Happy Holiday's everybody! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and is prepping for La Navidad! Here in Ecuador I was grateful to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving, or in Spanish, El Día de Acción de Gracias, with my host fam. Originally we were going to celebrate on the weekend after since here we don't get US Holidays off and had a full work day the Thursday of Thanksgiving. However, my site mate Mary and I decided we didn't want to miss out on the action the day of Thanksgiving since being away for the holidays can be hard, so we whipped together a meal for my host family here in my town and they absolutely loved it :). Prior to my coming here, my host family hadn't really heard of Thanksgiving before, and I explained the history of the holiday, however emphasized that it's mostly a time to celebrate being with family, share time together and give thanks. My host mom was super into it and when we all sat down for dinner, we went around the table and each said what we were thankful for and everyone clapped after each person shared (it was so precious!).
Since the Thanksgiving dinner was organized last minute we didn't have ALL the typical dishes we would've liked, but we made mashed potatoes with gravy, my moms scalloped corn dish, caramelized carrots, broccoli, and my host mom grilled chicken. And I made chocolate chip cookies which my host fam also loved. It was super neat to be able to share our US tradition from home with them. Coming from a big family with big holiday get togethers, it was nice to celebrate this day with my host fam including their extended family who lives here that we often do our get togethers with. All in all it was a great feast, my host mom Eliana was even eating the gravy by itself she loved it so much, pretty funny.
In December, I went to visit the town of Baños de Agua Santa with a group of volunteers for a get together and we explored el Pailon del Diablo, a popular tourist attraction on the outskirts of Baños. The last time we went to Baños was during the political issues and spent a good 4 days there and made some friends with local tour guides, so during our weekend here in December we were able to have our tour guide friend show us around for $5/person for the day! It was nice to get out of my small town a bit and feel like a tourist again and experience a bit more mild of a climate since Baños is a mixture of where the Sierra (mountains) meet the Oriente (jungle). My ankles enjoyed not being eaten up by mosquitoes for a few days!
Regarding life at my site in the Oriente I have been keeping myself busy with the charlas at the schools, continuing to average 5-6 charlas per week for the program Cómo Planear Mi Vida. This week of December 16th is alas our last week with all but one community. It's just a week of review for the most part so should be fun, but working with kids can be very exhausting, fun, but tiring! So it'll be nice to have a break for a bit until we plan other programs for the upcoming school semester. I'm also hoping to work with the abuelitos in the new year since with always being with the kiddos in school it's the same time as the senior center club in the mornings. I'm thinking of implementing nutrition charlas with them as well as some more of physical activity (suggestions happily accepted!). So January I'll have to do some serious planning for what I'm doing. With Peace Corps, it's essentially up to you what projects you implement, there is lots of independence so you have to have a lot of self-motivation and planning! I'm looking into working with my site mate, Mary, a little bit on a program called Escuela para Padres (School for Parents) which is a program mostly for the Youth and Family volunteers, but includes some health topics here and there. Additionally I'm looking into working more with the youth on topics such as physical health and nutrition. Would love to start some sort of after-school sports/physical ed class. There are lots of options!
One activity that my site mate and I have already implemented was a school garden in one of the escuelas that we have been working with in the community of Nueva Esperanza. We had each of the kids bring a tire to school that they would have their individual plants in, the teacher provided the soil and they prepped the land. Mary and I had already planted the seeds in little bags to start the plants and then on the prior Friday we transported the seedlings to the school and each student in our class planted 3 plants.
We had zucchini, peppers, onion, basil, chili pepper, etc. The seeds were provided to us by my Community Health Program managers in Peace Corps to help with the project. Hoping that once the plants grow and are ready to be harvested that I can give a cooking demonstration or another nutrition charla to talk to the kids about healthy eating. Overall it went well and the kids were very excited about the project!
Many friends have been asking me what I'm up to for Christmas and the New Year. I will not be going home for Christmas and will be spending it here in site with my lovely host family. They really do feel like my second family and I feel right at home with them. Even though it will be my first Christmas away from my home and family, I am thankful to have my Ecadorian family here. Instead of coming home in the winter, I'm planning to come home to visit for a little bit in June next summer and the following Christmas my family is planning to come down here to visit :). My host family here is planning a big dinner for December 25th, and I'll be making my mom's scalloped corn and chocolate chip cookies which they both loved.
Lastly, I had a fun opportunity to experience Ecuadorian culture this last weekend and was invited to Mary's counterpart's wedding. A counterpart is basically our assigned Ecuadorian boss in the community organization that we work with. She is the secretary for the Consejo Cantonal de Protección de Derechos, which basically is in charge of advocating for the protection of rights such as helping victims of violence in the Cantón of Arosemena Tola. She married that Mayor's brother, so the wedding had lots of invitees and was pretty big for a small town wedding! They rented out the Coliseo, the big and only gym in the community for the reception, I'm guessing there was around 200 people there. It was an Evangelical wedding so no dancing, but nonetheless it was cool to see all the little differences between US and ECUA weddings. For example here the bride doesn't throw the bouquet of flowers, but picks a number and the "single ladies" in the bunch have to pick the right number. Also when cutting the wedding cake, the bride and groom don't feed one another, they each take their own bite. Little differences but interesting!
For the dinner everyone got the classic soup in a plastic bowl and then a styrofoam to-go container filled with rice, potato, chicken and pork. I think Mary and I were slightly overdressed, there were people there dressed in pants and shirts, but I suppose we are in a rural town so here things aren't as formal as if we were in the big city.
Another fun event that our community had this last week was a celebration of the new Christmas Lights that were put up around town. In over 20 years our community hasn't had any Christmas lights or decorations and with our new Mayor this year he had the whole town decorated with Christmas lights, angles, nativity scene, etc. In order to celebrate "the Christmas Spirit" we had a big event last Tuesday where a bunch of local dance groups came and performed in front of the main gym in the community as well as the group from the senior center performed a dance. It was really cool to see the whole community come together and appreciate local indigenous dances. When I first got here I wasn't super into the "Kichwa" music and dance but have grown to really enjoy it :)!
That is about all I have for now, gonna finish up my week of charlas and go on a baking spree for the holidays. So far I have made zucchini bread, banana bread, pumpkin bread and chocolate chip cookies for my host family and they've loved them all. I finally got a mini convection oven for the house so much happier I can bake at home now! So going to try and make some cut out sugar cookies this weekend and some other goodies since baking makes me feel more at home! Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the jungle here in Ecuador!
Fun Fact:
Here in Ecuador they open their Christmas presents when it turns midnight (morning of 25th) and they have their big Christmas meal at this time as well.