Cedron!

Hola hola hola. Lets see what happened today. Everyday is different and it is what you make it. I want to be intentional about speaking more spanish. Lately its been really easy to talk to the whole semester crew in english and not put myself through the espanol struggle. I decided to not make plans and come home for lunch.
This morning had classes and boy is my art class going to be a lot of work! We have reading and papers every class and just got assigned 70 more pages to read. We have another novel to read on top of that and two quizzes our second week in! I think this class will be more difficult than the one at Loma! Who knows. I'm glad that I am interested in the subject and the professora is really cute and fun. We are learning about Mesoamerican art and central andean art. Its nice when we are learning about something and then we get to go visit local museums later on and see what we are learning about when we visit the ruins this weekend and when we go to Machu Pichu. This experience has been unreal as of yet and I have already been in the honeymoon stage of traveling and I think I am back there again! I will have been here a full month on Sunday!! Craziness!!
Today after classes got to talk with one of the teachers here teaching english to the locals. There are several dozen teachers coming and going and various groups that go through CEDEI all the time. It keeps things flowing and its nice to have new faces to meet. I met Andy and Rob yesterday and spoke with Rob a little today. Its so funny because his english accent is so thick. At first he didn't talk much and I thought he didn't speak english. Turns out there are quite a few people who after graduating or just during summers will travel the world and teach english. Some of the other teachers spent a couple years in China and said the amount of Chinese they learned in 2 years was the equivalent to how much spanish they learned in 3 months in Ecuador. My friend Jenny also has been telling me stories about her "WOLFING" this past summer in Hawaii. She lived for free in Hawaii working on various farms! She went with a friend and said it was an awesome experience. However, she didn't live with electricity or an inside bathroom, or cell service. I think that would be a great time, not sure if many people would agree. She got to soak up the culture and meet new people and work out in the tropical Hawaiian sun for 5 hours a day. They have wolfing all over the world and sounds like a cool way to travel!

I came home for a little almuerzo finally and went on a little drive with mi mami. We took her baked goods to a friend. Mami works at a Panaderia(bakery) and works partly out of the house as well. She does stuff on her own because she's de best! We delivered her goods to this cute, little, old woman who had an immaculate mansion of a house. It was complete opposite of what I would later.
Mami dropped me off at CEDEI and I went to one of the friendly worker's house. Tatiana invited me over earlier today and I thought 'why not!' We took the bus to her house which was a 20 minute ride through the city. We walked up to her house and were greeted by her little sister and her little cousin. I was in heaven. I've been missing my Warren Walker kids and this is just what I've been missing. Her little brother we met later inside and he is 7 and her sister 5 and her cousin right around there. We met her mom and she served me bread and drink of cedron. Cedron- this delightful hot drink that is MAGICAL. She put sugar in it but it is out of this world! It tastes like real tea that has a taste similar to thyme..i think... I dunno but it was incredible. After our little snack we took a stroll around their town. This part of town is way different than where I'm used to living with my family here. Her house makes me realize how you never really know how well off a person lives. Her family is so much fun I loved hanging out with them. Her mom wouldn't let me leave without taking part of the cedron plant home! I ended up taking a taxi home, because who knows where I would end up if I went on the bus home by myself for the first time. The taxi was expensive but worth it.

I had a little cafecita with papi when he got home from work and when the girls arrived home they were really hyper and making fun of Gabby for not being able to sit indian style. Mami complains that she eats to much pan (bread) and Isa says she looks pregnant. Its funny how honest they are..but I think Gabby really does end up taking it personally. Isa is older and picks on Gabby. Gabby confides is Bruno (our dog) hahah and wants to be a vet when she gets older. Isa is studying in the university to be a lawyer.

         My first experience with public transportation :)

the fam (they don't usually smile in pictures...)

precious

cedron

                                                              the 3 musketeers

on the stroll

their cute funky little poses changed every second

galletas, map quest, indian food!

Today was great. I feel like I just always have to start it out like that. I met up with 3 other girls on my walk to school that live by me. :) So much better to have company on the way! I pick up Erin and we meet Flo and Jenny. We have classes that switch days so that will be everyother day. I meet Flo, the little asian everyday. We have 8 o'clock espanol class everyday! yikes.

After classes today our entire group had planned to eat together instead of going home for lunch. We wanna make Wednesdays our little reunion day and try out all the really amazing places...that are SUPER CHEEP. Had an amazing meal today for a total of 3 dollars. WOW. The almuerzo's here usually consist of soup, main BIg dish and a dessert- typical price 2.50$. Out of this world. A lot of food for great prices.

