Chulla Vida

Torrey, me, Allyson- Quito, Ecuador 2009

After three and a half months of waking up to the beautiful Andes mountains towering over the city, tomorrow I will be flying over them.

After 15 weeks of classes, 3 salidas de campo, 10+ guest speakers, two exams, and 25 pages on the theme of fair trade, I've finally handed it all in.

After 220 hours, varying from busy and harried, to sitting along in a shop, with tourists visiting, and Ecuadorian events passing through, my time with the Fundación Sinchi Sacha, Museo Mindalae, and Tiendas Tianguez is over for now.

After meeting 16 incredible students from eight different U.S. universities, my classmates and aquaintences have become my friends and the only ones who I will forever be able to share this experience.

After a final Despedida dinner, it's actually time to pack it all. A life out of a suitcase accumulates some interesting artifacts along the way. It is an interesting feeling saying good-bye.

Chulla vida means "one life" in Quichua and Spanish. The sentiment is often compared to "seize the day", and for those of us of HECUA Fall 2009 it has become more of a sentiment to remind us to live and hold on to absolutely every moment and new experience that has come our way.

As roller-coaster-ish as these past few months have been, I think it will be harder than I had thought to get on that plane. However, I can knowing that I have given this country my all and that I'm not walking away from something, but only towards whatever the next adventure has in store.

Restaurant, Vista Hermosa- Despedida dinner in Quito

One last pic of the whole clan, after three & a half months, we still didn't get the whole concept of sharing photos down. My camera was like the 5th in line.

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Eliza's schedule for the next 10 days!

Saturday & Sunday December 12 & 13: Cuenca, Ecuador
Monday & Tuesday December 14 & 15: Busses and busses, finally ending in Lima, Peru
Wednesday December 16: Flight to Cuzco, Peru
Friday December 18: Train to Aguas Calientes, the Machu Picchu Pueblo
Saturday December 19: Early morning bus to Machu Picchu to see the sunrise.
Sunday December 20: Return to Lima
Monday December 21: Midnight, begin the trek back to the states.

CrunchTime

This is what I'm deciding to call a study break.

Since last week, we've all been busily working on our Independent Study Projects... some have finished, some haven't even started. I'm just going to say that I'm somewhere in-between. :-) It is definitely crunch time since this coming weekend is my last weekend in Quito! I cannot believe it.

Last weekend I went out to visit my chicas at the Tianguez (my former work-place) and do some interviews for my project. Fiestas de Quito had started the night before and the parks and streets were all decked out and filled with people. It was an awesome way to remember the life within this city. I think sometimes I get so weighed down with the day-to-day hum drumming-ness that I forget what a beautiful place this is.

Tonight I'm heading to the Ecuadorian Folklore Ballet. A friend of mine from my internship is in it each Wednesday and she got me a complimentary ticket. I'm very excited and appreciate the change in schedule, even if it does take me away from my paper writing... darn (catch the sarcasm?)

That's all for now: finishing the paper this week, Fiestas de Quito this weekend, correcting paper and finishing internship hours next week, Despedida dinner Thursday, leaving Quito Saturday, Peru by the following Tuesday... and then MACHU PICCHU! It's gonna fly.

Día de Acción de Gracias

For my first Thanksgiving away from home, I will call it a huge success. If I couldn't be with my own family, I can't think of another group of people that I would rather be with. My HECUA family has come to mean so much to me and I cannot believe that we will be saying good-bye in two weeks.

High-Altitude Apple pies :-)

My pies went fantastically! (Thanks to the help from fellow Ole Allyson!) I think I found my "thing" for future holidays or Lutheran potlucks. We had an abundance of food, and it was an awesome time to share this U.S. tradition with our Ecuadorian families.

I hope that you all had a safe and blessed day. I for one am stuffed.

Leon (host dad), me, & Ximena (host mom)

Otavalo Weekend

Libby, me and Torrey- Alpaca hats Imbabura

So here I am on Tuesday, November 24, wondering where the heck this semester has gone! It is definitely crunch time, I have three weeks left of my program, with a 17-20 page paper yet to be completed... it's getting closer every day, and less than a month before I will be home to celebrate Christmas.

This weekend we had our final academic salido de campo (field-trip) with the HECUA participants. This trip included a visit to a clinic that practices both traditional indigenous as well as westernized medicine, shop-time in the famous Otavalo market, and a home-stay with local indigenous families from in and around the city. Two students stayed with each family in order to take part in a really great cultural opportunity, but without the shock of going solo.

