Otavalo: Version 2

Back on Wednesday of last week, I believe, Ellie and I went to the Mitad del Mundo for a ¨volcano hike¨. Let me tell you, that was the most interesting volcano hike I have ever done. We rode in a van with a family from Guatemala for about 20 minutes until we arrived at some interesting looking site with statues on it. We looked around and then they directed us inside a very dark cave museum. It had all sorts of creepy artifacts, the guide obviously spoke Spanish, so we didn´t know what was going on. We got up to the second level, where there were paintings, which made things a bit more interesting.. then we we told the artist was waiting for us. Apparently, the famous Ecuadorian artist who had painted the pieces we were looking at had a studio right there in the museum. And he also happened to be there, waiting for us to come in. The family was very excited, as it became exceedingly apparent that they were here for this moment. They went on and on about how great he was and how much their country loved him. Then the painter, who we now saw was a finger painter, painted right before our eyes a picture of the volcano Cotapaxi with wildflowers in the foreground, birds and a river flowing through the center. It took all of 5 minutes. Oh, and it looked perfect, as if it had taken hours. Crazy! Then, he gave it to the family to take back to Guatemala! What luck. I would have taken a small one... oh well, I guess we didn´t even know who the heck he was. And that essentially ended our volcano hike. Next time we will have to ask more questions about what we are actually doing... I think our favorite part was our van driver/tour guide who said only, ¨Siga, por favor¨which means something like continue, please. The entire time. All he said. Must have said it 30 times! By the end, we couldn´t stop bursting out in laughter every time he said it. I never want to hear anyone say that again!

So luck of all lucks I had another shot at Otavalo this weekend. If you search back in your Ecuadorian memories, you will remember Otavalo was my first and most terrible trip ever. So, being completely unable to convince anyone to go to the beach with me.. and then being able to talk my new roomie into the idea but then finding out there was no bus tickets left, we headed off to Otavalo. Wanting to be completely prepared for the motion sickness, I took 2 of the Ecuadorian equivilent of Dramamine. BAD IDEA. Apparently throughout the whole bus ride, my roomie thought I was going to awake any moment from my drugged state and throw up on her. Which I didn´t, thankfully. I really didn´t get sick, but even before we left the house to go to the bus station, I was drugged beyond belief. I could barely stand up, couldn´t think hard enough to put together complete sentences, and basically wanted to die. The good news is it did wear off by the time we got to Otavalo. We arrived after dark, so it was a pretty quiet night. We found a hostel, chunked our backpacks, and headed off in search of dinner. Turned out we found a really great little spot because the food was excellent. I had banana and chocolate crepes with a banana shake. Don´t judge. It was rediculously bad for me, but oh SO delicious! Especially the shake, made fresh in-house. Because the town wasn´t so crowded, and cold beyond belief (I had on jeans, tennis shoes, three shirts and a jacket and was freezing), we opted to go back to the hostel. Luckily, we had a fairly nice hostel with a TV, so we watched corny movies (in English!). The next morning we went to go meet the rest of our friends who were arriving for the market. They never came, so we moseyed (actual word - looked it up on dictionary.com) on over to the market. It was just as overwhelming as I had remembered, only this time I knew where things were, had an idea of what kinds of things were there, and what kind of prices to expect. And I was dead set on not losing my escort. We had an excellent time haggling away and buying some beautiful things. Lunch was another perfect meal of pasta, toast and a pisco sour. The restaurant had large doors opened up on either end, so the breeze floated through, and we even had a live entertainer come in at one point. More shopping ensued, along with a tour though the food market - crazy - no health inspectors should ever see it - and a walk around the town. We decided to head back, and this time I took only one pill. Much better, let me tell you. Sunday was just another quiet day in Quito, going to the park, getting some internet and phone time in, and a nice dinner and drink in the Mariscal area. Not a bad weekend for sure. Now if can just find someone to go with me to the coast next weekend. (My new roommie will already be gone!)

Also, to give you a heads up, I am getting a tad bit homesick for the first time, so I am itching to see all of you as soon as possible. Barring the idea that you can come see me here, this is my itinerary for when I get home:
August 1 - fly into Houston around noon
August 2 - attend Grace in College Station, go home to Round Rock with parents
August 2 - 7ish - time in Round Rock
weekends of 8 and 15 - Dallas with my besty!
10th on - College Station
weekend of 22 - might have to come back to Round Rock because I don´t know how the heck my stuff is making it to College Station

Let me know when you are free so I can see you!! Love you all!

Also note: I took down all the pictures of the kids because there was a man at work today who works for the organization that sponsors the orphanage. He said it is illegal to publicly post pictures of the kids because they try to protect them from anyone who is not allowed to know where they are. His wife had a professional camera, and was taking pictures of the kids and of me, so I am hoping I can get the pictures from her. He said it is fine to show them to everyone when I get back, but not to post them up on the Web. So, sorry, I know you all want to see them!

