Christmas

I went home for Christmas this year for almost two weeks. It was great to be able to be with family and friends. I also loved the fact that we had snow. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen snow! I know that you guys in NY are sick of the snow now, but for a short period of time it was very fun. Some highlights from Christmas included:

Playing with my niece and nephew

Christmas morning

City trips

Spending time with friends from far away and old friends from high school and college

Upon coming back from Christmas I met the family who is adopting one of our two year olds. They are a family from Manhattan with two kids, a 9 year old and a 6 year old. We had a goodbye party for Ricardo at the beginning of January. The family will be here in Quito for about 2 months in order to meet with judges and get paperwork done to finalize the adoption. I am hoping to be able to work with them, acclimating them to the city and helping with translating.

Christmas Cookies!

Last week was filled with baking. I baked cookies with all of the women who work at the orphanage. Then I returned to the orphanage I was at last year, to bake with those children (all 120 of them). We went through about six tubs of butter, a huge bag of flour, and four bags of confectionary sugar. Our cookies included, sugar cookies, candy cane cookies, shortbread cookies, peanut butter cookies, and chocolate chip cookies. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say there were about 589 cookies made. Fun times! I don't want to see another cookie any time in the near future.

I'm flying home tomorrow night and getting home on Thursday. Yay!

Elf Party!

My favorite Christmas movie is Elf, with Will Ferrell. If you haven’t seen the movie, you should go rent it! A couple weeks ago, I decided it would be fun to have an Elf party. So today I had a group of friends come over. The morning started off with a search around Quito for the movie Elf. There are tons of movie stores all over the city that sell bootleg copies for $1.50. Sadly most of these stores did not have Elf. I finally stumbled upon a store that had the movie and happily handed over my $1.50.

It was quite the exciting event! We made gingerbread houses and drank hot chocolate, then went down and did some gingerbread houses with the kids, ate pizza and watched Elf. It really got us into the Christmas spirit. One of the Tias came up to judge our gingerbread houses. One house won for most creative, one for most elaborate, and one for most prettiest. My house, sadly enough, was not in any of those categories.

This week one of our children passed away unexpectedly. Carlos, was 10 years old, and had special needs. He was taken to the hospital early Wednesday morning with some heart complications and passed away shortly after. The viewing was held on Wednesday here at the orphanage. The kids all came through and placed flowers on our makeshift coffin. It was a very sad day, but it is awesome knowing that Carlos is no longer in any pain and is not suffering. Some of the other special needs children drew a picture of Carlos in Heaven surrounded by angels. This was appropriately placed above his body. Please pray for the Tias who worked with him over these past few years while he was with us at the orphanage. I took this picture of him on Tuesday while he was working with his therapist.

Fiestas de Quito

The first week of December, Quito comes alive with parties celebrating the Independence of Quito, December 6. Chivas (party buses) can be found driving around the city, with people blowing whistles and music blaring. Fireworks go off at all hours of the night, and bull fights take place throughout the week in Quito’s main stadium. I got to take part in a lot of fun traditions this year, including the bull fight. I went with my roommate, Sharon, and we got tickets from a lady on the street. Part of the experience, were all the festivities that happen before. All different types of food and goods are sold. We got some empanadas and Panama hats. The sun was brutal and it was a VERY hot day. The fight was quite the event. We stayed to watch three different bulls, all died in a very brutal manner. I think it was a once in a lifetime experience, and probably something I don’t need to see again. But an interesting cultural event!