Our house for the weekend

Julia, a student from Colorado College was my travel companion. We stayed with the Guandinango-Vinueza family in a small community of 80-families called Santa Barbara. Our first afternoon we helped Maria, the mom, prepare a traditional Ecuadorian food- mote, a specific way of preparing corn. The mote would be used for the minga the following day while we were shopping at Otavalo. A minga is a community event where all of the families who live within the community join together to harvest on the communal lands. Our family had two wonderfully animated children, Apauki (7) and Sayani (5). After a summer filled with little ones, their excitement was a welcome energy added to the weekend. We celebrated Sayani's 5th birthday on Saturday night with a special cake and lots of giggles.

Sayani and one of the baby kittens.

Maria's mote for the minga (there's an alliteration for you)

Apauki, me, and Sayani- our last night.

Rumor has it that there is a list somewhere telling each of us the 1,000 things that we need to see before we die. The Otavalo market in Ecuador's province of Imbabura is one of them. Hundreds of stalls, in dozens of rows make this weekly event a bit overwhelming, but I had a great time searching out some presents and feel like I found some treasures! Of course I often found that I have expensive taste for hand-made artisan work. It's probably my work at the Tianguez that has added to this dilema. During the market time I was also able to do some interviews for my ISP, it was nice to feel like I was being at least a little productive with my weekend away from Quito.

Otavalo Market- Poncho Plaza

We visited a bird sanctuary, the Parque del Condor. All of the birds at the park are rescued from around the province. Some only stay while they are healing, while others will permanently live at the reserve. Some highlights: the condor (duh!)- GIANT birds, almost extinct, a bald eagle named Gringo, and finally a snowy white owl that just happened to be one of the birds used in the Harry Potter movies. Those of you who know what and HP fan I am, can imagine my excitement. The photo below should give you some idea! It was a beautiful day and the closest weather I've felt to a MN fall, absolutely lovely.

Hedwig!!

Can't really explain it... but these are my friends!

All in all it was a great last hurah! with the HECUA-ns. Well technically we still have three weeks so we'll probably have more hurahs. This week actually, for my first Thanksgiving away from the family and the U.S. we're hosting a meal for our group and all of our host families. About 75 people. Last night while grocery shopping, we were going through the line, and the cashier/baggers were looking at all of the food we were purchasing giving us some crazy looks, that is until the turkey came through and instant understanding crossed their faces. "Ahhh... gringos+November+giant bird=Thanksgiving". I'm in charge of apple pies-- never done it from scratch by myself so wish me luck!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Lights Out and Laguna Quilotoa

Sheep family!- Laguna Quilotoa

Hola once again!

This has been one of my most interesting weeks to date. The "fall" months- October through December are considered Ecuador's rainy season. I knew that coming in, so I came prepared with my rain jacket and umbrella, ready for months and months of rainy afternoons. Well... someone missed the memo, because it has not rained in this city (or in the greater part of this country for that matter) for weeks. Ecuador is a country committed to "clean energy", they use no nuclear plants to power their cities, therefore, when it doesn't rain, se va la luz- Goodbye electricity!

In Quito, "cuts" happen at various locations around the city, on various schedules. You might wake up to find that you have no lights from 6am-11am, you might show up to work at a pitch-black museum with no windows or you might be finishing up some homework when your entire neighborhood goes black. (All of the above have happened to me this week if you hadn't guessed!) It's an interesting lifestyle and lends itself to a lot of flexibility and attempts to plan in following the lights. Prayers for rain would be much appreciated since a country, even one as small as Ecuador, cannot function in this manner forever.

Getting back into the swing of things was a bit of a challenge after such a nice week off vacation-ing. My internship responsibilities have changed a bit- and in a kind of disappointing manner. La Fundación Sinchi Sacha, where I've been working, opened up a new store a few weeks ago. Since it's new and in a location not extremely overrun by tourists, the store hasn't been very busy. My bosses made a decision that, business wise, makes a lot of sense, although for me, not so much. I will now be spending the majority of my internship hours sitting in this near-empty store, waiting... for anyone who might want to buy something. I was extremely disappointed in this change, because I didn't come all the way to Ecuador to sit in a little store all by myself. I've been trying to see the silver lining in that this new job will give me plenty of time to work on my Independent Study Project whose due date is quickly approaching, still after only two days of sitting by myself in the store I've started to drive myself a little crazy. We'll see how it goes, I've decided to try it for two weeks and if I still feel a little jipped, I will try to work something out with my supervisors.

