably only 50 feet away from me! And they include a complimentary photo of me in front of one of their murals.

Finally, I spent Saturday at a hot springs in Papallacta. Thankfully it was a group of English speakers this time! It rained most of the day but we got a nice hike in along a river anyways, and of course the hot springs were lovely even with the rain.

I also attended Quito Mennonite Church this morning and got to see Daniel Moya (GC student) and meet his parents who are pastors of the church here. And somehow, I got roped into preaching in two weeks - although thankfully it´ll be in English!

More in a week....

Viva Ecuador!

2009-06-10T18:49:00.000-07:00

Today, I´m reporting in from a jubilant nation in the wake of Ecuador´s trouncing of Argentina in futbol this afternoon: 2-0. A large group of us from my school headed over to the game after our morning classes. I had dutifully purchased my yellow Ecuador soccer jersey, and my host mom quickly contributed a matching hat this morning when she pronounced that I needed a hat. Once I got my cheek painted with an Ecuadorian flag I was ready for the game.

The day started off beautifully but soon after we had settled into our concrete seats in the stadium, the dark clouds began to roll in. It proceeded to rain, and at one moment, hail, for the entire game with only a few momentary lapses. But it was an adventure and thanks to a purchased poncho ("plastico, plastico!") and my umbrella, I managed to stay quite dry.

The game was great - Ecuador dominated for most of the game and taking in the reactions of the crowd was fascinating. As soon as the Argentinian team was being announced the shouted insults began, and I don´t think the profanity really ceased until the end of the game. The most distinctive thing about the crowd was the whistling. Everyone was whistling en masse, sometimes in an effort to distract the opposing team at corner kicks, sometimes just ´cause. The effect of approximately 30,000 people whistling in unison is almost deafening. The game was goal-less until the second half but when the goals came, the crowd went nuts. Lots of hugging and jumping. All in all it was a great afternoon, we survived the crushing crowd on the way out and managed our first ride on the ´trole´or bus.

And there were, of course, a variety of cheers and songs to learn, such as:

"Vamos Ecuatorianos, esta tarde, tenemos que ganar" (futbol cheer - C´mon Ecuadorians, this afternoon, we must win....)

As they say, Viva Ecuador!

shopping, the subjunctive and other mundane details

2009-06-09T14:09:00.000-07:00

Hola!

Today I thought I´d give you a glimpse into a few more of the details of my life in Quito. Every morning I sit at a desk with my teacher Sandra and fly through various grammatical lessons. We have a half hour break where I chat in English with students from around the world, and make plans for various activities outside of class. Right now, I´m working on the subjunctive tense (I hope you have a great trip to Thailand...'have' being the subjunctive) and learning basic words like 'mismo' that have many different uses. I struggle with maintaining focus and energy for 4 hours but we´re certainly covering a lot of material. My classmates also have various degrees of success, often feeling frustrated with the slow nature of learning a language.

My family continues to be interesting. Last week, my host father´s brother was in the hospital for surgery so he wasn´t around at all after my first night here. He is around more now which is nice and I´m slowly getting to know other people who appear now and again like a cousin from Iberra (city to the northish) and the housekeeper who I just found out recently actually lives here! Last night, my little sister Maria Jose helped me with my homework - aka did my homework :) There´s nothing like an 11 year old telling you what´s right and wrong for a little humility.

I´m starting to explore more of Quito this week. Yesterday, 5 of us from the school (all English speakers...oh yeah!) went to an art museum in a neighbourhood of the city that had incredible views. The museum held 3 different areas - the pre-colonial, colonial, and the modern. All of the modern art was work by an artist by the name of Guayasamin. He was born in Quito and is of Indian descent. His work is quite phenomenal and I bought a little copy of a print to bring home. This outing was followed by a class on the medicinal properties of plants at the school and I´m looking forward to testing one of the plants, Marco, for its insect repellant properties next week in the jungle.

Today, I did a little shopping and I successfully bought myself a yellow Ecuador soccer shirt for the match tomorrow. I also got some excellent bootlegs of all 4 seasons of the Office and the movie Australia for $8 all together - now, granted, I´ve already found that the disc labeled season 1 for the office contains episodes that are definitely not season 1 - but pretty fun regardless. Later in the week, in addition to the football match, I´ll be heading to the old town again with my teacher to explore some churches. I´ll probably stay for the afternoon as well to explore more of the sites.

I continue to enjoy the food here, overall, and have been healthy the whole time so far! other than being exhausted by most afternoons or evenings. The weather is lovely - cool in the mornings and evenings and hot in the afternoon. I have yet to wear shorts and always carry a sweater and umbrella with me. The altitude change hasn´t been too bad although I still take quite a while climbing the hills back to my casa. I´m about to head off to my first salsa class at the school but before I sign off - one more interesting observation. I´ve been noticing that a lot of the youth here are wearing Palestinian scarves (I should know the name, but I don´t). I noticed Juan Pablo, the boyfriend of Karla Sofia one of the daugthers in my house, wearing one and I asked if this was because people here were really concerned about the liberation of Palestine or what the deal was. He replied that it´s simply 'moda' or in fashion. Interesting. Quite strange to think that something with such a serious cause behind it can become teen fashion a world away from its source.

