Visit from ChezGirlChez

Two words: jam packed! Chez and I got to spend 6 wonderful days running around the country experiencing programs, the gorgeous Ecuadorian landscape, and rich culture. Here's what the week looked like:

Tuesday-- I picked Chez up from the airport and went into the Mariscal to get dinner and meet the new 2010-2011 PDs. After dinner, we headed to the house in the valley for some much-needed rest.

Wednesday-- We taught exercise and Chez got a tour of the library and our communities. After we got home, we had a hearty breakfast, showered, and headed into Quito. We walked around the Mariscal for lunch and to book our Cotopaxi tour. In the afternoon, we climbed the bell towers of the Basillica and walked around all of the plazas in Old Town. We ate dinner at the house, and Chez got the full Manna experience of a family dinner. After dinner we chatted and played MadLibs. As I worked on my transition reports for the new PDs, Chez and Mike baked a cake to top off the night!

Climbing the Basillica

Thursday-- Here we ran into our first speed bump. We planned on doing a Cotopaxi tour on Thursday, but the guide forgot to pick us up. After waiting around for an hour or so and running after every gringo-filled bus, we headed into Quito to see what happened. We enjoyed a lovely breakfast while waiting for the tour agency to open up. We rescheduled our tour and stopped by the artisan market on the way home, where Chez got her nose pierced! Later that afternoon (after naps and report-writing), we taught exercise at the Centro. We ended the evening with dinner at the house, followed by a movie marathon.

Piercings (one is fake)

Friday-- The whole crew went to Rumiloma mid-day to give the entire Centro space a deep clean. Afterwards, Chez stuck around and helped me run the library for the afternoon. We closed up shop at 7, went home to a bbq with the new PDs, went into Quito for a Chivas tour (incredibly tacky and embarrassing party bus... dance floor, lights, and fog machine on wheels). After we were danced out, Chez and I decided to stay in a hostel for the evening.

Some of the gals on the Chivas bus (in our burger king crowns)

Saturday-- 6:00am wake-up call, and we went to meet our guide and the other couple for our Cotopaxi tour. We drove up Cotopaxi, to 4,500 meters elevation. We strapped on our gear and started biking down the active volcano (glacier-covered volcano, which is also the closest point to the sun on earth) in the snow. I have few words to describe this experience. The biking wore me out, but the views and the pristine landscape was breath-taking. We biked down the mountain, 28 miles through the National Park, ate lunch at some Incan ruins, peddled through herds of cattle, splashed through the mud... we had an amazing time. As soon as we got back to Quito, we hopped a bus for Otavalo. When we arrived, we had dinner and listened to some live music with Erik before heading up to our hostel. We were so exhausted and hit they hay immediately upon arrival.

Biking down Cotopaxi, with the glacier behind us

This (awkward) picture doesn't do it justice

Sunday-- After a good night's rest, we went into Otavalo to use our haggle-ing skills at the largest open-air market in South America. Shopping, pie, and a bus ride later, we were in Cotocachi (a little town famous for it's leather). Once we were leather-ed out, we took 3 buses back into the valley and went directly to the movie theater to watch Eclipse. We got home around midnight and Chez packed.

Krysta modeling some snazzy chaps

Monday-- I put Chez in a taxi at 5:30am so she could catch her flight. I was sad to see my friend and sister off, but it was so nice to have her visit. Love you, alma gemela!

Retiro #4: Pablo Escobar's Old Stomping Grounds

We are back from Colombia! We spent the weekend seeing a different side of South America. It's hard to believe that neighboring countries can be so different. Spanish accents, food, currency, city planning, museums, appearances, weather, etc. Medellin was very different from Quito. For one thing, we arrived to humidity (what's that?), heat, and sweat. It was warm and tropical. Medellin is similar to Quito in that it is a city in a valley, but the city is much smaller and is circular, rather than reaching north/south for miles. The city is much more developed, with sky scrapers and fancy apt buildings. It is very green and people seem to obey traffic signs.

We spent most of our time exploring parks and museums. The city is very nice and put-together, largely due to the biggest philanthropist Colombia has ever seen, Pablo Escobar. A lot of drug money has been put into the city; that means that now that they have worked so hard to clean up their act, it is a beautiful and clean place, filled with culture. It was a great place to spend the weekend (since we were kicked out of Ecuador).

We all got back safe and sound under tourist visas. Now we are back home and ready for the last month ahead of us.

Happy Manna-versary

It's been a year! We are in a season of a lot of goodbyes and one very exciting hello.

Yesterday was our last Adult English class. We had a party with our students, and Krysta and I stayed at the library with them until almost 9pm. We had a TON of food, music, a little English, and a lot of laughter. We have been with most of our students since January and a couple since last year. They have such excitement for learning English, and they have spoiled us with gifts for "Teacher Day", "Women's Day", "Easter", and any other holiday for that matter. They also taught me so much about Ecuador, Ecuadorian culture, and Spanish throughout the past year. We said our goodbyes and had quite the photo shoot. I hope these adults stop by the library to say hi throughout the next month. They are wonderful students and friends. Through this experience, I've learned how to be a teacher and how education is the key to development. Through education, these community members have so many more opportunities available to them and they are empowered to seek out the best for themselves and their familes.

Tomorrow will be the end of summer volunteers. We will say farewell to our 11 new friends, and step back to see how much they've helped us during the last 2 months. They worked to bring in new faces to the library... helping us reach record-breaking attendance! They encouraged kids to read through the Summer Reading Club and Literacy Class. They helped run classes and got to experience life in the realm of "Community Development". We've enjoyed their company, loud sing-a-longs, lesson-planning help, and shared love of ice cream.

