Happy Thanksgiving!

Only once in my life had I spent Thanksgiving away from my family. You may or may not know this, but I really love to eat good food. I also love having big family get-togethers where we have the chance to catch up and play lots of games. Watching football is also great too!

Unfortunately, none of this happened on Thanksgiving this year. Nevertheless, Thanksgiving was amazing! I cannot say enough about how impressed I was with all of the cooks in the house. Often my mom and my uncle cook together for the holidays and they both always do an amazing job, but I really believe that our turkey came out perfectly. Hilary had the amazingly difficult task of cooking the (still slightly frozen) turkey without a thermometer in our too small oven that has no temperature gauge. Despite these challenges I cannot imagine how the turkey could have tasted better.

Hilary also cooked a chocolate cake and a pumpkin pie. I love dessert! SO GOOD!

In addition to these desserts, I ate even more of what I actually thought the dessert was. Zak baked a large loaf of pumpkin bread that really tasted more like cake than any cake I have eaten in South America. Absolutely wonderful!

What would be Thanksgiving without mashed potatoes and gravy? It would be lame…Fortunately for us Hilary also made an amazing batch of gravy from the turkey and John absolutely nailed the mashed potatoes. I don’t know how he did it, and I know I sound like a broken record, but they tasted perfect!

I am so happy to be living down here with such a great group of people (who really know how to cook) and I am really do feel thankful this Thanksgiving.

The Saturday following Thanksgiving we were treated to a special show. Danny Flores, an Ecuadorian that works with us in the after school program in San Francisco, also works with a youth group in South Quito. This youth group was putting on their first annual talent show. There were a variety of acts ranging from an interpretive dance, a young violinist, a hip-hop dance, a theater performance, and an indigenous Quichua dance troupe. Danny worked as the emcee and did a great job of stalling for time. We are in Ecuador where efficiency isn’t entirely valued giving us about a 10-15 minute break between each act for the next talent to prepare. At one point I even came on stage between performances and led the audience in a song (¡Parriba, pabajo, pal centro, pa dentro!)...

Danny’s principal contribution to the talent show was his direction of the theater piece. This was a hilarious comedy in which male and female gender roles were reversed. It starts off with the woman yelling at her husband because her breakfast is not yet ready. It then continues with the woman going off to the auto shop and fraternizing (sororitizing?) with her co-workers about how inferior men are. While the women are at work a pregnant man comes over for idle conversation with the husband. The show ends with the women going out, getting drunk, hitting on the hot waiter, and getting kicked out of the bar by the female owner. The woman then comes home and beats her husband because he asked her not to spend all the family’s money on booze and to try and save some for the kids. In the end, however, it was all a dream and the curtains close the next morning as the man is telling his wife to make her some breakfast.

What for me was the most terrifying performance was the local indigenous troupe dance. (Although for some reason no Ecuadorians seemed surprised). As the curtain opened there were about 12 little children dressed up in animal costumes, and one boy dressed as a hunter with a gun bigger than he. All the animals got up and started dancing: The birds flew, the chickens pecked, the bunnies hopped around, etc. It was all very adorable as they were bouncing around in circles, not really paying any attention to the hunter that was walking around. Until, all of a sudden, the animals surrounded the hunter. They closed in on him, took his gun, and took him down! While one bunny rabbit held the gun over his head in triumph five other little animals choked, kick, and beat the hunter. Afterwards, all the animals turned towards the audience and pumped their fist in victory. Meanwhile, however, the hunter is still lying on the ground and twitching! This, for me, was too much. The Ecuadorians, nevertheless, saw nothing strange or out of place in this scenario…

Apparently I am not as cultured as I hoped…

Climbing mountains and building relationships

“This is the most beautiful view I have ever seen!”

~ John Newman, avid mountain climber and MPI-Ecuador Program Director from Colorado, upon reaching the summit of Iliniza Norte.

John, Seth, and I decided that we needed a weekend above the clouds and so we decided to take the short bus ride to the town of Chaupi, population 100. From Chaupi it was a 45 minute truck ride to the trail head at 3950 meters (13,000 feet). From the trailhead it is a mere 2.2km to the refuge but you are asked to allow at least 3 to 3.5 hours because you have to climb up to 4650 meters (15,300 feet). This comes out to over 2000 feet of elevation gain in about a mile and a half (or 8000 feet horizontally and 2300 feet vertically). This refuge is located right on the saddle between two of Ecuador’s tallest volcanoes (Iliniza Sur and Iliniza Norte).

Needless to say this was quite steep. We then spent a cold and restless night at the refuge before waking up at 5:00 to cook breakfast and be on the trail by sunrise.

