Futbol, la comida, el mercado, Baños, y San Valentin

Last Tuesday, shortly after I made my last blog post, I went to my first Latin American futbol game. I was excited for two reasons, one, because I just plain haven’t been to a ball game of any kind in a while and I love the atmosphere, and second, I knew it would be a good time judging from my experiences in the bars in Argentina last summer for the world cup. And we were not disappointed! We decided to play it safe, buy the more expensive tickets and sit in the “civilized” section, which was fun, but next time we want the cheap rowdy seats. That’s where all the cheering, chanting and enthusiasm was; and happily, Liga (the local club team) beat Paraguay in the Latin American intramural match.

On Wednesday, my friend Alex from Grinnell invited us to his house to have dinner with his family. His mother and siblings were so warm and welcoming and his nieces and nephews were adorable. The house was full of Grinnellians (plus honorary Grinnellian Grace) with Becka, Allie, and our friend Heather who is in Quito for the semester doing the IES program. We ate the literally sweetest meal I’ve had here, and probably in my life. Later, Kristin, a girl who is doing the yearlong version of the MSID program and a friend of Alex’s family, joined us and told us about her internship at Faro, a political group that sounds fascinating and would be my first choice of work were I to stay here for the summer. Alex’s mom also taught us my new favorite word in Spanish: refunfuñar, “to grumble.”

We had a field trip on Thursday to Saquisili, a traditional market in a largely indigenous town a few hours away from Quito. In case anyone was curious, a pig in Ecuador costs about $40 and a horse $200. It was really interesting to see how farms are supplied and maintained in a culture that is foreign to me in so many ways. I told my friends about how Mom and Dad would always take me and Patrick to the country for what I now think of as “city kid country education” activities: picking out our pumpkins at pumpkin patches, “adopting” Squirmy the lamb. There was also a crafts market where I managed to get some good deals on jewelry and gifts – I’ve become proud of my bargaining skills in Spanish. A bit of trivia: markets are traditionally held on Thursdays for the same reason we always celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday, because everyone needs to eat and buy their meat before fasting on Fridays the way Catholics did before Vatican II.

Our long weekend meant a trip to Baños! The town is named for its pools naturally heated by the nearby volcano. It’s small, but beautifully nestled between the mountains and attracts a fair amount of young travelers. The café where we had lunch when we arrived had a very multi-lingual lending library, a feature that was prevalent in most places we went. We ate and drank at Casa Hood, which is run by an American, several times throughout the weekend, due to its great happy hour deals, hearty breakfasts, and tasty cheap desserts.

I’ve been here almost a month and still can’t get over the fact that I’m surrounded by mountains all the time. The six of us girls went on hikes, horseback rides, and a bus ride to a cable car that took us across a gorge to a waterfall on the other side. I’m trying more physically adventurous things than I’m used to, but it’s all been a blast so far. My favorite so far is working up the courage to swing across a little mini-gorge when we got off the cable car, of which Becka took a video:

Can you tell I was terrified?

Basically, it was a fantastic weekend with a good group of people with whom I’m looking forward to traveling again for Carnaval next weekend, this time to the beach on the northern coast.

This week's been fairly mellow and filled with schoolwork, which has basically gone well thanks to our classes with my favorite professor, Juan Paz y Mino, who according to my host parents, is a fairly well renowned mind from la Universidad Catolica. On Tuesday, I had to prepare a typical Ecuadorian dish, so Consuelo, Marita and I made tamales. We had quite a feast the next day at school with everyone's "assignment," ranging from soup to empanadas to sugary green plantains and tres leches flan. The food here is a little bland, but I'm happy with it for the most part. I had an interesting discussion with my host family about what typical American food is, and thankfully I managed to come up with a few examples that weren't McDonalds and KFC. My host father explained how the Native Americans and the Irish (yes, he was convinced the Puritans were Irish and I didn't have the heart to correct him) came together to eat corn and turkey at the first Thanksgiving.

Speaking of holidays, Valentine's Day is just as big of a deal here if not bigger than it is in the US. First of all, it's so affectionate to begin with. I came home on Tuesday to Sol, who for all intents and purposes is my host sister-in-law, leaving a lily in a vase on my dresser. My mother wished me a happy day of "love and friendship," and thus it was. Since flowers are a local industry here, my friends and I decided to take advantage of the good prices and buy three dozen roses to distribute among the students, professors and staff members on our program. It felt like Valentine's Day in elementary school or the day before winter break in high school when I would run around just giving things to people.

The good mood was infectious and continued into the evening as Becka, Allie and I kept up two hours of Spanish conversation over a $3 meal at an Argentine restaurant in the Mariscal, where we later joined several of the girls on our program for free drinks at one of our new favorite bars. After a long day at school that concluded with a somewhat informal conversation with one of the CIMAS doctors we hadn't talked to before, I joined my sister Angelica for a mellow evening of watching TV.

My bus leaves in five hours, so I should get to bed! Luckily, with the right dose of Dramamine, I can sleep on the bus.