Semana Santa

So I took a two week break from the blog during my spring vacation, and quite the vacation it was. For the first week my parents and brother came down during Isaac’s sprink break. My parents and I thought it was a fantastic week, Isaac may not exactly share the sentiment as he was sick for most of the week with altitude sickness and sinus trouble; Fanta in a glass bottle, essentially liquid gold, really makes up for a lot though, even altitude sickness.

We started off in Quito at beautiful converted mansion where we stayed for three days. After exploring Quito a little on Sunday, my family got to meet my host family on Monday without me to translate, which seemed interesting for both of them. At my house we also made some Ecuadorian friends, cousins of my host family, who were fantastic tour guides for the entire week.

(Converted hotel mansions are the way to go)

Tuesday through Thursday we slept on top of a mountain.

(View from where we stayed)

Thursday we returned to Quito to stay in Centro Historico, or the Colonial center of Quito. On Friday we got to see one of the most spectacular, disturbing, and interesting things I have ever seen, the Good Friday procession through Centro Historico. Thousands upon thousands of pecadores, or sinners, strolled through the streets of Centro Historico for a good 4 or 5 hours wearing KKK like(but with no actual association) purple outfits, some without shoes, some with sharp cactuses strapped to their backs, others wrapped in barb wire, you know, typical Good Friday attire. The procession was really the highlight of the week and as someone that is not catholic, really showed me how powerful religious belief can be.

After my parents left on Sunday, I headed to the beach for a few days to smoke some South American cigars and enjoy the Pacific Ocean.

It was great having my family here and I’m so happy they were able to come down and that we got to share a week in Ecuador together.

Beans, Corn, and Moscos

This week I was lucky enough to spend a large amount of time in Lumbisi, the rural community about 20 minutes from where I live. For a photography project I decided to try and spend some time working and taking photos in the fields of Lumbisi. Our program director was nice enough to introduce me to a wonderful women, Nelly, who has lived in Lumbisi for all her life and was more than happy to take me around to some of her fields and show me how agriculture is done, Lumbisi style.

Nelly allowed me to accompany her to her various plots of land. In her fields we picked plenty of beans and corn and fought of plenty of Moscos, the Ecuadorian equivalent of mosquitoes.

(No they're not Jelly Bellys, just really cool beans)

I really can’t describe how beautiful these fields are, or the walk to the fields, but there is something very calming about going to a plot of land that has been passed down for hundreds of years and getting so see a master of agriculture at work. Over the last few generations, Nelly and her family have obviously perfected their growing system because everything I have learned about in terms of sustainable agriculture at U of I is done in Lumbisi. For instance, to avoid erosion each stalk of corn gets its own mound of dirt so that the ground is not level and Nelly also uses Multi Cropping, in which she grows a bean plant around a corn stalk.

To say I was humbled by all this is quite the understatement. How fast and hard Nelly works for a women with grandkids is unbelievable. Our walk back home can sum up her wonder woman like level of fitness. My bookbag was filled to the brim with about fifteen ears of corn and a bag or three of beans. Her bag was filled with about thirty ears of corns and ten or so bags of beans, so give or take she had roughly three times the amount of weight on her back that I had on mine. As we started our hour walk home, Nelly, roughly four feet tall, machete in hand, dominated the mountain paths with ease, while I the relatively fit, or at least I thought so, six foot tall American was ready to fall down and die. As we reached her house Nelly let out a little laugh as she threw down her hundred pound bag of vegetables and I fell down on the grass gasping for air.

It was an amazing week and I really feel privileged that I had the opportunity to experience a taste of rural life in Ecuador.

Oh yeah and my family is arriving in Ecuador tomorrow night for a week long spring break! I’m sure Peter, Annette, and Isaac will have some great adventures to share with you when they get back.

MoneyMoneyMoney

Sorry for missing last week, I was on a comic book rough draft deadline.

