Quotes of the day

This post doesn´t have any pictures, so use your imagination. One morning a couple of months ago, Bentz said something pretty funny. Jorie decided to call it the ¨Quote of the Day¨, and ever since then we have been gathering quotes of the day and repeating them ad nauseam. Also, a lot of them have to do with potty humor. Since we continue to have more than our fair share of gastrointestinal issues, I think that is ok. Here are a few examples for your reading pleasure:


¨Mom, I have something squishy in my pants¨ Bentz, 1/3 of the way through church one Sunday, with his first big bout of diarrhea. I have a hard time distinguishing the occurrences, but I often end up taking his undies into the bathroom and washing them out. This was the one that started it all off.

¨Holy crap that´s a huge city - I think we´re in Guayaquil!¨ Audrey, on our way down to Guayaquil to visit the temple. We were only passing Quito, which is about 2 hours into a 12 hour trip.

¨What the helicopter!?¨ Bentz, looking out of the restaurant window in Puerto Lopez at a military helicopter flying by. This was during the police strike and possible coup attempt a while back. The greatest thing is that only Amy and I knew why it was so funny. The girls started laughing only because we were laughing so hard.  

¨Bentz, don´t farmer blow in your bed!¨ Amy, one morning, tired of the fact that Bentz was blowing snot out of his nose onto his pillow every morning upon waking up. This is partially due to how difficult laundry is. 

¨Dad, I think some poop came out.¨ Bentz, in the basement cafeteria of the Guayaquil temple. Amy was in a temple session and the girls thought it was hilarious that he pooped all over the chair. Once again, I took Bentz into the bathroom and washed his shorts and underwear in the sink with handsoap. 

Jorie and Tandana

Continuing on that day in Minas Chupa, here is a beautiful shot of the community as we are approaching it from the bumpy dirt road. Yes, that is the community's school, perched like an eagle on the side of this steep mountain overlooking the valley below. I'm not sure that any other elementary school in the world has a better view from their classrooms.













Here are all the students from the school, lining up to be given anti-parasite medication. We used to call it "de-worming" when we gave similar medications to our cattle. Somehow that seems inappropriate when used with people. 














Jorie was a great help. She sat at a little desk and handed out the parasite pills for the kids to take.














Some kids had a hard time swallowing the pill. So Jorie would break off a little piece of bread and, when the kid wasn't looking, stuff the pill into the middle of the bread and give it to the kid. All the kids loved bread and would devour it with the pill inside.

Minas Chupa

Here are some photos taken on the way to another community where I went with Tandana to offer health care services. The place was called Minas Chupa. This photo was taken from the back of a truck, looking back towards the other truck from our group and out across the landscape. Some volcano is rising up in the distance. I can't remember which one.













Here is another snow capped volcano. I think this one is called Cayambe.














One of the greatest things about being in Ecuador now is that I have been able to spend much more time with the family. During the two weeks in October that we went up into the mountains, I let the kids take turns missing school and coming with me. Jorie had a turn on this day, and had a great time on the two hour ride up to the community. Here is a picture of us both.














The views from some of these communities are utterly breathtaking. Here is a shot looking out across the valley from one place. I love the patchwork nature of the small plots of land, the farmers taking advantage of every arable scrap of land they can find. Luckily enough here there is not enough rainfall to make landslides be as frequent as they were in the Philippines. Here corn and potatoes and quinoa can grow on amazingly steep slopes.

Huayrapungo

While working with the Tandana Foundation (Beau here), one of the communities we visited was Huayrapungo. It took about 1.5 hours from Otavalo in truck, and it was quite high, I´m guessing around 10,000 ft. Here is a photo looking back towards Cotacachi volcano. Also some of the houses that are more typical the farther out we go from Otavalo.













Here is a picture of some of the kids from the local school, lining up to take anti-parasite pills. In many of these communities without adequate water sanitation and where the hygiene and food treatment isn´t spectacular, we assume that nearly everyone has parasites of one kind or another.















Here you can see the kids scaling the windows to get a peek at what is happening inside...















And here is what they are all checking out. The local dentist that accompanied us on our trips to the communities was stationed inside this classroom. Whereas it is possible (but infeasible in most cases) for people to see the doctor, it is very rare to see the dentist. Needless to say, a lot of teeth were pulled from kids where the teeth were too ruined to save with a filling.  