Our Thursday seminar class took on a little different look this week. We focused on Ecuadorian Food Culture and therefore, we went to the house of our director, Martha, and concocted up our own Ecuadorian creations. On the menu: Cheese Emanadas (fried dough filled with cheese and topped with sugar), Japingachos (potato cakes with cheese), colada morada (fruit and herb hot smoothie typical for the Day of the Dead celebration), and ahí (a salsa made primarily with tomato and onion). It was a really fun afternoon and I think we all enjoyed the break in the normal schedule. It also made me remember how much I love preparing and sharing meals with friends and family, so get ready for some Ecuadorian dinners upon my return!

Me, the hike down to Laguna Quilotoa

About a month ago, Torrey had showed interest in going to visit a crater lake south of Quito called Laguna Quilotoa. This Friday and Saturday, a group of six of us got our chance for the visit. Laguna Quilotoa is a beautiful, emerald green lake that was created after a volcano collapes and its crater was filled with water. It's a stunning sight and we were lucky enough to arrive in the Quilotoa Pueblo on Friday night, so early Saturday morning we had the trails and lake all to ourselves. Hiking down was simple, and fun- parts definitely felt like moon-walking, with the sandy trails, we had so much fun jumping down the sand dunes, we didn't take the time to think about the return up the crater. After spending a few hours on the lake, we kayaked and took in the scenery, we bought some waters and began our accent. The 45 min. hike down the crater turned into about 1hr 1/2 or more up the crater. We were at higher altitude than Quito, but I don't think I can blame my dificulty with the trail simply on thinner air. It was tough, and by the time we were finished my legs felt like jello and I was very ready to chill out on our bus rides home.

Today we'll go over to lunch at my "grandparents" house. I do love being in Quito for parts of the weekends. It gives me some time to relax and at least think about working on homework :-) This week will be a busy one, I will be trying to complete my interviews necessary for my ISP before we head to Otavalo and Imbaburra next weekend.

Adios for now,
Eliza

The boys unsuccessfully trying to start a fire in our room in Quilotoa. They were using pages from our Lonely Planet guidebook.

Allyson, me, Torrey- St. Olaf snuggle time since there was no fire.

Laguna Quilotoa

Eliza was here. Galapagos Edition

Blue-footed Boobie- Galapagos Islands, Ecuador

This is going to be one of those "Pictures speak louder than words..." posts. I seem to be using up all of my words in my Independent Study Project. The pictures are big, so I apologize in advance for the excessive scrolling!

Galapagos was absolutely incredible, no regrets whatsoever. It was an awesome week to just take off, get out of the city, meet some really cool people (Our Dutch travel companions used an agency called "Eliza was Here"-- hence the title of today's post! In case you speak Dutch, and/or are from the Netherlands and looking for a travel agent, I'm including the link.)

HECUA group: Emily, me, Torrey, & Chris

Our Yacht- The Rumba

Anyway, perhaps someday we can sit down and I can tell you about one of my new favorite places, ever, in person. Some quick highlights-- whale-watching, blue-footed boobies, snorkeling, swimming with sea lions, our chef with mad boat-cooking skills, etc...

Sea lions- Isla Santa Fe


Me & Torrey- Albatross watching, Isla Española

We saw these guys on our first day, much to our guide's relief. I had already explained that for the money I was spending, if I didn't actually see a flamingo, Juan (guide) would be dressing up and acting like one :-)

Galapagos Post Office crazy mail exchange-- Isla Floreana

A beach absolutely infested with sting-rays. Cool, but we all definitely kept our distnace!

Blue-footed boobies were definitely my favorite! Mama and her little egg-0s.

Galapagos Tortoises- Isla Santa Cruz
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After a week in the Galapagos, it was hard to be impressed by Ecuador's coastal towns of Montañita and Puerto Lopez even for the short time we spent there; still I'm glad that I visited and got to know each town's specific personality. Above is a photo from Puerto Lopez, a fishing community. Hundreds of birds attacked the barrels of fish being brought in from the bay.

Packing, prepping, posting.

Alright this is it! I'm taking a quick break from my packing to leave a quick update. Tomorrow I will be heading to Guayaquil, Ecuador... a port city on the Pacific where I will be getting on a plane to leave for the GALAPAGOS early on Sunday!! The whole planning process for this cruise has gone so quickly I cannot believe that I will be there in less than two days. It is unreal.

