´Tis the Season

December 11, 2009
Friday, 9:22am
Cuenca
Sunny, 60

This blog is sort of a grab bag of things that happened in the last month. There is no overriding theme nor is there any real flow from one topic to the next. With that in mind we wish you all Happy Holidays and hope you enjoy the random collection of pictures and words below!

(Also, I apologize in advance for all the typos you will surely find. I typed the blog in Cuenca and the version of Word I was using kept making bizarre autocorrections as the default language was Spanish and I was writing in English. So put the red pens away and enjoy the omition of many words and creative spellings of others.)

Baby Matias, Construction, and another Niño
Doña Rita´s daughter Melida gave birth to Matias a few weeks ago. Her sister Maribel asked us to take some pictures of him,the work they had done on their house, and the Niño (it´s a big tradition here to have a Niño that travels from house to house leading up to Christmas. The same weekend Matias was born the Niño arrived at Doña Rita´s house) so she could send photos to her brother who lives in Canada.





Cubanos, Semifinals, Finals, and a Fire
We had a couple of fundraisers for one of the soccer teams I am on to raise money for uniforms. The fundraiser, which took place on several occasions, consisted of making sandwhiches (in our house) then selling them with a vaso of cola for a dollar at the nearby estadio. Unfortunately, on the first day the cubanos (Ham and cheese on white) were locked in a tienda (store) at lunch time and we couldn´t get them out again until dark . This meant we had to sell everything at half price which severely cut into our already narrow profit margin. The second time, however, everything went according to plan and all sandwhiches were sold at $1.

Another campeonato (small, soccer tournament) came to a close this month. My team came in second place after a loss in penalty kicks in the finals where three people (including myself) hit the post. That´s right, tres palazos! Unbelievable. We still had a big cookout later that night at Zoila´s house and ate lots of fried rice and watched Michael Jackson videos.

It is also worth mentioning, as we have pictures of a fire off in the distance, that Ecuador has been without rain for far too long. Up until a few weeks ago the rivers were empty and there were fires on every hillside. Since then we have gotten a little bit of rain so most of the fires are out and you can no longer walk across the rivers. However, they are still rationing electricity (over 90% of Ecuador´s electricity is hydroelectric which doesn´t work very well if there is no wáter) which means for several hours every day we are without electricity.





Makin´cubanos


Fake Bill
We got our first counterfeit bill two weeks ago from an ATM of one of the biggest most respected Banks in all of Ecuador. The bank won´t reimburse us and we had to return the bill anyway but it was neat to see it even if it means we lost $20. See if you can tell which is the fake.



Zukes and Eggs
My garden is chock full of zukes this month which means zucchini crust pizza, zucchini muffins, zucchini fritta, zucchini salad, minestrone soup made with zucchini, and so on. As a novice gardener I have to say zukes are a most gratifying crop.

Also there´s a picture of an egg from a farm raised chicken and one from a factory raised chicken. Can you tell which is which?



Christmas is coming!!
Enjoy some pics of our apartment all dressed up for Christmas (and some of Chuspi enjoying all the holiday decorations).





Envios
It´s super common in Sayausi (and all of the province of Azuay) to send all sorts of food, stuff, and more stuff to the States where most people here have family. The most common item is, of course, the ever so delicious cuy i.e. guinea pig. We are not quite sure how it works but it looks like you drop of your cuy here in Sayausi and it ends up in some similar looking storefront somewhere in the U.S. Pretty remarkable considering a shipment goes every Thursday and Tuesday and arrives two days later in the U.S.



Work Photos
A fellow volunteer is putting together a website with a profile about what volunteers in Ecuador are doing. So these are the pictures we sent him for the website. We will post a link to the site once we have it. Enjoy!





Chuspi, Chuspi, Chuspi
This blog was originally going to be an Adopt-a-Chuspi post as Mike has an allergy to her. However instead we are going to leave Cuspi with our lovely, landlady Doña Carmen, proabably in January. So here´s a bon voyage to Chuspi tribute with a special guest...a deer leg!




A fun tail
Yum, deer leg
Brush-tastic
Brush-a-me, mama
Flight instead of fight
The beetle gets it
Relaxed Attack
Pathetic
Peticure
Whatta good Chuspi cat
Yum, sardines