on friday we had gringo day. we went to our professor's house and cooked up a storm of deliciousness. the menu? barbeque chicken sandwiches (courtesy of me and conrad), fries (alex and ben), mac & cheese (sarah and ashley), and coooooooookies!!!!(the rest of the girls) oh it was so tastey and fun. i love our group. i could never have asked for more amazing friends to learn, laugh, and travel with. bff.

anyway, i just got back from staying with an awesome ecuadorian family. everything was great. i cooked loads of food, ate a LOT of food, danced a LOT, talked a lot of politics, and played a LOT of futbol, of course.

also, i learned how to make peruvian food! its pretty similar to ecuadorian food; loads of chicken, rice and potatoes.

anyway, when we got back on campus, we all reunited in lucy's house to talk about our experiences. have i ever mentioned that lucy is one of my favourite people in the world?? she is one of the NILI leaders and she has become my mom away from home. she is probably one of the greatest people i have ever met. im going to cry like a baby when i have to say bye to her.

the semester is aaaalmost over. ?!?!?!?! i am freaking out a little bit. i have a lot of mixed feelings, of course. i am convinced ecuador is the most beautiful country in the world and i really don't want to leave.... but i am so ready to be with my family and friends back home. and i am so so so so sick of missing blake. ugh. i need to focus though. i still have three essays to write, a final exam, and a trip to the amazon. there are still lessons to be learned. its not over yet.


//jack.

otavalo revisited.

we went to otavalo again. it is north of quito, across the equator, and about two hours away. it is famous for having one of the biggest artesian markets in the world. we stayed in the most beautiful adobe lodge hostel that was hidden up in the mountains. there were lots of puppies there. in fact, we had a puppy party. on saturday, we went to the market. i bought some beautiful little things.

i am not good with words. here are some photos...

in ibarra



cachorrito!!!!!!


our room in the hostel.


PUPPY PARTY!!!!!!! XOXOXOXOXO



this fabric is worn as a skirt by the Tsachila tribe. so many colours!!!


nativity set



my box!



i love sarah! we are going to live together this summer!



i'll be home in SIXTEEN DAYS. better get ready! i am going to squeeeeeeze all of youuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!! especially blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i'm gonna see my best friend/boyfriend BLAAAAKE! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo i'm gonna hug my parents and miss ecuador with sarah and get my photos developed and patronize my roommates and speak english and tell stories and flush toilet paper and annoy my brothers and be tanner than all of you and eat burrito loco too but NOT eat rice!!!!! and love blake!!

so so so much has happened since i last updated. i am really horrible at this blogging thing. plus, my computer no longer works and the internet here is not reliable at all. i dont feel like writing a long coherent collection of detailed paragraphs... so i'll just be lazy and use bullet points.

• we spent a week in Guayaquil, the largest city in Ecuador. it was an eight hour drive to the coast. Guayaquil was pretty cool, but Quito is waaaaaay cooler. it was terribly humid there and i was so happy to leave at the end of the week.

• my pet chicken died. a huge black dog attacked her. he didn't eat her; he just chomped on her jugular vein once or twice and let her die slowly. anyway, we ate her for dinner that night.

• on friday, our group was given complete control over a local school. each of us was in charge of three classes. I taught a craft/music class and two art classes. I loved it so much. The kids were so beautiful and we had so much fun together.
  

• Tomorrow, I am going to the Supreme Court of Justice to interview a Lawyer. I am really nervous/excited.

• Our Latin American Issues class is super intense. Every single day i get so so worked up and angry and i really struggle not to cry. It is hard to wrap my mind around the injustice and corruption in Latin America because it is just so immensely overwhelming. The machismo and the abused women, the racism towards the indigenous, the countless homeless children, the lack of jobs, the oil industry, the depletion of the rainforests, drug trafficking, the lack of essential human rights. Even more frustrating is that i cannot fix it all. It just runs through my head all day and i get more and more worked up. It consumes me and i dont know what to do to release it.

• we are going to the AMAZON on my 21st birthday!! we are staying for a week. We are going to stay in an awesome little hostel, fly Cessna planes over the jungle, ride bikes, hang out with a tribe, trek, canoe down the amazon, white water raft. it is going to be incredible.
  

