Thanksgiving 2011

Well I cooked my first turkey “solita” – see supporting attached documentation. Last year I received a crash course from a friend on the proper Ecuadorian way to prepare a turkey. Included in this technique is a massage for the bird, injections of wine, orange juice and other herbs and spices, and a nice bath. One week before the festivities, a woman who works in the office offered me a turkey that she had in her freezer since last Christmas. After checking on the internet the safeness of eating an almost year old frozen turkey, I happily accepted her offer. For future reference, a turkey is good for up to a year in the freezer. During the injection process, the plastic tip broke off somewhere within the 25 pound turkey. It was never to be found again. My guest list began growing rapidly within the week before Thanksgiving. New neighbors who just arrived to Ecuador, a Swiss couple who are working on planning a subway system for Quito, a girl from the States who is studying Spanish here – altogether I had 26 people, many of who were experiencing Thanksgiving for their first time. We had all the traditional food, minus sweet potatoes and cranberry since you can’t get those here. I had invited people to come over at 3:30. In true Ecuadorian fashion I had some people rolling in at 7:30. By 10:00 I kicked everybody out and went to the airport to pick up a group that was coming to the orphanage to volunteer. It was a really fun day and I am thankful to have many good friends here in Ecuador. New friendships were formed between people who had never met, we had an intense game of Cranium – very interesting to play with non-native English speakers, and had great conversation. If you would like an tips on baking a turkey, I would say that I am now nearly an expert.

Here's the evidence

Yep, I made everybody who was experiencing their first Thanksgiving document the experience.

Adoption

One of our two-year old boys, Mateo, was adopted by a family from Italy. He had previously been assigned to an Ecuadorian family last year, and the adoption fell through. We were anxiously awaiting another family for him. When I was in the States, about a week before returning to Ecuador, I was speaking at a church in Florida. I was asked to do the Children’s Sermon in addition to speaking to the congregation and during that time we specifically prayed for Mateo and that he would be with his forever family soon. When I got back to Ecuador, I met with our psychologist who told me she had great news. Mateo was assigned a family and they would be coming in the next week. That was a fast answer to our prayers! The family will be with him in Ecuador until the end of December completing the legal process. He has an older sister who loves playing with him and who speaks Spanish! Congratulations to a beautiful new family!

Day of the Dead

Today we are celebrating Day of the Dead. The traditional drink is called Colada Morada which is made up of a mixture of fruits and spices. We also eat something called “guaguas de pan”. This is bread that is decorated with the face of a child. The kids at the orphanage made both colada morada and guaguas de pan in school today. My friend Jilly and I enjoyed our colada morada together.

Cuenca: Otra vez

Our roadside restaurant

The Inca Ruins

At the National Park

I took a trip to Cuenca (a beautiful city in Southern Ecuador) with three of the volunteers at FHC. Dina and Rahel are from Germany and Marcus is from Denmark. We spent about 5 days exploring in and around the city. I had been there a couple times before this, so I knew the city pretty well. This was the first time that I got to venture a little more outside the city. On our first full day in Cuenca we visited a national park, Cajas. It was about 1.30 minutes outside of the city. We took public transportation and I loved being able to see the beautiful countryside. We hiked for about 3 hours in Cajas. There are beautiful lakes and mountains. The landscape there was very different from anything that I have experienced. As we were leaving, we were told that the bus comes every 30 minutes to an hour. We decided to start walking back to Cuenca and catch the bus on our way. Well two hours later and with no bus in sight, we stopped at the first sign of civilization that we saw and got some food while we waited for the bus. It finally came about 30 minutes later and we made it safely back to Cuenca. Another exciting adventure was going to some Inca Ruins called Ingapirca. This was 2.30 minutes from Cuenca (each way!). We took advantage of our time on the bus and Rahel taught me German. Ich bin als New York. We didn’t really progress much further than that. Our 5 hour bus ride was rewarded by being able to stay only 1 hr. at the ruins with a Spanish-speaking guide who spoke very softly while we were almost blown off cliffs. It was cold and windy and rather unimpressive, especially since we couldn’t hear anything the guide was saying. We met a guy from Scotland there who is doing a world trip. We met up with him for dessert when we got back to Cuenca along with a girl from Norway who we met in an Austrian café. Our Scottish friend ended up coming over for dinner a week later when he was in Quito. I love that about traveling. You are always meeting new people who have very interesting stories. In the midst of all my new European friends I tried to represent the States well. Some other highlights included attending a free Mozart concert for kids, trying some cuy (guinea pig) and a WHOLE chicken at some roadside restaurant (it’s amazing we didn’t all get sick), and playing foosball at a German café. Apparently that is a popular thing to do in Germany!