Ciao!

energy fast in Ecuador...

2009-06-07T17:14:00.000-07:00

I had intended to post again this past Friday but alas, just as I was about to sit down, the hydro (American translation: power) went out. So here I am with too many things to share - I´ll pick a few highlights.

Jacchigua: National Folkloric Ballet

On Wednesday night I had a spontaneous opportunity to go to la Casa de la Cultura de Ecuador (basically the National Theatre) for a show by the national dance troupe. I´m not totally clear on its significance but basically the central theme is demonstrating folk dance traditions from various indigenous communities in Ecuador, mixed with some ballet and accompanied by a wonderful Ecuadorian band. Wednesday was a special night because the director of the dance company was being honoured with a special award (no idea what it was, but I can tell you it was shiny). It was a wonderful night and I´m thankful that I overheard some students at the school talking about going and was gutsy enough to invite myself along. So myself, 2 Lithuaians (who went to Lithuana Christian College - started by Canadian Mennonite types) and 2 Australians found ourselves completely underdressed for a phenomenal night that included traditional dress from all over the country. We even had the chance to dip out hands in paint and contribute to an art piece that was a part of the celebration.

La Cuidad Antigua

Thursday night was my school´s night to take us on a night tour of the old town of Quito. Muy bonita. We started at the statue of Virgin Mary that stands on a hill over the city, wandered a few of the streets of the old town, drank a traditional drink that is something like a mulled cider - canelazo, were introduced to some of the central landmarks - all with some excellent guiding info from one of the teachers, Luis. I´m looking forward to having some more time this week to explore the old town in the daylight. The area has 26 churches....I don´t think I´ll try to get to them all but I definitely want to check out a lot of them.

Camping in Pasochoa

This weekend I went on a camping trip to a local volcano (this one is inactive) called Pasochoa. Saturday was devoted to a light day of hiking and exploring at a park that included a phenomenal waterfall. (I´m sorry I haven´t gotten to a cafe to upload photos....I´ll try to get to that this week). Many Ecuadorians go swimming at the falls- in their full normal clothing. Our teacher, Carlos, wanted us all to join him but only got a few takers. I went with the compromise and went wading up to my knees - frigid! After the falls, we headed over to our campsite at the base of Pasochoa. Quito is situated at 2,900 metres above sea level, and the top of Pasochoa at 4200 m. The plan was to hike to the top today - about 5 hours of hiking, minimum. Unfortunately, the day was extremely cloudy and on and off raining and sunny. Thankfully, the rain was quite light and didn´t result in a drenching. The hike was beautiful but the views were extremely limited. We couldn´t see the peak of Pasochoa at all so I ended up 'only' climbing about 2-thirds of the way up. I just couldn´t see the point of all that pain for no view. Most of our group went all the way so I enjoyed a very slow descent stopping for lots of steeping in my surroundings and taking photos. It was of course, perfectly clear as we drove away from the park so I have a lovely photo of the peak from the road.

Our campsite was great and the highlight for sure were the 2 llamas that shared the space with us. The downside for me was that I was the only English speaker in our group of 11. The rest were all from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, a number of whom already knew each other well. So I listened to a lot of German and felt pretty left out anytime we were together as a group. That was a little disappointing and quite frankly, not a lot of fun much of the time. But all in all, the hiking was well worth the trip and a few of the students I got to talk with one on one were lovely and I look forward to getting to know them better over the coming weeks.

I´m sure I will post again soon and what I´m most looking forward to this coming week is a Wednesday trip to a football game! Ecuador vs. Argentina!

peace to all.

¿en serio?...entonces...

2009-06-03T12:20:00.000-07:00

When I first set up this blog, I thought I´d post about once a week and wasn´t sure I´d be thrilled about posting more often than that. I had forgotten about the number of observations and experiences I would want to share....in my language.

I´m well into my third full day in Quito and I´m continuing to enjoy myself. Megan was right, I never fail to be completely exhausted and ready for bed by oh...6 p.m. or so. I usually hold out until 9 p.m. because we eat around 8. But my brain definitely hurts. Either from trying to come up with words, taking in words, or trying to focus on words flying past me and attempting to snatch one or two of them from the air and trying to get some semblance of understanding.

My Spanish continues to suck and I´ve been getting frustrated with my poor pronunciation when speaking with my family. I do better in class but I think that is because I have a focused subject and I don´t need to work so hard to get the words that I forget about pronunciation. ¨v´s¨are my current pet peeve, especially when in combo with e and r in the middle of a word. argh.