The Orphanage

I know I usually post about the weekends because they are different than the day-to-day, but here is some more information about the work in the orphanage.

The orphans interact somewhat differently than other children. One girl chews on everything, including crayons, dirt or trash. Many of them are overly violent. They reach their hands under the gate into the sewer and eat things they can find, including remnants of fruit. This is in spite of the fact that they are well fed; if anything, overfed. They also eat some of the plants in the yard and tell me it is ¨gum¨. They moms constantly yell at the kids to ¨eat faster!¨, though they are served more food than a person should eat, even a growing child. One mom, because the two year old boy wasn´t eating fast enough, took his bowl and shoved his mouth full to the brim of rice. I was terrified he was going to choke. Today, the same mom, angry that the one year old was crying in the shower, left her, shivering in extreme cold, covered in suds and bawling for over 20 minutes to teach her to stop crying. A couple of days ago, I faced quite a predicament when I went out with about 5 kids to the blacktop. It was early in the morning, so we were the only ones outside, and the kids started to build something. Soon I figured out it was a fire, a nice one at that, but thinking they wouldn´t have anything to light it with, didn´t stop them. Soon thereafter, one of the eight year old boys pulled out a match. My heart dropped. If I went to get help, they would be left alone, if I tried to grab the matches, they would only be more inclined to light it. I was able to get one match away from him, and stop them enough times that they gave up and went back to the front yard. I ran inside with the match, and showed it to the mom, telling her they were trying to make a fire. She looked slightly mad, but told me simply to ask them where they got them from. Ha. The kids who, when I stopped them from making the fire, started to pelt me with rocks and sticks, will for some reason tell me where they got something they weren´t supposed to have? Logical... (I didn´t bother asking). I´ve had quite a few incidents where, after enforcing rules, I end up being tormented in some way or other... the other day after pulling the bigger kids off the smaller ones, one of the older girls (who up to that point was my ¨big baby¨ who sat in my lap) pelted me in the back with a ball several times before I ended up going inside to tell her mom. The next day when I saw her she said nothing and we were fine again. It makes for long days when these kinds of things happen multiple times in a day. The last volunteer has her final day on Friday, and then I will be the lone volunteer once again. I want to ask if I can leave earlier than 4:00 to get in some more rest, but I feel like a quitter. I´m going to wait and see how next week goes...

On a more positive note, there are lots of good memories, too. Most of the kids know my name now, which is exciting, because they never learned the other girls´ names. They also have the tendancy to yell it in the morning when I come in, which helps to brighten my mood after an hour and half bus ride. There are four year old twin boys, who, before I even arrived, I was warned about because of their tendency to misbehave, but now they are especially attached to me and love it when I play soccer with them. They also tend to listen to me better then the other kids, and even yell for me because they know I will settle the matter fairly if there is a dispute. (And there is always a dispute!) Their names are Ricardo and Rinato, and sadly I still have to wait until someone says their name because I can´t tell them apart. (Darn that twin idea!) I am surpised, but even the older boys.. maybe nine or ten, love to play with me, one in particular tries endlessly to be stronger than me and knock me down, but thank goodness I am still stronger than him. Another loves to have tickle fights. At first, I was a little taken aback, but I´ve come to see they are not being inappropriate, they are simply starved for physical affection. With nine kids per mom, the younger ones are usually the only kids to get attention, the older ones are simply expected to help out and be useful. We made dirt soup today, and I was the chief taster, telling them what ingredients they need to add. I added some more photos courtesy of Gillian because I still can´t figure my camera out. So for those techies out there: I bought an older camera online so I wouldn´t be sad if I lost it. The batteries died soonafter, and since then I have tried two different kinds of batteries and neither work. (Energizer being one of them.) The brand that did work is random and I haven´t seen them here. So far my plan is: steal pictures. Ideas?

Quito Weekend

Last week, after bumping into a friend from Baños, the friend (Sara) and I decided to stay in Quito for the weekend and see some of the sights here. It would make for a very relaxing weekend to say the least.

