parade from JAN 6th.

Yesterday was a big holiday called the dia de los inocentes!Every year on January 6th there is a big parade at night and a lot of people dress up in crazy costumes and floats go down the street. The holiday is overall very dark and there are lots of people dressed up like the devil, ghosts and dead things. haha. Its usually pretty political and a lot of the floats are themed to what the country is struggling with politically. In the parade there was a lot about the petroleum oil issues of the country and there were dressed up plants with signs " clean water is life!" There were dancing insects and plants dancing under an oil rig and screaming and crying when the oil spout would open. There were hundreds of people in the streets and fried plantains and potatoe chips. They love fried papas= papas fritas= french fries with ketchup and mayonnaise. This is basically Ecuador's Halloween.

 little family during the parade

                                                       The next day for class we headed to  museo de banco. museum. Itw  I learned about all the different cultures within Ecuador. The culture and customs of the people living on the coast, the mountains, etc. It is a gorgeouss museum. My professor only tells me everything in spanish so luckily there are a lot of visual aspects of the museum I can understand without knowing what she was saying..

different things here from the US..

    I've learned to walk in boots up hill and on cobblestone to and from school..(half and hour each way)
  with pepper spray

i've gotten used to the loud random fireworks that go off at all hours of the night and during the afternoon.

i've enjoyed the experience of taking taxi's to and from places.

good large lunch portion meals- only  $2.50

and every family utilizes the millions of bakeries that line every street corner.
  

jungla!!

Tomorrow Lisa (one of the directors of the program) and I are headed on a flight to Quito, the biggest city in Ecuador. We are spending the day in Quito just hangin out looking around and visiting whatever we want untill the rest of the semester group arrives at the airport tomorrow night around 10. I have to start taking my malaria pills because there will be lots of mosquitos in the jungle! I hate taking it the medicine before gave me the night chills and made me feel queasy at night. I'm gonna try taking it earlier in the day and not at night this time.

Yesterday was incredible!!! The hike through the hills side, the trees, the marshland and alongside the lakes was unreal. The high altitude definitely affected me later though. I didn't have a problem with it the entire day until we got back. I think I kinda got sunburn and the high altitude gave me a really bad headache. My throat was hurting and my body was really achy. I was going to meet up with the Maryland crew later last night but didn't even have the energy to go fill up my water bottle. I passed out and still felt horrible this morning. I called my friend and cancelled our almuerso (lunch)for today. She was going to teach me how to make her favorite meal- ceviche. But we rescheduled for when I return from the week in the jungle!!
After we meet the semester crew of 19 we will cruise around Quito than head to the jungle!! Talk about a good get-to-know you, break the ice time; a week in the muddy, humid, insect infested jungle! We will be around each other, dirty sweaty 24/7.
Our group made a facebook page and has been commenting back and forth since we found out the people in our group. I put up a post for them to bring more starbucks via's!! All they have here is instant coffee, which is just tolerable. They drink a lot of coffee and I had my family try the starbucks via's and they LOVEd them! I wanna try and see if coffee makers are cheep here..they just don't know what they're missing.. (I'm just speaking for my family, I'm sure other families may have them)

So I stayed in bed with my achy body untill about 12:30 today when i finally started to feel better and  got up. My head stopped hurting and my energy was back!:) Please pray for the incoming team and our travels. I pray that our team in cohesive and we all get along and respect eachother. I can't wait!! Jungle here we come!

Cajas!!

CraZy beautiful hike today!I joined the group from Maryland and went to cajas (about an hour in the bus) to hike! It reminded me of Lord of the Rings setting it was sooo crazy beautiful! There is only one type of tree that can survive at such high altitude and they are called "paper trees"! They are like 1000 years old or more I forget..(either one thousand or 4 thousand...OLD!) The tree forest and the view throughout the hike was incredible. It was difficult to breathe at times because of the change of altitudes but so nice and fresh outside it was breathtaking!
Here's some photos!! don't know why some got sooo big!

My internet has been really bad lately at the house :(

Museums, 'Monday Blue' and the Maryland Crew

For class on Tuesday we went to a museum, cathedral Neuvo and Cathedral Viejo. The cathedrals were beautiful and they are on either side of the main central park. The cathedral nuevo ( new cathedral) is actually the one that is really old. Its walls are huge and there is a lot of gold on the interior. The ceilings are decorated and the pews were filled.

The cathedral Nuevo (but its the old one)

Monday Blue restaurant with the Maryland group. They are here for a month. Bad food but a great time! It was totally American food, but really bad..haha.

internet's been really bad! I'll fill ya in when I can!

Went to lunch today with a big group from Maryland that is also studying at CEDEI. It was so much fun and so weird to speak in english! It was the most english that I have spoken in forever! Had my first art class today too it was really relaxing and soo nice. :)
Fill ya in tomorrow! p.s send me mail! I miss my people from home. :)

Domingo!

Its been a week that I've been in Ecuador today! Seems like I've been here for only a few nights, but so much has happened. The meals, the sleeping habits, the language...soo much is different but soo good. I love how everyone greets eachother, even though I'm the stranger, I'm always welcomed as part of the family. Today I got to sleep in :), we went to another huge market and another grocery store. The stores have a lot of different food and cool weird fruit. I'm getting used to the family and the customs. Its so fun to slowly pick up more and more spanish. The more I learn the more I feel like I don't know. My house mom and my sisters have said that my spanish has progressed a lot since I first got here. So exciting!!:)

Yesterday I went to the park with Gabby and Bruno (the dog). The walk was really nice and there were tons of families in the park having picnics and little old men with coolers walking around selling icecream.  To get to the park we cross over a little river. Cuenca is unique in so many ways one of which there are 3 (or 4) rivers running through and around the city.

I love how the biggest meal of the day is at lunch and they have small little breakfasts and dinners and coffee in the morning and coffee or tea in the evening. After lunch when school and work are off for a couple of hours everyone goes home and takes short siestas.

Tonight I got to go to church with Marcela and Isa. The first song they played was 'rain down' so fitting for living in Cuenca when it rains all the time! All the songs were amazing and I knew all of them. (but in english) Worship was awesome. The message was good of what I could make of it. The church is christian denomination and its GIGANTIC! I felt so at home there, I'm so happy that I could find a church!:)

It's been a terrific first week! My program advisors have been telling me to take advantage of these first 2 weeks because it's gonna get a lot crazier once the 18 other spring semester students arrive.

I made Maddy's famous oreo chocolate balls for the family tonight! They loved it!

Happy 2011!

Decided not to write about me today...
      check out my friend Brooke's blog, she is currently living in Haiti as a nurse.

                                                http://brookejames.blogspot.com/

 Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.- 2 Peter 1:5-7

Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.

Psalm 55:22