Ecuador and their guinea pigs...

These have been an exciting past couple of weeks for me….very busy but lots of good times!

• Hiked in the Andes Mountains
• Star gazed on the top of my pueblo’s rolling hills (10,000ft. high). The stars are so bright and feel so close, as if you could reach out and touch them.
• Got sick on a bus…
• …drank a gallon of my Madre’s Ecuadorian concoction when I wasn’t feeling well, which is suppose to be a remedy for stomach problems (some sort of hot tea with strong Oregano spices)
• Got locked in my own room by my friends. When I was sick, my friends came to check on me, bring me some water and hang out with me for a short while. After tucking me into bed, they left, and I fell asleep. Because I had downed all my Madre’s special tea before hand, I got up a few hours later to use the bathroom only to find out I was locked inside my room. Fantastico! My friends had unknowingly put the latch over my door when they left. I had to holler for my host family several times before they came to my rescue. When they finally released me from my room, we all got a good laugh out of it!
• Danced in the streets with my host sisters for the three days of fiestas celebrating San Pedro, the Sun God. The park was packed with people dressed in colorful costumes dancing in circles, singing and passing around drinks until early hours of the morning. The Ecuadorians gave fiestas a new meaning...they danced for over seven hours straight each day. ( I couldn’t keep up)
• Celebrated 4^th of July at Ryan’s (PC volunteer) host family’s house…awesome! His amazing family grilled us hamburgers and hot dogs to help us celebrate our national holiday American style with some Ecuadorian flare…music and lots of dancing. We also made some other American side dishes to go with the great food (Mac n’ Cheese, cookies, potato salad). We even had fireworks!
• Learned how to dance Bomba, which originates from the Afro-Ecuadorian culture in Mascarillas where they rhythmically dance moving their hips and balance a glass bottle on top of their heads at the same time!
• Visited a Traditional Medicine facility:
• First demonstration, we watched as an old witch doctor lady cleansed Rebecca’s (PC volunteer) body with an egg. The idea is to pass the egg over the entire body to pick up any bad energy, and then cracking it into a glass half full of water to observe how the egg separates thus determining what kind of problems the person is having and eliminating the bad energy. As the lady was finishing up the passing of the egg, Rebecca’s face went white as the lady mistakenly dropped the egg on the floor…we were all afraid that it meant something bad. I turns out that the doctor was able to analyze the egg on the floor…Rebecca is fine and is now cleansed of any bad energy that may have existed.
  

• The second demonstration made my stomach turn but was fascinating to witness. The witch doctor performed a “Limpieza de Cuyi,” a medical practice that requires passing a live guinea pig over a patient’s body and then dissecting the guinea pig (I’ll spare you the gut wrenching details) to determine where the problem areas are on the animal, thus linking to the problem areas of the patient (my friend Darci was the “lucky” volunteer for the demonstration).
• Helped my host sister with her business idea to open up her own restaurant in our town. She has been taking cooking classes and would like to start up an Italian cuisine restaurant. ( I told her it also wouldn’t hurt for her to practice making pizza for us some time for dinner J)
• Gave a health workshop to a group of young kids about personal hygiene, (Song we taught them about washing their hands---“Lavo los manos asi, lavo los manos asi, lavo los manos con jabon y el agua, lavo los manos asi.” We also put on a play with Germ Monster fighting Super Jabon (the soap superhero). I played the doctor in our mini-theater production..it was a good time!
  

These are only some of the highlights from my past weeks. Lots more has been going on, but I feel I may have already traumatized you with the guinea pig story so I’ll save some stories for later.
Missing everyone at home! Sending all my love!

I hope everyone enjoyed their 4^th of July weekend!!