Heading home

I´m at the bus terminal in Guayaquil, Ecuador-- just got in after a few days at the beach. The fam comes tomorrow and I´m meeting them in Peru which just seems unreal and incredible to me. I will be in the U.S. in less than 2 weeks.... and I have very mixed feelings about it. I can´t wait to see my grandparents, friends and family, but there is a lot I´m going to miss about Ecuador. This is an amazing country, with an incredible amount of diversity. Time moves slower here- interactions oftentimes have more meaning and people value relationships more than anything else. I´ve learned to just live in the moment (sorry if this is getting incredibly cliche) and stop planning my future so much. People live with more passion for life here, and I´ve learned a lot from this culture. I don´t have a lot of time to write more, but I´ll definitely keep posting after I get back. This has been an incredible experience, and I´m really disappointed to see it end. But, I´m super excited to see all of you!!!! I head to Peru tomorrow, and home on the 25th. See you then!!!

love from chels

Read post below for explanation

Chicken foot anyone???

I'm back in Quito!!! What a different world than Tocachi. This is the week of presentations, and time to turn in our thesis papers. Recap of the last couple weeks in Tocachi:

1. I finally ate Guinea Pig!! We went to a baptism party WAAAAAAAAYYY up in the mountains on my last Saturday in Tocachi, where I finally got my chance. I couldn't eat the skin (although everyone else does) because it was really tough. The meat was...chewy...had a charred, grilled flavor... All in all, not great, not horrible. (No mayonaisse, for the record). At least I can say I tried it!

2. There was a chicken foot in my soup. At the same baptism party, we ate chicken soup (soup is ALWAYS the first course here). I discovered an odd looking thing in my soup.... so I asked Hirma, my host mom. She laughed and said it was the foot of the chicken. Indeed, it was. Exactly as you would imagine the foot of a chicken to look like, toes (do they call them toes?) and all. I didn't want to be rude, but my brain could not justify eating it. Franklin, my host dad, laughed at me and showed me that the head of the chicken was in his soup. AHHH. Luckily Hirma let me put the foot in her bowl, so I was saved..... but OH MY GOSH THE FOOT OF A CHICKEN???

3. The next day we killed a pig to eat. It was Hirma's birthday, so we went to Tabacundo to kill the chancho (the pig). Pictures included. I think it's honestly the first time I've watched the killing of an animal. So... they hung up the pig in Hirma's mom's one-room house, and cut it apart. The head remained.... so as we were eating the body of this pig, it's head was hanging above us watching. OH my. It was tasty though, I have to say. :)

Rafting Pics

The few pictures I managed to get from Tena and rafting (it was raining the whole time)... with the colors enhanced just a bit!

Oh life

This is from an English book at the school....I just thought it was funny.

Waterfalls and Sloths

I tried to post on Sunday but something went wrong.. Surprise, there aren´t classes today! I asked my host mom why there are so many teacher´s meetings. She told me that all the teachers had to take a test and did horribly, the government realized that the education system here is terrible, and now they are canceling classes with great frecuency to try and improve the system. Hmm. Something doesn´t seem quite right.

Highlights from Tena:

RAFTING! It was amazing- we did class 4 rapids which was great... There were waterfalls every kilometer or so- just gorgeous. The river we were on has very limited access by foot and road, so we were really in a pretty isolated place. The raft almost flipped a couple of times, and I almost fell out once.. I would have if my foot hadn´t been caught in the foot strap. It reminded me of my first time waterskiing when I didn´t let go of the rope. Although, the feeling of being dragged underwater while in a set of rapids on a jungle river may be a bit more intense. Not to worry, I got pulled back in quickly!

At one point we jumped out of the raft to swim up to a waterfall. We all climbed up and stood underneath this huge, very powerful waterfall-- looking out at the river through a wall of water was absolutely incredible.

I also got to go through a set of rapids outside of the raft on my back! It was a ton of fun, although I ingested a fair amount of water...which may be the reason I was sick the next day, who knows.

Saturday night Becca, Sara and I went to a restaurant in Tena. It was probably one of the most entertaining eating experiences of my life. There are a lot of reasons... one was the insistence of the waiter to speak English in a very formal, slightly French accent. Another is that there were SLOTHS crawling around the walls of the restaurant. It was SO bizarre. That´s all I can say about that... it was weird. I think you had to be there.

Hope everything is going well at home!!!

Lots of love!

Quick note

Hola!!!

I`m in Tena and it is HOT and HUMID here!!! What a change from Tocachi. I´ll write more later, but a few quick highlights:

Tomorrow I´m going white-water rafting. We have to hike into the jungle first and will be jumping off waterfalls... not a bad day!

Rainy season has apparently ended in Quito/Tocachi and the windy season has started. Upside: it´s much less cloudy and from the roof of my house in Tocachi I have a perfect view of at least 5 snow capped mountains.

Taught English again all week and chose the theme of my research paper- it´s going to be focused on teaching methods and how to address the learning problems in Tocachi/how to improve the English classes... I think it will be interesting.

I got a package from Emily last week and the peanut butter m&ms were potentially the best thing I´ve tasted in 3 months. Maybe an exaggeration, but they were delicious nonetheless.

Okay I´m off to buy some ice cream, did I mention it´s hot here??