Cuenca Day 1- Ecuadorians might be the nicest people on earth (continued)

After I settled into my room, Mercy told me that she would show me around the city. So the two of us, Juanita, and Luis piled into their old rusted SUV to explore. The first place we were going to visit was a neighborhood named Turi, which is famous in Cuenca for its view of the city. What should have been a 10 minute drive turned into over 20 minutes as I learned that Mercy, despite living her entire life in Cuenca, doesn't like to drive and doesn't know her way around very well. She explained that she loathed driving and usually only goes to places around their neighborhood or makes someone else drive. Although delayed, we all made it safely to Turi and the view was amazing. Cuenca truly is a smaller version of Quito but much cleaner and different monuments to pick out as you trace the skyline. It was pretty wind and cool so we decided to drive through the Old Town.

Mercy quickly became flustered with driving once again and couldn't make the U-turn necessary for our decent out of Turi. Luis is unable to drive due to back surgery and Juanita is only 2 years old so that left it up to me to get us back into the city. Being behind the wheel for the first time in another country was pretty fun and I was able to navigate us back down the mountainside. Mercy let me be the driver for a little while until we got back into the city and told me we had to switch back since I don't have an Ecuadorian license.

We drove by all of the sight seeing areas downtown, a few areas multiple times due to Mercy's slim knowledge of the city streets, but I didn't mind and sincerely enjoyed riding and talking with them. On our way back to the house we stopped by one of their favorite street vendors and bought some choclos, an ecuadorian staple that is similar to corn on the cob but eaten with cheese...delicious. After our snack Mercy let me drive the rest of the way back to the house and she told me that it was her husbands birthday so we would be having a big meal later in the evening.

When we got back Mercy pulled out some photo albums and I learned all about how she and her husband had met and other fun stories about their vacations and family gatherings. This really helped me settle in and it was fun to see pictures of Catarina when she was younger. Monica and her boyfriend Julio arrived and told me they were going to pick up some stuff for the party and I should come along so Mercy could prepare the food. We ended up repeating my city tour from earlier but it was completely different seeing all of the churches and streets lit up.

We arrived home just in time for dinner and I met Juan, the birthday boy, and both of his parents. The food was great and their family was fantastic in terms of conversation. After dinner we sang a very interesting version of happy birthday that had Spanish and English verses (which was funny because no one in their family speaks english) and ate some delicious birthday cake.

At this point it was almost midnight and I was exhausted from traveling and being awake for almost 20 hours so I headed off to bed. Right before I went to my room they informed me that the whole family was going to take me to the Inca Ruins the next morning! I was tired but excited as to our adventures to come.

Cuenca Day 1- Ecuadorians might be the nicest people on earth

This past weekend I had three days off work so I decided to visit Cuenca, a small historical city south of Quito. Last Tuesday I was talking to the woman who owns the restaurant next door, Catarina, because I knew she grew up there. It is my favorite restaurant in Quito because the food is delicious and Catarina is super nice and always gives us extra food and drinks. When I told her I was going to Cuenca she immediately got out a pen and paper and wrote down her father's address and phone numbers for all her siblings and told me to call them when I landed. I thanked her multiple times but told her I didn't want to bother her family members though she insisted.

On Thursday night, about 14 hours before my arrival in Cuenca, I went back just to ask Catarina if she had let her family know that I was going to call when I arrived. She said no but that she would call her sister right then and demanded that I accept a free cup of coffee. When she returned she told me that her sister would pick me up from the airport and show me around the city. I didn't know exactly what the appropriate response to that sort of gesture is so I thanked her repeatedly and gave her a big hug.

When I landed in Cuenca I called Catarina's sister Mercy from a payphone since I don't have a cell phone down here and we communicated enough information to hopefully find each other outside of the airport. I was supposed to look for a white SUV and she was looking for a white boy in a blue sweater. Our official meeting place translated too "out front" of the airport. Despite the lack of a detailed plan, 10 minutes later she pulled up and I hopped in. I was accompanied in the front seat by Juanita, her two year old daughter who sat in my lap on the drive home. She took me back to her house which is located within the same cement walls as her father's house. I was told to wait in the living room while her father, Luis, came down. Luis is a very short, round man that hurt his back so he walks with a cane in each hand. After his voyage down the stairs into the seat next to me, he immediately started asking me every question imaginable and telling a ton of jokes in which I'm pretty sure I only picked up about half of.

