June 18, 2011

Second day of our “cultural trip” to Cotocachi. Everyone got up yesterday and met at the park at 6 am. So early! We then split up into different groups. Each group was about 20 people. We took a bus into Quito. Then from Quito we took a sort of coach bus to Otavalo/Cotacachi. We arrived at the central Plaza around 10:30, I guess the people that were supposed to meet with us were late, and so we had time to look at the open market merchandise.

The guys arrived and we split up in 2 trucks. Most of us rode in the back clinging on for dear life, still, it was exhilarating to be in the back of the truck, mountains surrounding us, bouncing all over the place because of the rocky terrain.

We arrived to a community named La Calera. There was a school and kids were out playing volleyball. Many of them had the traditional dress on and everyone had braids. This made it somewhat difficult to distinguish girls form boys when they wore modern clothing.

After waiting around for some time we all went to the upstairs of the community center. A guy talked to us about the community tourism that goes on throughout the area. It sounded like a good idea-tourists come into the community and live/learn with the people there. Most of the communities are still very traditional. There are also a variety of excursions/activities offered, from hiking, to bike riding and trips on horseback.

For the rest of the afternoon we were going to walk around the community to learn about the different jobs people had and then alter we would help with a project. To put the afternoon in a nutshell we walked to different houses, saw what the people were doing and then kinda stood around. There was very little interaction and like I said, a lot of standing around. On our little tour we saw a women making traditional blouses (rather, the high tech machine did all the sewing for her), a hammock maker, and where they make cement bricks.

On top of this we had arrived around noon, expecting to eat and didn’t get fed till about 2 hours later. The food was so-so..I think everyone was a little disappointed with the lack of organization and interaction with the people. Many of us were hopeful for the “minga” where we were going to help the community with a project.

So we headed down the mountain to this small watering hole. Apparently this is where everyone was going to bath in the next few days out of tradition. The people were hard at work cleaning the watering hole and clearing paths..but there wasn’t really anything for us to do. For one there weren’t enough tools and 2nd, there was really no direction as a to what was supposed to be done. After awhile of batting away mosquitos and watching people work, a path was cleared to go to a sacred watering hole with hot water. Let’s just say the water wasn’t hot and it wasn’t as spectacular as we had been told. Realizing that this whole trip kinda seemed like a bust the only hope we had left was the time with our host families.

Rebecca, Portia and I ended up in a group together. We arrived to the house. Attached to their house was a room and bathroom for us-really cute. We ventured out back and met the mother, her sister and grandmother finishing up the slaughter of their chickens. IT was so dark I have no idea how they were able to see.

Apparently there was going to be a Baptism in the morning and the family was responsible for providing the food afterwards. So we helped peal potatoes, with knives. For every one potato that we did, they had finished 3 or 4. There were so many potatoes! At around 8 we were called for dinner. The dinner was pretty good, lots of carbs though.. rice, and mashed potatoes. Half of the family was in the kitchen eating because there wasn’t enough space at the table. They had chicken foot soup. My oh my did one of the boys go at that chicken foot! I'm glad ours didn’t have any feet.

Around 9 we came to our room- FREEZING!! It is so cold here! And we are supposed to be in summer. A part from that it was almost always cloudy. So this morning we were to wake up, have breakfast and then do activities that the family normally does. We had breakfast and talked with the father some.

He then walked us around the garden in the back, so many plants of different kinds. Evidently he does agriculture and construction for work. Because of the baptism everyone left, except for the son-who is maybe 8. They made him walk us around. It was a nice walk, practically all in silence. I tried to ask some questions but only got on word answers.

We came back to the house and most everyone was gone. We got our things together and then the bus picked us up around 10. We ventured back to Cotacachi only to wait forever for the bus. Thank goodness it took us straight to Tumbaco. A group of about 8 of us had lunch at my parent’s restaurant. One of the Spanish facilitators, who was a PCV and now is married came and we talked to him about the training system. Apparently the Spanish classes have been cut heavily. Some people have been raising concern about it because they are worried they will not get the proper education in Spanish to do their 2 year service. He suggested talking to the director and shared with us how the director somehow feels that every couple years they have to update the system even if it’s working well. I guess a couple groups ago they had 4 hours of Spanish a day. I hope that the people that need the Spanish get it so that they are confident.

I then stopped over to Portia’s house for a little fiesta. It was about 7 people sitting around in the garage drinking and dancing..oh so Ecuadorian, but really fun! I finally came home around 6 to an empty house, which was good because I need some down time before we go out. Hopefully we can get a small group together to go to Cumbaya or Quito. Tumbaco doesn’t really have any places to go out and dance. We’ll see what happens.. Buenas!