When I was deciding where to study abroad one of the first things mentioned about a program was the cost. Obviously, programs in Europe were much more expensive, due to the exchange rate and higher cost of living, than programs in Latin America or Africa. Money was not the deciding factor in my decision to come to Ecuador; however, the fact that USFQ is cheaper than U of I was definitely a plus.

Not only is the tuition cheaper, but the cost of living is also dramatically cheaper than the United States. Prices, mainly on food, have really played a big role in my experience here, as capitalistic as that may sound. I just can’t get over the fact that I can get 5 ice cream bars for a dollar or a pint of beer .75 cents. Yeah, I drink a lot of beer here, but come on its .75 cents. So I figured I’d do some price comparisons of things here and in the US.

It seems that as a general rule of thumb, food is a third of the price it is in the US.
Ride on the bus- .25 cents. Eat your hearts out Chicagoans.
Movie- 3.00 to 5.00 dollars.
Eggs- .10 cents apiece, we rarely buy a carton of a dozen.
Bannanas- .5 cents apiece.
A bottle of water- .30 cents
Fresh baked roll- .10 to 15 cents
Fresh baked deserts- .20 to .50 cents. I pretty much try to eat something deserty from one of the various bakeries on my walk home every day.
Heres the best one- A regular chocolate and vanilla ice cream bar- .25 cents, the amount of ice cream I eat here is really kind of gross.

Since pretty much everything I buy is food or beer I make out like a bandit in Ecuador, but for a family that has to buy clothes and appliances, both of which are equal to or more expensive than US prices, I think cost of living gets a little closer to that of the US.

As a well off American I can rave about these low prices, but the reason the prices are so low is that if they were any higher many people would not be able to eat. I don’t have an official source, but a few people have told me that the monthly minimum wage in Ecuador is 250.00, not weekely, 250.00 dollars a month. I make about 250.00 a month in the US from working 12 hours a week, and most of the people making minimum wage in Ecuador work 12 hours a day, just to put it in perspective. So as my host mom told me for a family with 250.00 dollars of monthly income a dollar of bread a day is an important purchase. So while I may be gloating about my ice cream and beer consumption, I realize that I am very lucky to be in the situation I am here.

Cuenca

Wow. Late Again. My group went to Cuenca for the weekend so I figured I’d wait.

Before going to Cuenca my host family excitedly told me that Cuenca was a magical city where people sing when they talk and love to dance at all times of the day. While Cuenca didn’t turn out to be a real life musical, I can easily see how anyone who has been to Cuenca remembers it like living in Singing In the Rain for a few days. Cuenca is completely filled with perfectly preserved colonial buildings in one of the biggest historical centers in the world. And while Cuenca is a very modern city it has a feel more similar to a beach town than a large city—everyone and everything seemed very at ease.

The group and I were lucky enough to fly to Cuenca, a thirty minute flight instead of a ten hour bus ride, on Saturday morning. For the rest of Saturday we walked around and just enjoyed the beautiful historic section of Cuenca. It’s really impossible to describe how beautiful building after building was so I’ll just put up a bunch of photos.

An interesting Cuenca hat fact- The Panama Hat is not from Panama, it's from Cuenca. The world famous hat was exported through Panama and used heavily by the workers who constructed the canal, thereby giving it the association with Panama and the decieving name.

Cuenca also had the largest and most awe inspiring church I've ever seen. It was about a block long, half a block wide, and the inside was completely made out of marble.

Sunday we headed to some Incan ruins, which were quite fun.

Cuenca looked and felt like no where I had ever been in before and I am counting the days till I return to this beautiful city.

Altitude Schmaltitude

Hey everyone sorry for being late again. I knew that this weekend my group was going to the Teleferico in Ecuador so I figured I’d wait and hopefully have some cool pictures---

A lot of what I read about Quito before arriving constantly mentioned the altitude. At 2850 m or roughly 8550 feet above sea level, Quito is quite the jump, a high one, from Chicago’s altitude at about 586 feet above sea level.

(The sign said don´t run. I had trouble walking that high up.)

