La Bosque

After last weekend's craziness, I decided to stay in Quito this weekend to explore/ relax/ not spend a bunch of money. And I got to do all of those things, which was really nice.

On Thursday, we took a field trip to the Museo del Banco Central and learned about the history of Ecuador from indigenous peoples up unto the colonization by Spain. The museum was divided into two very distinctly different parts based on these two very distinctly different time periods and influences. One part was full of these really beautiful artifacts made by indigenous people and dioramas of tiny little villages of people carrying even tinier little babies on their tiny backs and walking into tiny huts and petting tiny dogs. The other part was full of religious sculptures and paintings ("hella baby Jesus'" as one amiga put it). It was really a stark contrast, which was fascinating in itself. Not to mention our tour was completely in Spanish and our really great tour guide said "vamos por áca" before each transition, which became funnier and funnier as the tour went on. Anyway, having gotten our fill of Ecuadorian culture and history, we then went to McDonald's. Yup. Hahaha. This McDonald's was super nice and SUPER busy. I've never seen a bigger or more crowded McDonald's, especially one filled with really formally dressed, professional-looking people. Another interesting glimpse at Ecuadorian culture.

On Thursday night we met up with another amiga that I know from the Seattle U photo program who has been living in Quito for the past few months and we went to this really cool exposición de fotografias at this bar where her roommates work. It was a really cool mixture of art and animal rights awareness as the theme of the collection of work was basically illustrating the cruelty and inhumanity of bullfighting and were accompanied by beautiful animal rights quotes by people like Mark Twain and Ghandi, in Spanish, of course. It was cool to attend this kind of event in Quito. Me gustó mucho.

Yesterday (Sunday) I went mass in the forest with my family. That's probably actually not the best way to describe it, but on Saturday when they asked if I wanted to go, that's how they presented it to me. "Vamos a la misa en la bosque". I'm up for just about anything in the bosque so I happily agreed to go, which for whatever reason seemed to come as a surprise. Anyway, we drove to this really adorable little church in the middle of a forest (more or less), went to mass with my mom's hermanos, had a picnic, walked around a bit. Then, I thought we were going home, but instead we went to this restaurant and had delicious tortillas and HELLLLLAAAAAA beer. Like, omg. There were 10 or 11 adults in total and by the end of the meal there were 25 empty bottles of Pilsener Grande. They serve/ drink the stuff like water here! It costs just about the same amount, anyways. I miss water. The day was really great but consisted in large part of my brothers making fun of me for being Chuchaqui (the Quechua word for hungover) and the rest of my mom's family making jokes in Spanish at my expense that I couldn't understand. All in good fun, I'm sure, but it got pretty exhausting pretending to understand and go along with them every time they looked at me and then burst into laughter, so I checked out early (unfortunately only mentally, because I still had the rest of the day with them). Most of the jokes were about how I should marry my mom's nephew and become part of the family. And then there was my old uncle with 3 or 4 teeth who's Spanish was IMPOSSIBLE to understand, but most of the time he didn't even give me the chance to try, electing to use some strange mix of sign language and interpretative dance as means for communicating instead. Omg, hahahahah. Here are some pictures.




The dancing, toothless wonder that is my uncle!
Mamacita


This week we have our first fieldtrip. We're heading North for a couple days to stay with indigenous families and go to indigenous markets and who knows what else, then I think at least some of us are going to stay for the weekend. Tomorrow I'm going to cook for my family!! I think that I'll make spaghetti with a giant green salad because I miss spinach and other green veggies so much! Today when I got home around 8pm all of the lights were out. A good portion of Quito's electricity is powered by water and this has been an exceptionally dry "winter" which has greatly affected the electricity and also the amount of vegetables that are grown. Que interesante.

Anyway, I'm about to engage in one of my favorite activities here: sleep. Ahhh, can't wait :)

Besos!!