(no subject)
The week in Azogues was excellent. I really hadn´t planned to spend more than a night or two with the folks in Quito, and as much time in Azogues, if they could stand it, but they were so welcoming and fun and, well, I´m still with the family!
We took an overnight bus on Friday night, which was mostly fine except for the 40 minutes I spent stuck in the bathroom between 3 and 4 am. I locked the door, used the bathroom (which is not easy to do while bouncing and lurching along a bumpy, windy mountain road) and then tried to unlock the door. The latch wouldn´t turn back as far as it should have and the door wouldn´t open, and because it was the middle of the night, I didn´t want to bang on the door and wake people up. But someone must have heard me trying to open the door, because soon there were people outside the door shouting instructions to me, and then someone went to get the key from the driver, which still didn´t work, and then the bus stopped and the driver himself had to come get me out. Didn´t get much sleep that night.
Anyhow, Don Carlos and 10 year old Edwin met us at the train station and took us to the house of Mama Lola and Nube, where Angel and his brothers and sisters grew up. It was pretty neat to meet people and see places that, until then, had existed only in stories of the past. Because of an upset stomach (or fatigue or altitude or the suddenly cold climate), however, it was hard to appreciate any of it until I took a nap. But they were very concerned and took wonderful care of me, even made me aguas de manzanilla and anis.
The whole week was wonderful. On Sunday we went to mass en famille and then took a picnic up to the cerro Cojitambo, on Monday we spent the day in Cuenca and visited a cool museo de etnografia (and even had a video chat with the family in the US), on Tuesday we visited Ingapirca (a site of Inca ruins), and on Wednesday we cooked guinea pigs. That was really neat. We cooked at the house of Belgica and Gloria (aunts) and by the time I got there, the guinea pigs and chicken had already been killed, and were being prepared for cooking. You know how you stick a marshmellow on the end of the stick and roast it over hot embers? Well, with a slightly stronger stick you can do the same thing with a guinea pig! It was really good, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the chicken soup! Everything, actually, every meal, was hearty and delicious. In fact, one day they made a crab soup that would give any Baltimore chef a run for his money!
It´s hard now to remember exactly what happened each day, but I know they were spent with great people. Belgica, who is also a teacher, and I talked a lot about school in our respective countries. Javier and his cousins, who know more about American music than I ever will, always had their mp3 players with them and asked me to translate lots of song lyrics. I learned from Gloria, who cooks for the school, what a feat it must be for one person to cook lunch for just under 200 people every day. And I leared from all the women about helping fussy babies using raw eggs and matches. Mostly I learned that even when divided between two countries, even separated by many years and many more miles, there there is little in this world that is stronger than family.
On the last day there, we decided to visit some thermal baths. After LOTS of discussion with family and bus drivers about time, distance, money, and swine flu, we ended up taking a truck to a place called Yanayacu (man, now I can´t remember if that was it or not). In any case, it was about 3 hours from Azogues, toward the coast. The ride in the back of the pick-up was long (they´re repaving some roads) and more or less comfortable, but lots of fun. It´s amazing what a little Zhumir can do to help pass the time!
I had left my bathing suit at the house in Quito, not thinking that I would need it in the mountains. I had been told that I could probably buy one at the baths, but when we went to the little shop, it turned out that they didn´t have any. That is not to say, however, that they did not have swimwear. There are just a lot of people here who bathe in shorts and t-shirts. In fact, when I was living on the coast and did wear a bathing suit to swim in, I felt very exposed. So the little shop offered something like spandex shorts and tank tops for women, and that is what I swam in. First, though, we ate lunch. We had brought a picnic of rice with mote (big corn) and sausage, and some chicken (which, for the first time since I got there, I declined to eat, much to the consternation of the aunts. I had just reached - surpassed, really - my meat limit. I mean, I ate the rice, corn, and sausage. Don´t worry, Mom.)
Right, then we got in the baths, which were wonderfully warm and smelled slightly sulfuric, and swam and played and jumped and dived for hours and hours. Even the babies enjoyed the water. There were several different pools: one that was like a hot tub, one with some big rocks in the middle, one with slightly cooler water, and the one we spent the most time in, with really warm water and a gradual slope down to a depth of about 5 feet (being the American giant that I am, I was one of the few people who could stand at that depth).
Now, I have to qualify what I am about to write by saying that although these folks are definitely looking out for me and what must seem like my excessive water-drinking needs, there usually isn´t much drinkable water around, and well, I get thirsty. Especially swimming in hot water, you can imagine. So there wasn´t water, but there was definitely a lot of beer, and some Zhumir (aguardiente, or a very strong alcohol made of sugar cane), and suffice it to say that the ride home was really fun, a little blurry, and passed much more quickly than the ride there! When we got back to Azogues, we went up to the town fiesta and where we hung around for a while eating, dancing, and watching fireworks. It was an excellent day.