As hard as the previous day’s hike was, the summit hike was considerably more difficult, though much more rewarding. This day we hiked from 4650 meters to the top of Ecuador’s eighth-highest peak at 5126 meters (16,900 feet). The first hour was a rough scramble through loose rocks and frozen sand. Once we reached the top of the first ridge we were absolutely blown away by the view. Looking to the north and the east we were surrounded by a blanket of clouds that was only broken by majesty of Ecuador’s volcanoes standing tall above the white surface.

As we continued for the final hour and a half up the (not as steep) rough scramble to the summit the views only got better and better. I don’t know if you have ever been above 16,000 feet (I never had, except for on an airplane), but there really is not much air up there. Breathing is not actually an easy task. We pressed on however, and were rewarded at the top. From the summit we were blessed with the most amazing view of the six of Ecuador’s ten highest peaks from one point.

These are, from North to South, Volcán Cayambe (at number 3, the only point on Earth where there is snow on the Equator), Volcán El Altar (number 10, but Ecuador’s most difficult mountain), Volcán Cotopaxi (number 2 and a most perfect cone), Volcán Iliniza Norte (8 and we’re on top), Volcán Iliniza Sur (6 and RIGHT in front of us), and the massive Volcán Chimborazo (número 1 and Ecuador’s only mountain over 6000 meters).

I have included several images here from the hike, but the entire album is also available by clicking here.

The following weekend we dropped all the way down to below 800 meters and the town of El Chaco and the Quijos River, site of the 2005 white-water rafting world championships. We also participated in a bit of a championship; however, this one was organized for novices. For the mere price of $5.00 per person we qualified for two days of rafting. Day Two was the long race and we paddled hard against five other boats and came down the final stretch in second place. We had managed to make it through the length of the course without losing anyone; nonetheless, on the very last rapid, in front of the entire crowd, I fell out of the boat! I immediately swam back to the boat and the guide turned us back towards me, but by the time I was back in the boat we were facing backwards. Our guide, always aware, immediately shouted “¡ATRÁS! (back paddle)” and we crossed the finish line cruising in reverse!

Enough weekend fun, now on to programs! This past Saturday (we did not go out of town) we held our first parent meeting for the families of the kids in our program. I was incredibly impressed with the turnout as fifteen parents gave up their Saturday and trudged through the pouring down rain to attend our event. We discussed several topics, but first we asked the parents to talk to us. We really wanted to know what they thought about our work with their children. I cannot say how happy I was to hear all the positive feedback we received from each and every parent present!

After the parents talked we went into the meat of the meeting. Raquel and Bea, certified psychologists from Spain and UBECI volunteers, led a group discussion on the three principal parenting styles: Authoritarian, Passive, and Cooperative. In small groups we not only defined these three parenting styles, but we also talked about how children are normally affected by each of the different styles. Sadly, physical abuse is incredibly common in our community (due in large part to the pervasiveness of “Authoritarian parents”).

We did not come to Ecuador to tell people they are not allowed to hit their children. We did not come to Ecuador to tell people they have bad parents. We did not come to Ecuador to tell people how to raise their children. We are here to educate. All of our parents love their children and want the best for their kids. Our goal is show the different ways children tend to act based on how their parents interact with them. Every parent agreed that they want their child to grow and act the way children of “Cooperative parents” act and could understand how they might be able to slightly change their parenting styles for the benefit of their children.

Raquel and Bea conducted a great discussion, but what most impressed me was how Raquel ended the discussion. In a small circle we were all asked to say two things: what we are going to leave at the meeting (as in, what we will no longer do or feel) and what we are taking away from the meeting (as in, what change we will make in our lives). I think this last activity was small, but absolutely essential. It is incredibly energizing to hear each and every parent say all that they will do for their children.

Finally, I want to give a special thanks to one volunteer who is staying with us this week. He has been an absolute joy to have with us. Just Tuesday night he cooked us an amazing dish of Puerto Rican chicken, beans, and rice. What most impresses me, however, is his dedication to our work and the people of Ecuador. Two weeks ago a new family moved into the community of San Francisco: a single mother and her two children. The younger child, at six years of age, has never been to school and is not even able to recognize letters or numbers. The older child, ten years old, also cannot read or write, but he can barely write his own name. These children have not been to school simply because they cannot afford the $10/month fee required to attend school. As soon as our friend found out about these children he immediately offered the $200 necessary to put both of these children through school for a year.

I really am excited about the progress we have begun to make in our community. We now have over 40 children registered in our School Support Program and more and more coming in every day. Already this week we have registered eight new kids. I am also excited about the prospects of starting an English class for adolescents and adults. We have started planning and recruitment for this course and plan to have our first English session on Tuesday the 20^th.