Lago Cuicocha

In front of the Cotacachi volcano is a large crater of a now extinct volcano (probably the same volcano, but I don´t know). Many moons ago, the volcano imploded and the glaciers that covered the top of the volcano melted and formed a crater lake that is now called Lago Cuicocha. It has two islands in the center. We visited the lake with our host family and several other host families and volunteers who helped with the health care visit in October. Here are a couple of pictures of the family at the edge of the lake. You can guess which one is the normal one. Also note that Bentz is clowning around in both.




























Here is the boat that carried us around the islands in the center. Everyone in Otavalo thinks that the crater lake has no bottom. We learned that it is several hundred meters deep. Yes, it looks like Jorie is about to test out the depth, but no, she did not fall in. Just playing around.















Here is a picture of one happy camper.

Crazy Flora

Here is an example of some of the awesomely diverse plants that Jorie and I saw on our hike. You can see that the leaf below, in addition to being large, is covered with thorns. I've seen fuzzy leaves and rubbery leaves, and leaves that were big enough to wrap Bentz in, but I had never up to this point seen leaves with large stiff spines growing out of them. It reminded me of some movie with similar leaves, except the thorns in the movie were dripping with a venom that left the victim paralyzed in minutes. Needless to say, we didn't prick our fingers just to find out if they were poisonous. Also below is a picture with Jorie to give you a picture of the size of the plant.   

The Caminata #2

Continuing on the hike, we entered a narrow ravine, which we more or less followed all the way to the top. Sometimes it was deeper or narrower than at other times, but it was always beautiful, with the sides covered by moss.














Here is one of the stunning panoramas from the hike. In the distance, you can barely see a little town, which is called Minas, and which was our starting point.














Here is another picture of Jorie, looking and feeling like she is on the top of the world. I really am proud of her for doing this hike. It was steep all the way up, and she was such a trooper. I think most of the adults I know would have a rough time at it, especially since we started at around 9000 ft above sea level, and she is only 9. 















Here is a good picture of one of the volcanoes in the background. Here we were finally on the downhill part of the caminata, and Imbabura is in the background. Otavalo is at the base of Imbabura. Good times were had by all. Jorie kept at it until the very end. Only with a few kilometers left, when we were just outside of Quichinche, did she start thinking about how tired her legs were, and showed me her "sewing machine leg" to prove it.

The Caminata (or, Jorie hiked 30km in one day)

d The town we live in is called Quichinche. Last month, the town celebrated the 120 something anniversary of its founding. As part of the celebrations (most of which consisted of men getting astoundingly plastered and laying unconscious in the park for days at a time), they have a hike, called the caminata. This hike is 30 kilometers, or roughly 18 miles. For the caminata, we were supposed to meet in the town square, across from the catholic church, at 3:30 am. Yes the party was still going at that time, with most of the people still conscious. About 100 people piled into the back of 3 huge dump trucks. This is the photo below. We then rode for about an hour to another city on the other side of a large mountain. In the back of our dumptruck were mostly teenage boys who were still drinking from the previous night. As you can imagine, the back of the truck was more or less a big mosh pit. I spent the hour protecting Jorie from getting trampled. Seriously. As if riding over rough dirt roads weren't enough, they all thought it would be funny to exacerbate the conditions by pushing each other. Yes, I know, this is exactly what I would have done if I were a teenager in the back of a dumptruck at 4:00 am. Anyway, Jorie and I arrived at our starting point in one piece. We also took Josue, our 11 year old host brother, and Suzana's sister Christina.

Here is a picture of the starting road, with Jorie and Christina. Josue thought we were too slow and cruised on ahead. He arrived at the top about 45 minutes ahead of us. I thought it wise to have Jorie take it slow, because up to this point she had only hiked 8 miles in a single day.














We then got off the dirt road and headed straight up a hillside. It was beautiful, with cattle grazing. It was also very steep.















Here is a picture of the hillside, looking down towards the valley from which we came. Astoundingly beautiful. Hard to see from the pictures, but in the distance we could also see several snow-capped volcanoes. It reminded me how much I love to get out and hike. And Jorie was amazing, she just kept hiking, without a word of complaint about her tired legs.  

At home

 We thought we should have some pictures of the normal life at home. Here is a photo of Suzana's mom (on the right) and Suzana's aunt (on the left). They are so sweet.















Here is Amy hard at work washing clothes. First we put the clothes in a big tub and agitate them. Then we take them out and rinse them out here on the cement slab. Either that or scrub the dirt out of the clothes. Really, there is a lot of that. Even though it seems like she washes a ton of clothes every day, we never catch up, so we take some clothes into town to wash at the laundry service place. One other problem is that, if there is not sun out, the clothes just do not dry. Sometimes, when there is a day or two of rain, the clothes just hang on the line in the rain, waiting for the sun to come out. When the sun does come out, it is very strong, mostly because we are at 8500 ft and there is no pollution. Not sure what Audrey is doing. Playing with the water probably. She actually loves to wash the dishes out here, and will sit out there for an hour or two washing the dishes.