We took an overnight bus on Friday night, which was mostly fine except for the 40 minutes I spent stuck in the bathroom between 3 and 4 am. I locked the door, used the bathroom (which is not easy to do while bouncing and lurching along a bumpy, windy mountain road) and then tried to unlock the door. The latch wouldn´t turn back as far as it should have and the door wouldn´t open, and because it was the middle of the night, I didn´t want to bang on the door and wake people up. But someone must have heard me trying to open the door, because soon there were people outside the door shouting instructions to me, and then someone went to get the key from the driver, which still didn´t work, and then the bus stopped and the driver himself had to come get me out. Didn´t get much sleep that night.
Anyhow, Don Carlos and 10 year old Edwin met us at the train station and took us to the house of Mama Lola and Nube, where Angel and his brothers and sisters grew up. It was pretty neat to meet people and see places that, until then, had existed only in stories of the past. Because of an upset stomach (or fatigue or altitude or the suddenly cold climate), however, it was hard to appreciate any of it until I took a nap. But they were very concerned and took wonderful care of me, even made me aguas de manzanilla and anis.
The whole week was wonderful. On Sunday we went to mass en famille and then took a picnic up to the cerro Cojitambo, on Monday we spent the day in Cuenca and visited a cool museo de etnografia (and even had a video chat with the family in the US), on Tuesday we visited Ingapirca (a site of Inca ruins), and on Wednesday we cooked guinea pigs. That was really neat. We cooked at the house of Belgica and Gloria (aunts) and by the time I got there, the guinea pigs and chicken had already been killed, and were being prepared for cooking. You know how you stick a marshmellow on the end of the stick and roast it over hot embers? Well, with a slightly stronger stick you can do the same thing with a guinea pig! It was really good, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the chicken soup! Everything, actually, every meal, was hearty and delicious. In fact, one day they made a crab soup that would give any Baltimore chef a run for his money!
It´s hard now to remember exactly what happened each day, but I know they were spent with great people. Belgica, who is also a teacher, and I talked a lot about school in our respective countries. Javier and his cousins, who know more about American music than I ever will, always had their mp3 players with them and asked me to translate lots of song lyrics. I learned from Gloria, who cooks for the school, what a feat it must be for one person to cook lunch for just under 200 people every day. And I leared from all the women about helping fussy babies using raw eggs and matches. Mostly I learned that even when divided between two countries, even separated by many years and many more miles, there there is little in this world that is stronger than family.
On the last day there, we decided to visit some thermal baths. After LOTS of discussion with family and bus drivers about time, distance, money, and swine flu, we ended up taking a truck to a place called Yanayacu (man, now I can´t remember if that was it or not). In any case, it was about 3 hours from Azogues, toward the coast. The ride in the back of the pick-up was long (they´re repaving some roads) and more or less comfortable, but lots of fun. It´s amazing what a little Zhumir can do to help pass the time!
I had left my bathing suit at the house in Quito, not thinking that I would need it in the mountains. I had been told that I could probably buy one at the baths, but when we went to the little shop, it turned out that they didn´t have any. That is not to say, however, that they did not have swimwear. There are just a lot of people here who bathe in shorts and t-shirts. In fact, when I was living on the coast and did wear a bathing suit to swim in, I felt very exposed. So the little shop offered something like spandex shorts and tank tops for women, and that is what I swam in. First, though, we ate lunch. We had brought a picnic of rice with mote (big corn) and sausage, and some chicken (which, for the first time since I got there, I declined to eat, much to the consternation of the aunts. I had just reached - surpassed, really - my meat limit. I mean, I ate the rice, corn, and sausage. Don´t worry, Mom.)
Right, then we got in the baths, which were wonderfully warm and smelled slightly sulfuric, and swam and played and jumped and dived for hours and hours. Even the babies enjoyed the water. There were several different pools: one that was like a hot tub, one with some big rocks in the middle, one with slightly cooler water, and the one we spent the most time in, with really warm water and a gradual slope down to a depth of about 5 feet (being the American giant that I am, I was one of the few people who could stand at that depth).
Now, I have to qualify what I am about to write by saying that although these folks are definitely looking out for me and what must seem like my excessive water-drinking needs, there usually isn´t much drinkable water around, and well, I get thirsty. Especially swimming in hot water, you can imagine. So there wasn´t water, but there was definitely a lot of beer, and some Zhumir (aguardiente, or a very strong alcohol made of sugar cane), and suffice it to say that the ride home was really fun, a little blurry, and passed much more quickly than the ride there! When we got back to Azogues, we went up to the town fiesta and where we hung around for a while eating, dancing, and watching fireworks. It was an excellent day.