On Friday night, some of the girls wanted to go out. I decided to see what it was like, just for one night. I was nervous to say the least, seeing as I have been clubbing never and been to a bar maybe once. We met up in a part of town called Mariscal, popular for its nightlife. There ended up being 6 girls and one boy, ages 20 to 24. We let the two party girls pick the place and to my relief we were soon sitting in the booth of a classy restaurant/bar. It was similar to a Chili´s or TGIFridays in the US. A couple of hours passed as we got to know each other and swapped Ecuadorian stories. The girls had picked the place because it had 79 cent beers, and as I don´t care for beer, was the only to order something else. My strawberry margarita was a tad bit more expensive, but tasty. I thought I was doing pretty well for my first night out when they asked where we were going next. Next, I thought? To bed... So needless to say, minutes later there we were at a real club where the boys pay cover and the music is as loud as the noisy traffic outside. We went upstairs to a lounge area where we had the place to ourselves. Everyone ordered more drinks.. except for me, already woosie enough from my margarita. It took five seconds to realize all the pictures on the wall were provocative and every other thing playing on the tv screens were videos of naked girls. Yikes! No one else mentioned it, the party girls love this place, so I concentrated on diverting my attention to the converstation. We shared more stories, analyzed our host family situations and tried to ready the two new people who had just arrived the day before. Everything was going pretty well again, until they said let´s go downstairs and dance! Oh boy, that got the heart a-pumping... I have never danced in a club before, and you probably know of my dancing skills in general... but it wasn´t as terrible as I thought. We danced with our little group and scared off any boys who tried to join us. I´m pretty sure my dancing was as awkward as I felt, but overall it wasn´t terrible. The music was all American, so for the most part I had heard the songs before. I´m glad I had the courage to see if it was as I had imagined. It is now a battle of conscience to decide whether it is right/good for me to go clubbing again, or go to that particular club if the girls want me to go back. I don´t find booty dancing a good choice, and I certainly wouldn´t want to have some strange guy come and dance like that with me... so although it might be hard to go against the common practice of all of the other people here... it seems like it would be the better moral choice to stay away.

On Saturday, I had the chance to sleep in past 6:00, which was luxurious, and time to shower and look presentable, also a luxury. Sara and I met up for lunch around noon. We went to a wonderful place called Magic Bean. Both of our meals were delicious! I had beef lasagne with a side salad and seasoned carrots. Everything was so good and well worth paying a little more for. Then we taxied into Old Town. Immediately, we both were in love with the old architecture, the flowers upon every balcony and simply put, a cleaner and nicer part of town. We explored churches, museums, one building we thought might be part of a college and many side streets and plazas. There were gorgeous pink flowering trees, pigeons fluttering about in the open plaza areas, and the tail-end of a wedding where a mariachi band, complete with huge red hats, serenaded the new bride and groom. We even got to ride in a horse-drawn carriage around the city! As it got a bit later, we headed up the hill to the Virgen statue (the 1st picture). It stands on the top of the tallest hill in Old Town, complete with observation decks to see a 360 degree view of the city. It is amazing how big this city is! Estimates put it at more than 2 million... who knows for sure, as construction continues up the mountainsides. We headed back down into Old Town for dinner, which ended up being some sort of ¨crepes¨(tortillas with meat on top) in a restaurant with ¨mood lighting¨(really dark). It wasn´t terrible, just amusing. We also had the pleasure of watching Tom Cruise in Top Gun. Too bad my Spanish isn´t better... there were no English subtitles. To finish off our day, we taxied over to the cinema where we saw The Women (In English! They had Spanish subtitles). I was surprised to actually enjoy the movie. I´m not one for a chick flick, but this one gave you something to chew on - how you would choose between a job and a friend, whether you would fight for your marriage if you were cheated on, what good parenting looks like... Although the core message was wrong (only look after yourself), there was more substance than I had expected.

Sunday was another day of bliss. We had another late start and lunch out. Then, the highlight of our day, the Botanical Gardens. We stayed forever because it was so beautiful, quiet and everything else Quito isn´t. There was a pond full of giant orange (koi?) fish, with a patio area for sitting and a fountain for background noise. Butterflies, bees and birds were everywhere, especially flocking to the giant pink and red roses. I´ll get you the pictures as soon as Sara puts them up. Next we walked the giant Carolina park. There were so many people... thousands.. and everyone was having so much fun. There were pony rides, a small carnival, soccer, basketball, frisbee, kites, dogs, bikes, a skate park, vendors with fresh pineapple, mango, bananas, lunch, snacks, fresh juices, candies, handmade gifts and jewelry, and so much more... it seemed like the whole city had come to my park! I showed Sara my mall, and we drank a coffee and window-shopped. Literally window-shopped because the stores there are so expensive!! Next was the teleferico. The telefericos are small enclosed buckets that take you up to the top of the mountain (I put up a picture). The ride was slow, thank goodness, and not too scary, though it was extremely high up. At the top, the air is thin and cold, so I had trouble breathing after even little spurts of walking. We explored a tiny but beautiful mountain church and attempted to take pictures in between patches of clouds passing through. It was so cold!!! At the bottom of the teleferico there was a small carnival, and I just couldn´t pass up the opportunity to ride the swings... all by myself! The locals all stared, but it was fun! And that ended our wondeful weekend here in Quito.