I continue to enjoy my teacher. She is very interesting and we always have at least one significant topic of conversation each morning at some point in the four hours of lessons (well, with a half hour break). In addition to learning about the new consitution and Quichua becoming a second national language, I´ve also learned about the president´s new complete review of all public school teachers, and an impending teachers´strike on Friday, as well as a new law that creates obligatory alimony payments for men not living with their children. Both are fascinating subjects. Apparently the public school system here is terrible, both of the girls in my house are in private schools for this reason, and the president is requiring all current teachers to take an exam and get evaluated by their students and students´parents. Then they have a year to go back to school, paid by the government, if they don´t pass the exam or evaluations. Otherwise, they are fired. I think it sounds like a good plan and parents like it, but the teachers don´t. Friday should be interesting.

And on the alimony law, the most interesting thing, aside from the fact that it didn´t exist before, is that there will be a condition where if the father fails to pay, his father, brother, uncles, whatever other men are around in his family are liable for the payments. Awesome! Would never happen in the States or Canada I´m guessing. But hey, if people won´t try to ´control´their childrens´behaviour (many absentee fathers are teens), I guess using money as motivation might be a good idea....

Yesterday was a pretty low key day. A lot of students from the school go out drinking in the evenings but I probably won´t join them much. I´d like to get to know people, but a student from Minnesota who overlapped here at my host house for my first night wisely advised me to decide what I´m here for and stick to it. She had seen that some students are here on vacation, others here to party, and others to study. And while I don´t know that all of the categories are that clear cut, I know I´m here to study and I´d prefer to painfully work at conversing with my family than chatting in English with folks in a bar. But I am happy to be starting to get to know a few of the students at the school. This afternoon I´ll head over to the school for a cooking class, tomorrow night is an evening tour of the old town and I´m planning on going camping with the school this weekend - swimming in a freezing cold waterfall and hiking, here I come!

One final story: the tale of the Brazilian visa quest
Yesterday, I get to the Brazilian embassy after looking for a while - it´s on the ninth floor of a bank building with no sign out front...although today I noticed a Brazilian flag hanging way up on the side of the building. Yes, I said today. I got to the embassy yesterday 5 minutes after it closed (my teacher had said most places are open until 4 and the internet times are unreliable). And it was a long walk in hot sun, so today I took a taxi directly after school - and lo and behold, I´m at the wrong place. This is the place for visas if you are FLYING into Brazil. Silly me. I need el consulado de frontera - for ground travel. Indeed! ¿en serio???? sheesh. So the quest continues, as these consulados are at the embassies of any of the surrounding countries to Brazil, including Paraguay, which is actually convenient since the Paraguayan embassy of the US got the dates on my visa mixed up and I want to go and make sure they are fixed before I go there. So now, on to the Paraguayan embassy - but I´m going to wait until tomorrow - no point in rushing around and finding them closed. bah. But hey, out of this came to things: my first taxi rides, and the knowledge that I can survive a spanish-speaking embassy.

Other random observations and lessons:

- like most big cities, most people don´t say hello when you pass on the street
- always have small change for taxis - they cannot break a 10
- (Mom, don´t read this) ALWAYS take a taxi after dusk (6:30 p.m.) - one of my classmates saw two girls being attacked and robbed yesterday from the safety of her cab - got it.
- I´ve seen at least 2 yoga places, one just around the corner
- taxis are cheap - $2 is expensive
- cuy (guinea pig) is not bad...but no way you´ll get me to eat the skin - it´s like 3 cms thick!
- babaco is a delicious fruit that we definitely don´t have in Goshen
- young folks here listen to a lot of American music etc. - a surprising amount
- I watched the Simpsons in Spanish last night (and the dubbed voice selections are Terrible! especially Homer...)

ciao!
Tamara

p.s. I have changed the comments setting so anyone can post now...if this was holding you back...post away!

Quito: Day 1

2009-06-01T14:25:00.000-07:00

I have been in Ecuador for a little over 24 hours now and I have already seen many, many interesting things and survived my first series of linguistic misunderstandings. After a long wait at the O´Hare airport, my flights went incredibly smoothly - leaving me to believe that South American airlines are most definitely more efficient, timely, and generally fantabulous than American airlines. My connections, one as short as 45 minutes, were of no concern because all of my flights were on time or even early - yay!

As has often been the case in my experiences of international travel, I found a few companions along the way. First, I met an elderly Salvadoran couple in Chicago who were on the same flight as I was - and also the site of my first misunderstanding. I was shocked to find that I could manage a most basic and probably butchered conversation with the Salvadoran woman and was pretty sure that she was telling me that she and her husband were headed for Winnipeg at the same time as my flight to Guatemala and that THEN they would stay only a few hours in Winnipeg and continue on to El Salvador! It made no sense to me, but I clarified - esta noche, no a noche? but alas, when I saw them again in the waiting room it was clear that I hadn´t understood most of conversation at all. and so it begins.