We will be aboard the Rumba Yacht, a small 10-passenger cruise ship. I'm traveling with three other students/friends from the HECUA program: Torrey, Emily, & Chris. The cruise has a 5 day itinerary that looks like the following:

Sunday 11/1: Baltra, Playa Las Bachas
Monday 11/2: Calleta Tortuga Negra, Santa Fe Island
Tuesday 11/3: Puerta Suárez, Española Island
Wednesday 11/4: Corona del Diablo, Punta Cormorant, Floreana Island
Thursday 11/5: Los Gemelos, Charles Darwin Scientific Station

On Thursday we will return to Guayaquil and then spend the remainder of our "free week" beach hopping along the coast, mainly staying in the coastal city of Montañita. We don't have a specific plan, but that's true Latin American fashion, right? We seem to be acclimating culturally :-)

I promise, as I have promised, and will promise to take TONS of photos, or at least however many I can fit on my memory card... Keep us in your thoughts and prayers for the week. Minimal seasickness would be appreciated!

Besos,
Eliza

The following photos are from our last HECUA field-trip to Olmedo, an Afro-Ecuadorian community on the Pacific coast in the province of Esmeraldas, near Colombia. (October 22-25)

Visiting the Mangroves (the coolest part of this ecosystem is definitely the roots/bottom parts of the tree, and guess who didn't get a good picture of that? I guess you'll have to google it!)

We take a lot of boat rides on these trips. We wore these neon orange life vests to visit a neighboring community-- as if being the only non-Afro-Ecuadorians people didn't make us stand out enough.

Being on the coast, there was a TON of seafood. I'm not such a fan, so I was sent to the segregated sick/vegetarian table. Definitely an experience-- don't think I could go veg full time.

Our final night in Olmedo was the community's largest festival of the year, this included a pagent for the young girls also one for the teens to be crowned Miss Olmedo, and extremely loud music that literally could be clearly heard throughout the entire community the entire night. Needless to say, we didn't sleep very much!

Calle Vargas Confessions

Yesterday I was on my regular bus on la Calle Vargas back from Old Town working at the Tianguez. I had worked a few extra hours to help out one of the workers so I was leaving later in the afternoon/early evening. I don´t know if it was due to the hour, but my normal bus was amost empty, a pleasant surprise in comparison to the jam-packed busses I usually find. I had a seat to myself and as we drove out of old town and towards my neighborhood I realized how different I felt on this bus ride compared to my first ones almost two months ago.

Obviously I have had moments where I have wondered what the heck I am doing here, wouldn´t it have been easier simply to stay at St. Olaf for the semester? There I wouldn´t have to worry about walking alone, pick-pockets, travel logistics, etc... At first, it was very difficult for me to feel really at home here in Quito. This worried me because it was so unlike all of the stories I had heard from friends who had studied abroad. I had always heard about the "Amazing"-ness, nothing about the doubts/regrets. I have recently decided to stop comparing my experience to others I have heard because these experiences will not be the same. Quito may not (and should not) feel like my home in MN, but it does feel like my home for right now. I have had my doubts, but have yet to regret anything that has happend or I have done.

I´ve passed the halfway mark of the program, and as always I cannot believe how quickly everything is going. I hope to really soak in the aspects of this life that I cannot take with me in December, and I have 7 weeks left to do so. First on my list, Galapagos Islands.

Three days until I´m sea-bound. Yikes!

¡Vaaamos, Ecuatoriaaaanos!

El Pailon del Diablo waterfall- Baños, Ecuador

Where did I leave off...

Oh right, loneliness, frustrations, and Spanish relapse. Well I will be happy to tell you that I had a really really great week. Two "really"s, now you know it's legit. In general, I had a pretty run-of-the-mill week, but I will give you some highlights.

-Monday I had a relaxing morning before my afternoon class; I made the deposit for my Galapagos cruise (Nov. 1-5)-- once I got over the initial "sticker shock", I got over the money thing and I am getting so excited to finally get there. It's coming up very quickly!

-My friend Nolan and I started, what will hopefully turn into, weekly lunch dates. It's really fun to explore the area of Quito around where we are working in search for "authentic" and cheap Ecuadorian cuisine. So far so good, we're 1 for 1.

-On the other side of the spectrum, we continue to attend the weekly Mulligans Pub Quiz, as Americanized and non-Ecuadorian as you can get. We also happen to be this weeks champions once again, this time with a little less help from the Jeopardy star. :-)

-My work at the Museum and Fair Trade store continues (I'll try to get some pictures up soon). I really really love some of the friends I'm making there. It's a very interesting organization to be a part of, and it's fascinating to see it all from within. I'm very much looking forward to begin my independent study in Fair Trade and see what else I can learn.

-Friday night brought a LIGA Futbol game. Liga is a club soccer team that used to be affiliated with one of the local universities. Tickets were cheap and the fans were ecstatic-- I've never seen a cheering section like this one (and think of where I went to high school?) These people never sat down, never stopped cheering, or singing for that matter. We all had "Vaaaaaaamos, Ecuatoriaaaaaaanos ringing in our ears for the entire weekend. It was a Liga victory, 3-0, an extremely fun night and exactly what I needed at the end of a very full week. It is so much fun to be a part of an energy like that, I recommend it to anyone visiting the country.