With bittersweet farewells comes an exciting start of a journey. A year ago, we were all in Miami for new PD orientation. Now, the Ecuador 2010-2011 PDs are currently in Miami and will arrive in Quito on Saturday. Unfortunately, we will be in Colombia for the weekend (we have to leave the country to renew our visas), but we look forward to meeting the newbies when we return on Tuesday!

Good Times

We've had a very busy summer so far, and it has been packed with progress, growth, and lots of joy. Humor me while I share what's been going on through different literary media.

Women's Exercise:

• Martha completed her month-long internship and is now certified as a Manna Fitness Instructor
• Rosario AND Susana have completed 100 classes!!
• We bought a plaque for the "Exercise Club", where all the women who have attended 100 classes will have their names engraved
• We are assembling a bungee cord cage to house the exercise balls
• We made new signs and had them laminated to protect them against wear and tear
• We are almost done translating the "Women's Exercise Manual" for future training of fitness instructors

Celebration/Despedida:

We had a fiesta
To celebrate the year
A way to say "bye"
Without shedding a tear

Food galore
And basketball too
Laughter with friends
And all of the crew

Host families attended
There were dogs and children
Doctors and students
Husbands of women

Once strangers, now friends
We gathered to be
Together as a family
Before we leave

Alinambi Kids:

The students in our class started coming to the library a few weeks ago to complete projects for their open house for parents. Since then, they have come almost everyday to color, read, interact with new friends they met, and do many many puzzles. It's been a pleasure to hang out with them outside of the classroom setting. They are great kids, and I hope they continue to use the library and its resources.

Great Experiences with Dr. E:

Diabetes
Respect for patients

Enfermera (Nursing!)
Surgery Prep
Cronic Diseases
OBGYN
Bailoterapia (Exercise Dance Class for The Diabetes Club)
Amistad (Friendship)
Rounds

Thanks for indulging me and letting me fail in my attempt to be creative.

Why I Love My Job

Here are just a few reasons why I feel like I have the best job in the world!

• Zumba: per request, we started a new exercise class. It's called "Zumba" and it's an aerobics class based on latin dancing. I feel a little out of place teaching latina women salsa steps, but they love it and we have a blast! AND I've NEVER seen them sweat so much in exercise. I think we have ourselves a keeper.

• Yoga at Maria's: last weekend, I met up with Maria (Adult English student, and one of the women training to be a fitness instructor) to go to her house to teach a private exercise class. Her sister has physical disabilities, so she can benefit a lot from yoga classes, but doesn't feel comfortable attending classes at the Centro. Maria wants to have Sunday morning Yoga with her mom, sisters, aunts, and neices, and I came the first week to start things off. Maria has been through training, so she knows modifications and moves and is excited to offer this class to her female family members.
  
  
• Dinner with Friends: one of the perks to living in a country where people vacation is meeting up with visitors. The Tysons and Cynthia Knust (family friends from church) came into town, and we met up for dinner. It was so nice to chat and share a meal with friends.
  
  
• Last Alinambi Class: yes, these kids may drive me insane, but I love them. It's sad to see the school year wrap up and the program end, but the kids have learned so much and are enthusiastic to share about the recipes they've made with their families (Krysta and I made a recipe book for the kids to take home with all the recipes we made in class). I hope this program grows, improves, and continues to be successful in the future.
  
  
• Women's Exercise Attendance: 12 people!! We've had an average of 12 women in each evening class. We've also had as many as 8 people in a morning class. Not too long ago we were begging for a class size of more than 2 or 3. This program has grown and is thriving.
  
  
• Day with Maritza: Maritza used to come to exercise (now has to work in the evenings) and is the daughter in my homestay family who is my age. I stopped by the house the other day to catch up, and I ended up spending 4 hours chatting, talking about work and marriage, watching the World Cup, eating, and looking at pictures. I love her, and I love this family. I feel at home in their house, and I am so happy to have made such great friends.
  

Where Am I?

The other day I ended up on Verizon's web page checking out their new phones. I'll need to get a new phone when I get back in August (seeing as the one I left at home is currently held together with duct tape and only works if it's plugged into a wall). Browsing through the phones, I found a common theme.... touch screens, key pads, smart phones, slides and twists. Those are all things I'm unfamiliar with. I couldn't find a single flip phone with a set of numbers to punch in, at which point the phone would ring and connect you to another human being to chat. It got me thinking about my return to the States. It's funny that after a year technology can change so much that I will have to be trained in how to make a phone call. Between a new phone, a new computer, probably a new camera, and learning how to drive again... I may have technology overload. I'm probably going to take it slow, so don't be surprised if I'm unreachable for a little while.

Another observation: today I was perusing the iTunes top 10 list. Wow. Not only had I never heard any of the top 10 most popular songs in the US right now, but I didn't know the names of the majority of the artists! I'm not surprised that music and technology and fashion has changed this past year; it was just a rude awakening that it sped forward and left 10 ex-pats living in a house in Conocoto in the dust. The important lesson I took away from this was not that design, fads, and what's popular is significant, but quite the opposite-- life is not defined in clothes, music, gadgets, stuff... possessions. It's marked by relationships and what you do. This is one of the main reasons I love living and working abroad. It puts so much into perspective.

Drumroll Please

Here is my much-anticipated interview. Jackie did a great job, especially for it being her first interview! Please excuse the echo-y room, loss of power due to a hail storm, and my mumbling. Thanks to everyone who sent in questions. Disfruta!

P.S. It is (clearly) very difficult for me to introduce myself in interviews. I'm very awkward and don't really listen to what I'm saying. Many apologies to Hokies all over for referring to our great university as "Virginia Tech University" rather than the two acceptable options-- Virginia Tech or Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. I'm so embarassed!!!