Coming soon...

I know I haven´t posted in awhile, but don´t you worry, I´m thinking about you! Hopefully tomorrow I will have more time, and if not, the next day... I had an awesome weekend here in Quito... and my first clubbing experience EVER... (like dark, scary places, not hitting people with sticks.) I spent the weekend with a friend I met in Baños - Sara from Sweden... it was wonderfully relaxing and I love spending time with Sara...sweetest girl you will ever meet. The highlight of the weekend (for both of us, I´m pretty sure) was the botanical gardens. It was so entirely beautiful and peaceful, I will probably pay the $3.50 to go back and just read a book by the fish pond.

Also: PLEASE NOTE: I sent postcards today. It cost me an arm and a leg, so I kept it to family only. Please don´t be offended if you don´t get one in the next couple of weeks, I already bought one for you too, wrote on it and everything; I just have to mail it when I get back home. The post office employee said it should take two weeks for the ones I mailed today. We´ll see about that... I tried to send it DHL so it would be safer... $40.00 a postcard. I told him thanks but no thanks... security is just going to have to be sidelined for this one... It´ll be an adventure!

Let me know how you are doing: julie.christine.rogers@gmail.com I would love to hear from you!

Baños

I had the opportunity to go the city of Baños this weekend with a rather large group of people from Quito. There were people from Arizona, Florida, Sweden, Boston and Canada! The bus ride was a little longer than I was expecting - more than 3 hours, and longer for the way back, but it was worth it! We had delicious food - enchiladas, lasagne, and a to-die-for tomato, cheese and avacado sandwich. We also experienced the thermal baths which were a nice change from the chilly air. I was able to go zip-lining from a mountain down into a valley! It was so much fun! We also took a ride on the chivas, or tour buses to see more waterfalls, do some hiking, ride in a cable car and get a closer look at the countryside. Well worth the $4.00! Our hostel was extremely nice and the people there were so kind and overwhelmingly warm to us. I think a friend of mine and I might go back another weekend because there were so many things to do and see. I want to do the white-water rafting, and possibly the swing bungee jumping! I never thought I would be able to do it, but this kind is a lot safer and easier on your body than the basic bungee jump. On top of that, you can do it together with a friend, and the price is a very reasonable $10.00. We´ll see, but it would definately be worth another weekend trip. I also had the opportunity to talk to two girls on the bus, and really get to know them, and have a heart-felt talk about everything from politics, to poverty to religion. It was a very refreshing and uplifting time. I hope to get to know some of the girls a little bit better in the next few weeks.

Also, silly sidenote, but Ecuador can´t get over Micheal Jackson. I thought that it was ironic that I had mentioned how enamoured they were with him right before he passed away. Maria´s friend that lives with us was in hysterics and came running into my room to tell me the news.

A couple of other silly things of note: The fruits are crazy here! Today I ate a fruit that looked like (to-me-only) very tiny babies in sacs... and then you crunched through them. A little bit of a freaky experience, but very good tasting babies, for sure!
I got to go out to coffee with a friend, and had a wonderful tasting iced chocolate something or other. They love coffee here, though for the most part the unflavored gross kinds. Still wanting Starbucks, though...
When you blow your nose here, it is varying colors of black and gray because of the pollution. Certainly scared me quite a bit before I realized that´s what it was.

Well, I think the internet shop closed 11 minutes ago, so I think I´ll let them go home. Email me and let me know what is happening in your life!

Praising the Lord!

Praise the Lord and thank you all for your prayers! After three long weeks, I am finally feeling better!! The last medicine the doctor prescribed was strong enough to beat the cough. As I was praying on the bus today, I asked for the experiences on my trip to make me more ¨Christ-like¨and realized that Jesus suffered horribly without complaint... and I have never ceased to stop asking God to take this suffering away from me. Woah! It hit me hard. I pray that I will keep that with me throughout any other ¨sufferings¨I endure on this trip.

For those who want to send gifts for the orphanage... I have an address and a note. I have not heard of any other volunteers receiving things through mail. Thus, I have no idea how reliable or fast it would be. I would ask that if you want to send something that you do it in the next week so that it *hopefully* will get here before I leave. I will certainly let you know when it arrives!

Julie Rogers & Maria Eugenia Tera´n
Eloy Alfaro 32-220 y Alpallana
#02-2546495
Quito, Ecuador

(That is an accent on the ¨a¨ in Teran, and they don´t do zip codes here.)

I also realized that today is my 4 week mark. I can´t believe it! Honestly, the time has slipped by so quickly I am sad that it is halfway over.

Pictures of Mindo

Sooooo... for all of those who wanted pictures, (these are not mine either)... but here they are!