May & June

I only have three weeks left in this amazing country and I cannot believe it. The time has flown by, and it’s already time to start thinking about going back to the US. However, it has been an incredible last few weeks full of amazing experiences and culture, and I would like to share them here.

 

My birthday was on May 19, and everyone here went out of their way to make me feel so special and loved on this day. My birthday happened to fall on a Friday this year, and one of my classes had invited me earlier in the week on a hike that Friday for some “team-building.” We hiked to a lake behind the university and played games like dodgeball and link tag in the field. They surprised me with cake and sang to me in English and Spanish. They also gave me the incredible present of not having to work on my birthday.

My students and I by the lake

 

My students surprised me with cake on our hike

 

When I got home after work, my host family, a couple of the university professors, and some of my extended host family had cake and presents for me in the house. It is tradition here for the birthday boy or girl to take a bite of the cake first, which often leads to getting a face full of cake. Even though I knew it was coming, my host brother still got me really good.

My welcome home

Some of my extended host family and fellow professors

Happy birthday to me

My host mom and the professors gave me a beautiful scarf embroidered in Saraguro, a town close by which is home to a large indigenous population. That night, friends took me dancing, and we danced salsa, bachata, reggaetón, and cumbia late into the night.

My beautiful scarf embroidered in Saraguro

 

The following weekend was a long weekend to celebrate the Battle of Pichincha. Two of my students invited me to go to their hometown with them to hike to some waterfalls. Originally, the whole class was supposed to go, but all but two dropped out at the last minute (which is pretty common here). It ended up being an incredible experience for me. We went to Yacuambi and Zamora, which are in the mountains east of here, heading toward the jungle. It’s normally warmer and more humid there than in Loja. We saw stunning waterfalls that looked like they were straight out of the movies The Emperor’s New Groove and Up. I got to meet the parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins of my two students. Their families invited me into their homes and cooked for me.  They showed me new foods and how to eat them. I learned all about the production of panela, a block of sugar made from sugar cane juice, and I helped bag and sell it at the local market. We rode in the back of a pickup truck to see the waterfalls, and I taught their little siblings “I’m a Little Teapot” and they taught me “Los pollitos” and “La lechuza.” I don’t think many gringos come to that part, because I got a lot of stares riding in the back of that truck. All of the relatives were extremely kind, and invited me to come back and visit them. It was such a sweet weekend of cultural exchange. I feel like I really got to see how life in Zamora is, and how life in the Ecuadorian country is, too. I had personalized tour guides who also happened to be students and friends. I gained a new appreciation for how hard these people work to make a living and feed their families. I also saw my students in a new light, who go home every weekend to help their families after working hard in school all week. This is a memory that I will always treasure, and I am eternally grateful to my students and their families for welcoming me into their homes, their lives, and their culture.

Meeting the families

The first waterfall

My students and I at the first waterfall

Cascading waterfall

The second waterfall

Stunningly beautiful and powerful

Holding up the mountain clock in Zamora

Selling panela at the market

 

The weekend after that, I met some of my fellow Fulbright ETAs in Salinas for a weekend at the beach. Although I have spent a couple of days in Guayaquil, I had not been to the beach on mainland Ecuador. I have now been to all four regions of Ecuador: the Galapagos, the coast, the sierra, and the jungle (though not really in the Amazon). We had a fun, relaxing weekend on the beach where we got to catch up, potentially for the last time in Ecuador. Even though we haven’t gotten to see each other that much during our time here, we became fast friends and it’s been so nice to have a support system in the country of people who have had similar experiences. This beach trip was the perfect way to close out the year.

4/6 of the Fulbright Ecuador ETAs

Sunset on the beach

La choclatera - a whirlpool that looks like beating chocolate

Sea lions on the rock

 

Last weekend, my host mom’s brother, who lives in Spain, came with his family for their vacation. His little girl was baptized in the cathedral in El Cisne, a small town and pilgrimage site about 2 hours from Loja. This was another good cultural experience for me. We attended mass on Saturday in the cathedral, and after it was over we went up to the altar and the priest performed the baptism with the parents and the godparents as crucial parts of the ceremony. The cried when she got wet, and the priest put the hat on her head as a symbol of God’s new creation. I offered to take pictures of the whole family gathered together, but they wanted me in the pictures so that when she grows up they can show her there was a gringa at her baptism. After the ceremony, we went to the family’s weekend house in Catamayo to eat hornado (roast pig) and cake, and dance cumbia the whole afternoon and into the night in true Ecuadorian fashion. My host mom has six brothers, and all seven children had not been together in years, so it was a great family reunion. 

"One of these things is not like the other"

My host family and I with the newly baptized girl

El Cisne Cathedral

A snapshot of the dancing

 

I am so grateful for my host family and friends here who have truly become my family during my time here. It will be so hard to leave in just a few short weeks.