Our group met up with Christian our friend that helped guide our tour last week. It was great to see him and catch up. He's just a free lance guide and doesn't work directly for our program. He wants to take us all of big hikes though and guide them for Freeee!! So excited. We had lunch and enjoyed it thoroughly. Got icecream in the park on a wonderfully sunny day and than did our own thing. I called home from one of the cabinas. So nice! Skype always is on and off so this is a great way to make international calls! Some friends came over later we made cookies and had fun finding our way to a grocery store and the ingredients needed.

After the cookie baking Jenny and I walked about 2 blocks down from my house and took dance class!! INTENSE!!! The class only costs a dollar each time and it was just what wanted. A little latin flare with different dance steps integrated into it. Its really fun and gets ya sweaty!!

It was really really hot today than it was rainy by the time we went to dance.  I love the change of weather here. Keeps me guessing :)

today..this cool place lisa showed us its kinda like indian food?..i had an amazing curryyy

cookie making!!:) high altitude..ehh they were ok.. it was my first time having people over so cool to have them in my own house! We live extremely far away from eachother walking distance...Christ walked back for an hour in the rain and the other girls took a cab

more from the jungle trip!!

 I need to fill ya in on the rest of the jungle crazyyy adventures..It would take forever and a day to write all about so here are some stories from pictures!!

the owl we named Quincy. Came abnormally close to us!!!!

round two of me holding a very large serpent...

                                                       monkey business....one of these guys stole our friends sunglasses! they have warnings all around about the monkey thieves! But he gave it back luckily!

                                                             cocoa ...makes chocolate!:) plant

                                                 swam across a good strong current to get here after our extremely sweaty hike. we found a sweet jungle rope swing into the water!!

                                                    this was another day...we hiked up to this jaw dropping waterfall.... you can't see all of it here..

                                               playing an intense round of signs....lasted forever ..we got very into it. the local worker didn't understand .haha

face paint day! with the local root of a plant

                                           I was one of the privileged few to use the root and got to paint this man's face

                                       this is kerry- KKKrazy blue eyes! thought this pic was intense! sorry guys she's taken

                                                             our crew! ready for adventure! after the water fall we got into tubes and rafted down the river!:)

                            disney song marathon. We sang out little lungs our down the amazon river!

we went to a little "zoo" animal preserve on our hike

this little guy kept following us ::)

crazy beautiful

Now we are back in Cuenca our home for the next 3 and half months! Can't believe I've already been here for 3 and a half weeks! Time has been flyin! Especially now that my semester crew is here. WE all get along really really great and can't believe how different we all are but how well we all work together. Everyone has different little quirks and we definitely have character! They all met their host families sunday night and than had their first night here. Some of the girls were a little overwhelmed because they couldnt really communicate with their families and felt very alone. So Monday our coordinator Lisa was gone so I took our group on a little trip to a local mercado, the one Soledad showed me before. It was good to keep the group moving...I know how it can get when its slow. My family tends to watch a lot of tv and when you don't have a working cell phone yet you just have to find things to do. My first two weeks I watched a lot of friends, painted, drew and made my sister go on a walk with the dog around the park. Its dangerous around sometimes so doing things with other people is a good idea.

Love love love my new group. So happy that they are here! I loved the other group that I went on the hiking trip with but they are leaving tomorrow. Now my crew is here to stay and we all have different classes and weekend excursions together.:) This weekend we are going to some Inca- ruins.

Today was the first real day of semester classes! I had spanish with 4 others (not by myself this time!) and latin american art with 3 others. I think the art history class will be a lot of work but I am really interested in it, so hopefully it will be enjoyable. I really really really enjoyed the museum of Guayasamin that our group got to visit in Quito. If you are interested and have a chance look up some of his stuff! He's awesome.

Went home for lunch had a little siesta than headed back up to CEDEI and met some girls that live by me Flo and Jenny to make our walk back. We took a group picture and they went to get phones. Later I joined the group from Maryland one last time at their goodbye send off dinner. They leave tomorrow for Maryland. Crazzzy because of the guys knows Chris Hoover- my hometown friend that I grew up with till I was like 6. Small world. Anywhoo the dinner was good and I got free food! sweet deal ..I kinda crashed their goodbye meal but I wanted to say goodbye to the group! Most all of their group got sick and was in and out of the hospital this last week...no bueno. Hopefully that doesn't happen to our group!

Tomorrow I have my second day of class and our whole crew is meeting up for lunch manana! I'm excited but my mami will just have to miss meee!:)

love love love love.

Your name is ointment poured forth.

-Song of songs 1:3

The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Romans 5:5

Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.

Ephesians 5:2

Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious.