After about 20 minutes Catarina's other sister, Monica, came back from work to have lunch. The three of us sat down in the kitchen and talked for a while. I figured out that Monica is a lawyer and works for a University in the city. When we were all eating the enormous amount of food she made, she apologized to me for not having my room ready yet but that I could set all of my stuff in there! This was the point where I realized that this was going to a much different weekend than I had planned, but in this case different meant way better because I wouldn't be traveling alone. Their hospitality was like nothing I have ever experienced before and just sitting around talking with them was so much fun.

There is a lot to write for this one so I am going to break it up and post a new section each day until it's all done. Hope this sparks your interest to read more!

Getting into a routine...trips in the near future.

While this last week wasn't particularly exciting it did go by very quickly. The first few weeks are always a little crazy trying to settle in but I finally started to get into a rhythm with my schedule. Also, I switched some work shifts around so that I can do some traveling this month. I will be going to one of the smaller, but well preserved historical cities of Ecuador, Cuenca, from the 23-25th of July. I've never traveled alone down here so this should be fun little trip to see the city and crash in hostels. At the end of June, I will also be traveling to Cartagena, Columbia with an American friend of mine that is also living down here. It is a beautiful beach town with a lot of history between fighting off invasions on their city due to its lucrative business to its liberation from Spain.

For now I am just hanging out and watching as much TV in spanish as I can because its a great way to practice. For those of you who are fans of the show LOST, I recently began watching the first season and its pretty intense. Besides watching TV, I plan on hanging out with my host family from last year this weekend and catching up with them. No worries, more exciting posts are to come.

Baca Ortiz Hospital

Over the past ten days I have been settling into my new job and searching for places to volunteer. I stumbled across and organization named "Fundacion Sol y Vida" (Foundation of Sun and Life) which is a non-profit organization based in the Baca Ortiz Hospital in Quito. From what I can tell there are two children's hospitals in Ecuadaor and this is the main one (the other is on the pacific coast). People travel from all over the country, mostly on bus rides from anywhere between 2-12 hours, to receive treatment. It is a general public hospital but this foundation in particular works as a middle man to subsidize the price of chemotherapy medications for children with cancer.

Yesterday I had my first opportunity to tour the hospital and I had mediocre expectations because of the financial state of the country, but was somewhat hopeful because this is supposed to be the premiere children's hospital. Needless to say I was shocked when we walked into the building to see literally hundreds of people packed in and sick children everywhere. There were lines of people waiting to receive bread and bananas in the lobby and the smell was awful. The doctor giving me the tour explained that people show up between 5-6am and begin waiting in lines. At around 8am, these ticket office type windows open and give out numbers to those in line until about 10am. Almost all of the doctors that work in this part of the hospital work from 8ish-12 and then work in private clinics in the afternoon.

She also took me up to a few of the upper floors of the hospital that are privately funded and the change is incredible. The first two floors of the building are dirty and run down while the upper floors of the same building resemble what we would find in a hospital in the U.S. Still, much of the equipment that was brand new two years ago is broken and some medications are hard to come by. I was also surprised to hear that over 95% of their chemotherapy patients are ambulatory (Quimoterapia ambulatorio). After the children receive their medication they are sent home (even though it may be hours away) because the hospital is filled with bacteria and they are more prone to infection if they were to stay.

It was quite the experience and I look forward to going back and spending time with the children while they receive their treatments.

Brad's back in Ecuador

Howdy howdy all,

I am back in Ecuador and plan to keep up with my blog a little better this time. I arrived after a wonderful weekend in North Carolina attending an absolutely beautiful wedding with a beautiful bride (my cousin sarah!) and having a great time with the family. This summer I am working at a Hotel (Hotel Casa Foch-click here to see pics) and continuing to improve my Spanish language skills. Last year I did a study abroad through Ohio State and the owners of the school also own the hotel (in fact they are right across the street from each other) so through that connection I got this job. I've worked probably about 80 hours since I arrived but luckily I am supposed to have the next two days off. Nothing else too exciting going on here except yesterday there was a Pride Parade in Quito that went right in front of the hotel which was very entertaining and cool to see that they have here in a society that views being gay much differently than we find in many parts of the U.S. Well that's about all for now.

Hope everyone is doing well and Ill post again soon.
Brad