Here is Carlos, preparing the nails to hang the plastic on our roof. He is always trying to make our stay more comfortable and nice. The plastic on the ceiling made the room much warmer at night, without a draft.



















I found an old inner tube of a truck in town and cut it up into little pieces. Then we punctured the pieces with the nail and then nailed the pieces to the logs (or smaller branches) holding up the clay roof tiles. We decided that I would do the tall part of the ceiling and Carlos would do the shorter side, for obvious reasons.
 

Jungle #3

dOnce back down from the mountains, we stopped in at the house of one of the guides to have a meal (which according to Amy was the best one yet in Ecuador). The house also had a little farm, with plants that we had never seen up close. Here is a pineapple bush, with a little pineapple growing out of the top. So cool looking.

















Here is a cacao tree. The cacao seeds are found in the pods that hang from the tree. On a side note, we went to Guayaquil last week and saw immense farms of cacao and banana along the sides of the highway. It reminded me of the freeways in the US in the midwest, where you drive for hours and see only corn and wheat.


















Here are the seeds from the cacao pod, they are slimy and covered with some kind of sticky white substance.


















The seeds are laid out on the floor or along side the road to dry. It looks just like when farmers lay out rice alongside the road to dry out before they peel off the husk. Then the seeds are roasted and ground and then made somehow into chocolate. I'm not sure how.

Jungle #2

As we ascended up into the cloud forest, a steady drizzle accompanied us. The surroundings were breathtaking, and reminded us of the beautiful forests of southeast asia. Each square foot seemed to have at least ten different species of plant. The guides kept taking what seemed like random seeds off of the trees and giving them to us to eat. One seed pod in particular, which looked like a huge bean, was filled with furry looking seeds that, when placed in the mouth, tasted exactly like caramel.

Here is a shot of our horse train. We've by now donned our rain ponchos to try and keep dry.













Here is a good shot of Bentz and Audrey. The kids were fascinated by both the surroundings and the horses.















 


Here is another shot of the group.  One of the horses didn't want to hold still so one of the guides helped out. 














Finally, here is a shot of a crazy looking flower that was growing all over the place. These flowers always took root above the ground in the trunk of a tree. The skin of the leaf (the purple part) was thick and tough, similar to a rubbery type of cactus leaf. But the flower part was a normal delicate flower. Simply gorgeous.

Horseback in the Jungle

Following on our trip to the coast, we had the cool opportunity to go on horseback up into the jungle. One fascinating part was that we ascended through multiple climates, each with differing flora and fauna. The coast is largely desert, then up into a dry tropical forest, and then into a cloud forest, which true to its namesake has a lot of rain.

 Here is Amy, taking advantage of a vine near the side of the trail, to work on her Tarzan moves. I think she got the highest of us all.

We each rode on our own horse, which the kids loved. We had all ridden some in the past, but the kids were especially excited to be by themselves. To be on the safe side, there were guides leading the kids' horses. The terrain was muddy and quite hilly. We definitely went up and down some really steep stuff. I thought the kids would be freaking out, but no. The air was continually punctuated by squeals of delight, especially from Bentz. One downside of the bumpy, hilly ride was that when we got back home, in addition to the hives, Bentz had a case of bruised scrotum that was wince-inducing to say the least. He didn't seem to mind, though, and kept asking when we were going back to the jungle to ride horses again.

Below is a shot of each of the kids on their horses. Such fun. 

Mealtime

This is the kitchen in our home, and here are a couple of pictures of a typical mealtime. Notice the bowls - we have a lot of soup. Mostly with potatoes, but also with any other vegetable we can add: broccoli, cauliflower, sweet peppers, peas, yucca, green plantains, onion, beans, etc. Also sometimes we throw in a chicken or some part of the pig. Speaking of the pig, every now and then we see some part of the pig in the fridge that we are not all that anxious to eat - for example, the head. Suzanna has noticed our discomfort and now sometimes she plans on eating those delectable parts when we are not around. So nice of her.
We decided to have a table made in order to more comfortably fit our two families. I found a carpenter in town, and he made a nice sturdy table, two long benches and two end chairs, stained and everything, for about USD180. It looks and works great. I'll put up a picture of it later.
Also notice that the walls have been cemented. They are no longer simply cinderblock. After the month or so that it takes the cement to dry, we are thinking of having a big painting project.