mis patas

golden bananas

Luciana at her class party

Luciana and Fabiola

Christmas dinner
Havivi Marisella Maricarmen Abuelita Carlitos

Abuelita and Marisella

Luminarias

Juanito asleep in the manger

the rain



the green

the day we planted veggies in our decorated milk cans
Franklin has the knife, good thing the banisters were far away

Mañana es para siempre

Much to report.
First I am to tell you that Juanito, my cat, ate lentils four times today. Havivi wanted you to know this. We think he has worms and is therefore feeding an army.

This afternoon, as I am peeling mountains of chicope for jam, Abuelita comes in to prepare her daily soymilk. I say,” Abuelita, careful with the ants” and she laughs and tells me they were in the sugar the other day. And that is why I found her at the sink spooning ants out of her soymilk one by one. So five minutes later she is back spooning ants and laughing, I pull out the strainer once again to help her out. Maybe this is why the other day she said as we were sitting down to lunch, “ con la gringa somos como familia” With the gringa we are like family.

It might also be because Tuesday night as the rain was pouring down me Havivi and Marisella are lounging waiting for Havivis boyfriend to come for dinner. One of us says something about the infinite rain and Marisella says, “ I know lets scare Joel”, the boyfriend. So we get to it expecting him any moment now. I have the comforter over my head and am sitting behind the dining room door which I am too shut after joel enters and start making creepy noises. Marisella is crouched behind the curtain into the bedroom with black gloves on to reach for Joel’s feet as he enters the room and Havivi is in bed luring Joel through the trap. All the lights are off and Abuelita is watching Chabo in the living room.

Joel knocks on the door comes in and greets abuelita. Havivi calls from the bedroom and Joel proceeds into the dining room, but he turns the light on. HA. So here I am covered having just closed the door feeling Joel staring at me very confused. Now instead of turning the light off, I somehow think rolling around on the floor in my sheet would be scarier. So that is what I do and I can just see Joel looking down at me totally confused. He tries to pull the comforter off but I don’t let him and I try and force him into Marisellas trap but by this time no one can keep from laughing and we all end up rolling around on the floor.
But poor abuelita was terrified almost to tears that we were going crazy what with our frantic preparation and then our hysterically poor performance. I sat and watched the rest of Chabo worried Abuelita wouldn’t recover.

Lately……

I have learned Spanish soap operas are just as terribly addicting.

That one never throws out pineapple peel because Agua de Pina is one of the greatest delicacies on earth

And that the minute something is dirty, you wash it, otherwise mold will come

I learned not to wear pants that are see through when wet if you plan on playing with water

And I have grown into a deep relationship with The Guardian Weekly, so much so that like my father, I am always three or four behind and once finished can’t bear to throw them out feeling a sense of accomplishment and sentiment towards such a wealth of information so easily compactable.

Finally I have learned that the community here looking for anything to do with a youth development volunteer seems to be in hiding or of very shy, perhaps invisible personalities and yet somehow there is enough work for two volunteers. Yes, starting tomorrow I have a site mate, wonderful. Now he does come for small business management so I am happy for Marisella and her many products waiting to be commercialized. And I wont be the only foreigner dancing at the discoteca but I have officially given up trying to understand reason behind pc administration.

I’m off to Ecuador in a bit here so you all take care now and just boil that pineapple peel in water with brown sugar and cloves. Good for your kidneys too.
Leba-Flava

And the fruit keeps falling

I heard some voices outside my room. A little girl her parents and my landlord making small talk before the real work began. My landlord is a dentist, this I new before moving in but really only understood when I came home one day and found bloody cotton swabs and teeth garnishing my front door. Since then it has become normal to see people comfortably seated in the Guayacill furniture with their heads tilted up and there mouths filled with plaster or whatever he uses to make fake teeth. This morning however was a bit more than I bargained for. Waking up to the whimpering of a child as novacain is inserted into her gums and teeth are pulled out is not all that pleasant. Thankfully I was very rested having gone to bed early last night so Iw as able to get up and out of ear of the torment.

Yesterday we, Havivi, her two friends and I ventured into the dewy green mountains in search of Maracuya aka Passion Fruit. Though after three hours of hiking we were unable to locate the treasured fruit we did happen upon banana apples, yes a hybrid of bananas and apples, Lucuma, an orange chalky fruit that looks like a coconut on the outside and is better served as a flavoring in ice cream and yogurt, plenty of guineos, the unripened bananas people love so much for breakfast and loads of Avocados, the buttery kinds. Quite the successful trip to the chakra I would say. I tendo to go once a week. Usually with my friend Pedro. And this way I have unlimited fruits, sometimes veggies and I get to go hiking. Saturdays are a good day to go and if we are lucky the rain will hold off for a few hours and only the mist will blanket our outing. Yesterday was the first half day of sun since Christmas I think. It was glorious and all my clothes dried so fast instead of the normal week long process.

All this week I have been helping Marisella process her jams. She made Chicope jam which is a fruit similar to papaya but oh so so so much better. You can smell them a block away! So we made Jam and also processed Alcaparras. The dictionary translates it to capers, but these are different. They are actually the flowers of the Agave plant from which Tequila is made. Marisella pickles the flowers with hot peppers and well in fifteen days I expect they will be quite good having been soaked in apple vinegar.

Summer school continues for three more weeks. My students vary, somedays we have 12 other days three. We have planted seeds, made rainsticks, learned about nutrition, though I think these kids have had so many Nutrition sessions that they can spit out the correct answers without knowing why they are correct. I actually asked the question, how many glasses of water do you drink everyday?
"eight" says Franklin casually knowing he is right, but not knowing why.
So that was a bit frustrating. I moved on to reading but only three kids came that day and Franklin would only read all the easy books so he could get a star faster, I told him that to finish his sheet he needed to start reading chapter books and he refused and instead went to slide down the railings of the mayors office. I know my patience is being tested, but come on, how many times do you have to tell the kid he cant run around screaming and playing in the mayors office?

Really hoping for some luck in the trash stuff come March, though now it seems plans might be changing and money may be shifted around for an agricultural project. Beautiful right I cant wait to ge tinvolved in planting Maracuya, Peaches and Avocados...but then where is the youth development? Still thinking of going to the campo schools too when school starts up again, we shall see, its all about connections right and relationships so working on those in the meantime.
And loving it really. I have a wonderful family, great group of friends, we are having a luncheon today, Cebiche, Papa a la Hunacallina, Sabado, Tallerines Verdes( like a pesto sauce)and ranch with veggies, they love ranch dressing here thanks to the five previous volunteers. So it goes. and the sun is out again today. wahoo.
hope you are all well
lebo