Babaco

I went to el Mitad del Mundo. It’s basically just a line drawn down the middle of the park that claims it’s the equator.  Really the equator is located somewhere else close by.  We went to a museum/park/place that looked like a putt-putt golf course where we watched water drain different ways from a sink and attempted to balance eggs on a nail.  The best part of the day was that I got to see a real shrunken head.  Our tour guide pulled out this wooden box, told us we couldn’t take pictures, then unveils this awesome shrunken head and walks around with showing us.  I guess it was the head of a shaman.  Super cool.

I went for my first run in the Andes on Tuesday.  It was absolutely amazing!  Well the run itself was kind of hard with the altitude and all, but the view was breath taking.  There is this trail right next the training center that goes into Tumbaco but also goes the other way into this national forest.  Within a 5 minute jog, the trail is on a huge cliff overlooking a meandering river with the mountains in the background… awesome!  The second time I ran on the trail I thought it would be cool to ‘off-road’ it a bit and take a random trail down the cliff to the river.  A couple tumbles and a ton of cactus scratches and bug bites later, I made it as close to the river as I could get and back up again.

We visited a school near the training center on Wednesday to witness some formal classroom learning for people that may end up working with kids teaching stuff.  The class I visited was learning about the different states of water.  It was pretty interesting to see how classes are run here rather than in the states.  Afterwards, the kids had recess and we played some intense soccer.  Also, we found out that we’ll be giving a charla (talk/demonstration) at the end of March to a class.  My language group decided to talk about plants (all the things needed to grow them like soil, water, sun, seeds, etc) and they’ll make their own little chia pet, cool right?

PLANT GRAFTING IS THE COOLEST THING EVER!  We went to a fruit nursery in Tumbaco and I learned all about grafting plants.  I never knew such a thing existed and now that I do I cannot wait to start my own garden and make all kinds of crazy plants.  For those of you who don’t know, grafting is essentially putting a root system together with a leaf/fruit system.  For example, you could have a tomato plant with three or more different types of tomatoes growing on it because you grafted different buds onto the plant.  The genetic makeup of the plant doesn’t change at all; you just add a branch here and a branch there.  The purpose of grafting here is Ecuador is that a lot of the native fruits/trees have root systems that can deal with the fungi, pests, and climate of the country but the fruit they produce is not the best or not what sells well.  So, for example in this nursery, they graft native avocado trees with a variety that is better for exportation.  And you can do it will all kinds of other things, like potatoes and tomatoes…by the time the tomatoes are out of season the potatoes will be ready to dig up.  I’m super excited to experiment with all kinds of plants/trees!

I learned how to make wine from local Ecuadorian fruit and how to make other value-added products.  Also, my language group and I made Colada Morada, a drink for Day of the Dead.  I wasn’t a huge fan but other people liked it.  Each language group made a different food, so we had a little feast Saturday morning.  Afterwards, some people broke out their guitars and we alternated playing/singing Spanish and English songs.

I went to my host-cousin’s wedding on Saturday night.  The ceremony/mass was held in the Catholic Church that is in the main square of Tumbaco.  When we arrived, another wedding was just ending, and when we left another one was filing in.  Judging by the amount of rice and rose petals already on the ground, I’d say there were quite a few more during the day; I guess they just keep rolling through them on Saturdays.  The mass was kind of strange because there weren’t that many people there and the people that were there weren’t super invested in the ceremony.  After the mass, our car got in line with a parade of cars headed to the reception.  They even rented a ‘party bus’ equipped with loud sirens that they blasted the whole way to the reception.  The reception was like any other wedding.  They rented out the yard of a house/complex and had tents put up with tables and flowers and decorations.  After a half hour or so, the bride and groom came in and there were a bunch of champagne toasts.  The wedding was bittersweet because the father of the bride passed away a couple months ago so there were a lot of toasts to him as well.  After all the toasts, they called all the single women up to what I thought would be the bouquet toss.  Of course I remained sitting to watch it, but the bride herself came to my table and dragged me by the hand up to the front.  Instead of a bouquet toss we had to answer questions about the bride’s/groom’s favorite things and the ones who got them correct stayed up there and the others got to sit down, luckily I got my question wrong and got to sit.  Then, all the single men were called up to do the same thing.  In the end there were four men and four women up front.  The paired up and then, couple by couple, the women had to stand on a chair and balance on one foot while holding two champagne glasses.  Then the man had to put garters on the woman’s leg in the air.  It was quite humorous but a little strange.  They repeated the whole process with all the married women and their husbands.  After that the dancing began, and once again I was dragged up on the stage to dance.  It was actually pretty fun because we just formed a dance circle and people broke out moves in the middle.  Everyone loved my American ‘moves.’  The music stopped and everyone sat down to be served dinner, by this point it was already 10 pm.  While we were waiting, I found out that there was some drama between my family and the bride/groom.  I guess my host brothers and their families were not invited to the wedding but every other relative was, so Sylvia was upset that they were the only ones not there.  So we ate, and then snuck out the back without even saying goodbye/thank you to the bride and groom…it was a little awkward. 

Random Thoughts:

·         While walking home one afternoon, a man in the bed of a moving truck chucked a water balloon at me.  Apparently this is the beginning of Carnaval.

·         People can window shop for coffins here.

·         Lately for breakfast I’ve been getting what I guess is a soft-boiled egg.  Basically it’s just a soup of yolk with semi-firm white stuff.

·         On March 21 at noon I will have no shadow for approximately three minutes.

·         I taught Julian how to stick out his tongue.  He now does this when he doesn’t want to eat…whoops, my bad.

·         Nobody in my host family wears seatbelts.  Julian (the 1 year old) sits on Fausto’s lap while he is driving or he climbs over the seats to sit on his plastic car on the floor of the car.

·         Nobody was home one night and I was hungry for dinner so I made myself some scrambled eggs.  When Sylvia got home, she was super impressed that I could scramble my own eggs.  Apparently because I said I don’t really cook they thought I was a complete moron in the kitchen. 

·         Men pee where ever they want.  Normally against a building in the main square.

·         Nobody obeys traffic signs/lights.  Fausto turned left on a red light over 6 lanes of traffic the other day.

·         I washed my own clothes on a rock.  Most are hanging to dry with soap suds on them because it was far too difficult/a lot of effort to get all the soap off.  Also, I think most of my clothes will have holes in them by the third or fourth washing because the rock it pretty brutal.