1 Peter 2:7

HOme sweet home

Back from the jungle and its nice to settle back into my own little room and comfy bed. God wants me to be strong in the midst of my friends who do not know the Lord like I do. Pray for wisdom and knowledge of the Lord, that I may be able to display truth and love to non believers here in Cuenca.

O Lord my God, I cried out to You, and You healed me. O Lord, You brought my soul up from the grave; You have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.
                                                        - Psalm 30:2-3
When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord; and my prayer went up to You, into Your holy temple.
                                                         -Jonah 2:7
I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock.
                                                           -Psalm 40:1-2

week of welcome JUNGLE style!

I apologize for the lack of blog...but I was in the remote jungle of Ecuador where there was no internet!! This adventure would take a million words to describe so I will day by day go back and write about the excursions. Our days were jam packed!! The pictures will help show all the incredible things we saw and got to do. I felt so so so so so humbled by the places that we got to go and the quality of all the hotels that we stayed at. I kept wondering how the program had money to pay for like 5 star hotels but I forget that South America is A LOT cheeper and we got group deals! The first day of our trip we went to Quito and I was with the two leaders of the trip Lisa and Christian. We are all like family now. :) We hung out and waited for the first 2 girls to arrive in the airport. They were my roomies one short little cute asian, Florence and one tall awesome funny girl, Jenny. We bonded like no other and throughout the week we roomed together. It was so great we all counted on coming back to the room at night to wind down together. We are all soo different and together its a hilarious trio. Definitely sistas!:) We talked about everything from boys to God. There are a lot of people on my team that are kind of on the fence and really spiritual but not sure what they believe. Pray that God will use me and other believers on the team to be a sweet fragrance, an aroma of Christ's life. Pray that we can love like Christ and that it will be apparent that we are living for a God that is greater than anything on this earth.

The first night, Jenny and I explored the hotel and went swimming in the giant pool and hung out in the suana, hot tub and steam room. :) SOOO nice.When more of the group arrived we met them and went up to the 7th floor of the hotel for some food and drinks. Its great how different we all are there are people from Illinois, Boston, New York, Minnesota and more! I am however the only west coaster!!:) yeah yeah. The next morning we had an extravagant breakfast buffet with fruits, bread, eggs, sausage, potatoes, cereal, granola, homemade yogurts and so much more. We were treated like royalty the entire week. This was an orientation of exotic wonders. We headed out to see Otavalo. Its another city where there is great shopping and a better taste of people from the indigenous culture. While we were there we shopped went out to great meals, and had tours of how they make certain yarns- for scarves and panchos, tour of how different musical instruments are made and than we continued on the Quito.

In Quito we were privileged to see Guayasamin's art museum and house. He is an extremely well known, world traveled artist. His museum displayed the pain an suffering of people from around the world. And he started painting as a protest against unjust treatment of his people. I was thoroughly impressed and inspired by his work. I bought a few copies of his paintings and plan on learning more about him. After seeing his museum and his house we went to see the city of Quito and some cathedrals.
 ( I will fill ya more in later and update with more pictures!)Tonight all the other students were picked up by their host families it was so exciting. Even though I already knew mine it was still exciting to be reunited and to see them. I'm glad I already know and love their little family. The group was really nervous but excited on the trip home. Our bus ride back from the jungle today was 9 hours! But we made it and I need to shower and hit the hay. Miss everyone from home!:) Hope all is well and can't wait to hear about Loma stories, A town stories and just to hear from anyone from home!:)

Love you all!!

We went to Otavalo the second day after everyone came in from the airport. A few of us that had ...to be continued..

Quito!!!

Woke up at 6am after feeling really really sick last night and nauseous a lot of last night. After arriving in Quito with a coordinator Lisa and Christian, another event coordinator. We hung out in the airport and picked up another girl, Jenny. She's from Pennsylvania, super tall and really nice. Later we waited and picked up Florence, who is Chinese and speaks Cantonese! She's super funny and nice too. Jenny and Florence next to each other have such a big height difference its funny. We are all roomies for tonight! The hotel in Quito that we are staying at is SOO nice. Jenny and I went swimming, hot tubbing and went in the sauna and steam room. Lisa and Christian went to the airport to pick up the rest of the crew. There will be 18 or 19 of us total for the 4 months. Our stay includes our trip to the jungle on Thursday for a few days, a trip to the Galapagos Islands and to Machu Pichu. Our weekend excursions will be trips like horseback riding, trips to the beach maybe, hiking and visiting indigenous groups.
I love it!! So glad the group is here and I'm excited to visit the jungle. The first two weeks here went by sooo fast!!! Can't believe back in San Diego school is starting and I'm here going to the jungle!!:)