Coming and Goings

Well, I have been quite the busy little bee this past week. After my medical exam and exciting adventures in Quito, I went to Cayambe to visit my host family from training. As always, it was awesome because I felt like I was with ¨my family¨again. I feel like I really took family dinners for granted, especially now since I eat all alone. But it was great just being with the fam again, joking around, eating some good food. The afternoon before I left, they took me up to Ibarra (about an hour or so away) to eat at Fritada Amazonas, basically Fritada Castle. Fritada is a popular food here, fried pork...it´s so good but so bad at the same time. They bought they huge platters for us to share: a POUND of fritada (dios mio!), choclo (big ass corn), mote (more big ass corn), grilled bananas and fresh squeezed orange juice. It was great. Then I hopped on the bus back to Quito to start my 14 hour journey back to Loja.

Luckily Chris bought us our tickets the day before because the bus station was PACKED. Sunday was another round of elections so everyone was going back to their hometowns to vote.

When I arrived Sunday morning in Yantzaza, my friend Miriam had just gotten there as well. Miriam and I trained together and she lives in Salinas de Guaranda in the province of Bolívar, which is probably the coldest site there is here. Her site looks at Chimborazo, the tallest mountain in Ecuador, so you can get a good gist for what her weather/life is like. Ironically, during training I wanted her site and she wanted where I live, but we both agreed they did a good job of placing us in the end because we both wouldn´t change where we live.

She came down to help me give charlas on Nutrition in Children for FODI. Monday we had a big charla day for all of the educators, which was really good. Gave out some Humana stress relievers that my dad had sent (thanks Dad!) and they were such a hit. People were asking me for more at the end, some of the girls had stolen them from each other! They also kept asking me what they were called, I was like...um...estrés....best thing I could think of. If you put a Spanish accent on an English word, which a lot of times they do, it´ll pass as a legitimate palabra.

Then the rest of the week we traveled throughout the communities giving charlas. This week FODI was also celebrating Dia del Niño, so at every community, we gave cake, a cup of cola, and a FODI t-shirt/short set to every kid. It was a lot of fun, we had a great time seeing all of the communities, as well as talking to the parents. The last community, San Francisco, is a Saraguro (Kichwa) community and we showed Miriam how we party down here! It was great, they did the whole gifting cake thing and then as soon as that was over, a dad whips out this giant pitched of Leche de Tigre...and San Francisco is known for their Leche de Tigre (milk with homemade cane liquor) I got pretty happy (as they say down here for tipsy) on this stuff at Christmas. But this time around I was trying to pace myself. But this guy pouring the milk pours us FULL GLASSES! It was so hard trying to drink the whole thing...and we did that about 3 times in an hour. Woo wee....we were feeling it. But it was great time, as always...riding in the back of the pick up, playing with the kids, eating a TON of food (it´s bad custom to turn down food offered). So we were stuffed. But it was great.

Miriam left and I did another round of communities on my own, but that was still fun. It was great having her here; she is Latina so Spanish is her first language. It was nice having her around to talk to my friends, hang out with people because they could easily understand her.

As for other news, I got a cat! I got to my house on Sunday and someone had put a cat in a potato sack, dropped it through my window, and so now I have a cat I guess. Her name is Tortilla, it´s been almost a week, so I don´t think this one will run away. She´s a kitten, so is still yelping a lot, but buena gente none the less.

Some other news, my friend Doris, the Tuberculosis patient I have been visiting for pretty much the whole last year, finally went home. She had been bed ridden last June because only half of one of her lungs functions, so was put on oxygen. Since then she has been trying to get this electricity powered oxygen machine and FINALLY got it. I was so happy to hear that. She had been having a lot of problems at home and was getting really sick of being bed-ridden, so it´s great she is finally at home with her family. She called me right before she left simply said ME VOY (I´m going!) giggled and then was off to her home.

So a lot has been happening, needless to say. It´s nice taking care of my cat....something I´ve got to look forward to when I get home. Now if she will only use the Ecua-kitty litter box I made her...