My second traveling companion was a man from Chicago, originally from Cuenca a city in southern Ecuador, who was on every leg of my flight - I don´t think there were many of us. We didn´t talk until we were both waiting for our last connection in San Jose. I asked him if the gate was the right one, in Spanish, and after discovering he spoke English we chatted for quite a while. This conversation left me with a name and address of a Colombian restaurant in Chicago that this man owns (but no one involved is Colombian - this didn´t seem to be a problem to him...) and a phone number for his family in Cuenca in case I ended up coming to that city. Lovely!

My family and school here in Quito are great so far. My family, Carlos, Nancy, Karla Sofia (17) and Maria Jose (11) are nice, high spirited and most hospitable. I have my own room with a DVD player and TV and a whole drawer of Spanish DVDs to select from. I think I might watch a couple of the American movies that they have in Spanish so I can hope to pick something up. Our apartment is the first floor of a small apartment building in a relatively quiet part of Quito (La Floresta barrio) and it´s only a 10 minute walk to my school. I´ll need to get used to the schedule here but I think I´ll like it. The main meal of the day is at 1:30 or so and I´m not sure that supper is even a sit down affair. Last night I ate on my own, and Carlos ate later, and the girls were eating when I arrived at 3 p.m. But that was the weekend so we´ll see how it works during the work week. The girls start school at 7 a.m. and are done by 1 p.m. and the adult work world works in a similar way with morning work ending by 1 and restarting from 3-7 p.m.

My school is located in a nice building with a great computer lab, where I´m posting this from. My teacher´s name is Sandra and I have four hours of study with her every morning. At break I had a chance to meet some of the other students including a couple of Canadians and a few Americans and Australians. I´m back at the school now for a short class in idiomas or local expressions. Tuesdays and Thursdays there are salsa classes, Wednesdays, cooking, and Thursday night is an evening bus tour of the old city. I won´t do it all this week but I´m definitely thinking about joining a camping trip into the mountains this weekend.

It´s been a long time since I´ve been out of the Western world and much of the feel of Quito reminds me of places I´ve been in West Africa and China. Less order, more noise, and more dirt than at home. But I like it. I´m trying to remember to be more careful crossing the street, and taking the time to look up into the mountains whenever I can. Quito is situated between 2 large mountains. Es muy bonita!

This will end up being a long post without photos (I´ll try to add photos later in the week. I think I might have to find an internet cafe for that - these computers don´t seem to be equipped for inputing photos) but I´ll close with a couple of things I´m learning about Ecuador. First, I learned in my lessons this morning that Ecuador has a new constitution. And one of the features of this constitution is that Quichua, an indigenous language, is now officially one of Ecuador´s languages along with Spanish. My teacher said that this is really significant for the indigenous people and has a lot of implications for the educational system. It´s my sense so far that Ecuador is a fairly politically liberal society (although I may be wrong) as in addition to the new constitution that also made steps towards more inclusive language (Spanish is very male centered), much of the graffiti around town seem to be about issues facing miners and farmers (again, this is based on my basic interpretations) and I noticed a women´s organization just up the street from my school that stated on their sign ¨Without women, there is not democracy¨. Amen.

That´s all for now - so far I´m having a really good time, can´t understand much of what my host family say, but I´m doing my best.

3 days and counting...

2009-05-26T18:19:00.000-07:00

welcome to my brand spankin' new travel blog! As most of you know, I will be spending two months this summer in Ecuador and Paraguay. I start with 4 weeks of Spanish study at the Simon Bolivar Spanish School in Quito, Ecuador, then my family will join me for 2 weeks of traveling around Ecuador....then my mother and I will continue on to Paraguay to attend Mennonite World Conference in Asuncion.

I am very grateful to the Center for Intercultural Teaching and Learning at Goshen College where I work that made my time of study in Ecuador possible. When I moved to Goshen almost 2 years ago, I decided that learning to speak Spanish was a must for living in a city with such a significant Spanish-speaking population. So I started this past fall with Spanish 101 and am moving on to immersion! I'm rather nervous about the first few days of staying with my host family - but as long as we stay to subjects that are based in the present, cover subjects such as family, school, the weather and fashion (me gusta los pantalones rojas...) - I should be all set. hmmm....

I am at one moment excited beyond belief...the next....consumed by a tense stomach and sense of mild terror (ok - that might be putting it a little too strongly....is there a 'are you a drama queen?' quiz attached to this blog site??). But I think that once I am past the last minute preparations and my bag is packed, the excitement will override the nerves.

p.s. a big shout out to Megan for her technical assistance and creative input re. blog names! And "La Viajera" means the traveler in Spanish...