• i have twenty four days left. I don't want to leeeeeave. I think you all should just come here.

i leave you with some photos....

good friday in quito.

we spent the day in Colonial Quito to observe the Good Friday parade. It was disturbing, to say the very least. "Los Cucuruchos" dress in purple clothing that resembles Ku Klux Klan robes and they walk in the streets to show penitence. i think it was initially disturbing because of the KKK stigma that surrounds the type of garb they were dressed in. some carried huge crosses. Some were bleeding because some of the crosses were made of cacti. Some whipped themselves. Some were wearing sharp thorn crowns and were gushing blood down their foreheads.

procession of the cucuruchos video

tomorrow morning, we are leaving for quayaquil. it is the biggest city in ecuador. it is in the coast and they tell us its going to be hot, hot, hot times five. i will be back in one week.

mitad del semestre/ our new pet

the semester is half way over. i have so many mixed feelings. i miss my family, blake, my roommates, and my friends so so so much. however, i cannot imagine what it will be like to leave ecuador. this country and its people are so beautiful and they have changed my life immensely. it is really hard for me to put it inwords. i doubt i will ever be able to. so i won't try.

on thursday we went to the basilica, which is stunning. i will get photos developed soon.

on friday, we went to the market to buy the groceries for the cafeteria. we were each assigned to pick up three different things. i was assigned to buy six avocados, 1 pound of peas, and six maracuyas. prices were a bit higher because of something to do with holy week, but regardless, everything was incredibly cheap. i also bought 1 pound of grapes for eighty cents and one pound of ecuadorean coffee beans for one dollar.

also, ben, conrad, alex and i decided we needed a pet. so, we bought a hen for four dollars. we named her Frida Kahlo. the other names considered were whoopi goldberg, luzita, nilita, niliana, and so on... Although she lacks the signature unibrow, she definitely looks like a frida. we put her in what used to be a rabbit house, but we felt it was a bit too small. so today, alex and i made a palace for her. she has a courtyard and a place for shade. we feed her our leftover rice. she is surprisingly tame and docile. we like to take her for walks. the latinos threaten to eat her the day that we go back to the states. over my dead body.

a week in pictures.

if you didn't already know, i really love BBC. i spend probably way too much time on their website. they always have several different stories that are told through a set of pictures. i thought all of their featured stories were notable today...

• this picture story is my favourite of the three. it shows the current situation in ecuador/colombia/venezuela.

• i do NOT miss this. suckaaaaaz.
  

• okay, so i am not a feminazi, but Women's Day was yesterday and i like being a woman and i always like a reason to celebrate. so raise your glass to feminity. right on.

in other news, the new cloud cult album is really good, the colombians are teaching me so many dance moves (papa, nonnie, mom, and daddy, i'll be sure to teach you), i am mastering the art of making chifles (tastey little plantain chips), i found a bunch of bjork covers by radiohead that are excellent, i talked to my parents for a little bit the other night, my spanish is getting really really good, there's a possibility of visiting Macchu Picchu (!!!!!!!!), and i still live in the most beautiful country in the world. all is good in the hood.

lately

first off, i am alive. there has been a lot of concern due to the current situation in latin america, but i am safe. for those of you who have not seen/read the news, you can read it here.

it is certainly an interesting time to be here. it is also really upsetting. at this point, ecuador and venezuela have severed all diplomatic ties with colombia, who has been fighting a civil war for more than forty years. the corruption is almost unbearable. sometimes i think maybe i should stop reading the news because nothing else makes me quite as depressed. aside from lots of ecuadoreans and venezuelans, i have lots of colombian friends here on campus. in fact, the colombians have become some of my dearest friends here. right now, they fear that they will either be deported back to colombia or not allowed to go back to colombia.

i do have hope though. last night i was watching the news. it showed an angry hugo chavez and an angry rafael correa, dead bodies, george bush, scared civilians, and military troops at the recently closed borders..... but then i went over to the cafeteria for dinner and sat down with my friends. right across from me sat a colombian, and ecuadorean, and a venezuelan. we all ate dinner together and talked and laughed. i know it sounds really cheesey, but i got really emotional at that moment.

enough of that.

anyway, i had a great four day weekend. we went to riobamba. so far, it is my favourite of all the ecaudorean cities we've visited.... here are some highlights.....

i climbed mount chimborazo. it is one of the highest peaks on the entire earth. although mount everest is the highest mountain, chimborazo is apparently the biggest because it is furthest away from the core of the earth. it has something to do with being on the equator. i am not sure i understand it, but hey, i climbed one of the tallest mountains on the world.






we also spent some time with an indigenous community, which was my favourite part of the weekend. i became quite close with some of the little girls. they taught me words in their native language, quichua, and they let me take lots of pictures of their most beautiful little faces so that i can always remember them.