-Bright and early Saturday morning my travel buddies and I set out for Baños, an extremely touristy area about 3-4 hours from Quito. We had a very full and fast weekend with beautiful sights, a birthday celebration, and the famous thermal baths. The baths weren't exactly what I expected, it pretty much mirrored your average public pool, only nestled in the mountains. We did take a Cascada (waterfall) tour on Saturday and visited the Pailon del Diablo waterfall, a supposed "wonder of the world". I keep happening onto these places or experiences that I never thought I would encounter. This semester, and definitely this country is keeping me on my toes, ready for the next adventure.

Getting ready for a dune-buggy tour around Baños (This was a pre-biker helmets picture-sorry)

Nolan and I chose the SLOWEST buggy, so we were often passed on the uphills. :-(

The "Chiva" nicknamed the partybus for our waterfall tour. It came complete with strobe lights.

A cable basket suspended us over a gorgeous valley during our waterfall tour.

View from the cable basket.

Me in front of the Pailon del Diablo

The next month of weekends will take me to many corners of Ecuador and away from Quito. For those of you who know the home-body side of me, you might understand a little bit of my aprehension with all of the travel time. However on the flip side, I'm getting to travel, that's the point right? I am extremely excited for what the next month has in store. I promise to keep you all posted along the way.

Rainbow (a complete arc that this photo does not show) near Cotopaxi on our way home from Baños.

Seventh Inning Slump

Torrey and me at the official Equator line

So at the beginning of our semester, we HECUA-ns had hours and hours of orientation warning us for the possibility of upcoming frustrations or negative experiences. At the time, we listened, but also we were all so excited to finally be in Quito, meeting eachother, and getting used to our lives in the city, that I'm not sure if many of us really listened.

Well, I'm here, at the beginning of my seventh week experiencing what I'm deciding to call my "seventh inning slump" (baseball on the brain--Twins :-(. In the recent weeks, my frusterations have outnumbered my moments of clarity, and I often find myself questioning my motives for being here in Ecuador. Do not get me wrong, I do not regret coming AT ALL, and I do understand that this is all a part of the process-- my homesickness and/or negative feelings sometimes do not belittle my experience abroad, because they are a part of my experience abroad.

Anyone who speaks/has learned a second language knows that there are good days and bad ones (at least I hope that's the norm). Some days, the Spanish is clicking, I don't really have to think about it, but others, like many of my days recently, it is an extreme challenge to simply communicate. What a headache. I think that this week, coming back from the Amazon, a cool but extremely wearing experience, my body was physically tired, and my brain mentally so. I was much relieved to return on Monday and remember that we had a short week. The entire country had Friday off to "celebrate" Guayaquil's independence (it felt a little Columbus Day-ish to me... no work/school being the biggest celebration). After a kind of downer week, Friday was a welcome opportunity to sleep-in, watch a movie, catch up on some homework, and watch the Twins game with some fellow Minnesotans and a Yankees fan, fun I know.

Saturday I spent the day with Torrey, and I remembered why I am so thankful to have such a close friend in the same city, needless to say the same continent. We visited the las Mitades del Mundo-- the Equators. North of Quito there is the official Equator line, complete with monument and museums, and then there is the actual Equator line, which has been proven through GPS monitoring as well as other "experiments"-- A giant stone monument would be too hard to transport, so I guess there will forever be two Equators in Ecuador. We watched the Ecuador/Uruguay World Cup qualifier game at this great hole-in-the-wall restaurant that we stumbled upon. It was a really fun, excitement-filled environment... until we lost. I'm starting to feel like a bad luck charm.

One of my struggles is not feeling exactly a part of my host family. I mean, no one said it would be easy being dropped suddenly into someone else's life. I just didn't expect to feel this much on the outskirts all of the time. I've decided that a good way to appease this situation, because realistically it is simply figuring out a way for me to stop feeling left out, is to simply fill up my schedule. If I stay busy with my own things and create my own life here in Quito, I will feel less sorry for myself when others are living theirs, right? This morning at the English Fellowship Church I filled out a card to learn about some of their ministries during the week for college students, and also if I can fit it in I'm thinking about going to the local photo club with a student that I met at our conversation exchange at the local university. Well here's hoping!

Ready to get back on track,

Eliza

Torrey and me at the actual Equator- Museo Inti Ñan

Balancing an egg on a nail, possible at the Equator line due to the difference in gravity.