Many of the books and articles mention the negatives of this change in elevation, specifically the prospect of altitude sickness, usually a mild headache. What the books fail to mention is that Ecuador’s constantly changing altitude results in some of the most spectacular views in South America.

(Looking east towards Quito and Cumbaya)

Today going to the Teleferico, a ski resort like contraption that shuttles people up to the top of Pichincha Mountain, I probably changed 6000 ft in elevation in about two hours, which, I think, is pretty amazing. From the top of Pichinca Mountain I was able to see not only Quito and Cumbaya, but also see for hundreds and hundreds and miles into the distance. As much as I love these breathtaking views, they also make me feel incredibly insignificant. Being able to see for hundreds of miles, with cites in front, even taller mountains in back, and literally being surrounded by clouds, is an unbelievably fantastic experience that really reminds me of my tiny place in this huge world.

(The Teleferico)

(Standing at the same level of the clouds is great)

So while I have a killer headache after returning from the Teleferico, I’ll take some altitude sickness and standing on top of a mountain over a pain free head and the plains of the Midwest any day.

Quito

This past week was Carnival, resulting in only two days of school. While most of the Illinois group went to various beaches throughout Ecuador I got to stay in Quito because of some confusion about a photo project. While I was initially a little upset that I didn’t get to travel to somewhere else in Ecuador there sure are worse ways to spend a week than walking around one of Latin America’s most beautiful cities.

Having explored much of Chicago over the years it was really interesting to walk around some of the more residential neighborhoods of Quito and compare the two cities. A few tidbits I noticed about Quito:
-There are a lot of dead end streets.

-Every house is gated in. The level of security varies from broken glass on top of the gate to a 24- hour security guard.

- The pollution is horrible. Every large city has pollution issues, but the high number of 2 cycle engines and unmaintained buses make Quito quite the health hazard during rush hour.

- Public transportation is popular (for 25 cents a ride why wouldn’t it be?)

- The mix of the upper class and very lower class is much more out in the open than in Chicago. While downtown Chicago can be quite the mix of the two, in general neighborhoods are somewhat separated by wealth in Chicago. Not so in Quito. The very very rich live directly next to the very very poor. It was interesting to see the contrast of a six year old in tattered clothes selling gum next to a business man in a tailored suit.
-Centro Historico, the colonial district of Quito, is one of the most beautiful and architecturally distinct neighborhoods I’ve ever seen. The brick paved streets, the constant smell of incense, and the overwhelming amount of fantastic 19th century ornate buildings really make it feel like you’re in a movie. Oh yeah, its also filled to the brim with people selling homemade donuts. I ate a lot of donuts this past week.

(A Carnival street comedian)

(A residential area close to Centro Historico)

After my week of exploring it’s fair to say that I really love Quito—and no not just because of the donuts. It’s a fantastic city with a lot of offer, I can’t wait to walk around and explore more of it.

(La Parque Almeda)

Mindo Lindo

Sorry for being a day late. Last weekend was another fantastic group excursion to Mindo in the Pichincha provence of Ecuador. Mindo is about two hours away from Quito and as is known as a cloud forest because everyday the town gets filled with fog around 3 pm. As a Star Wars fan the second I heard cloud forest I thought of Cloud City, but alas, Lando was nowhere to be found in Mindo. I guess I’ll just have to wait a few more months for the comic-con for my yearly Lando Callrissian encounter. Mindo is also quite the tourist trap. The town is filled to the brim with hostels and gringos. But despite this heavy tourist influence Mindo still manages to be a very beautiful town.




The weekend was packed to the brim with great little outings, a majority of them that would not be allowed in the US due to safety concerns. After the two-hour drive on Saturday we settled into our hostel, which an unbelievable hummingbird garden, and went river tubing. Tubing in Ecuador consists of sitting on top of eight tied together inner tubes while hurtling down a raging river. You have the help of two unbelievably strong men essentially running through the rapids along side the tubes while pushing off rocks and navigating the currents to get everyone as wet as possible. Later Saturday the power went out, leaving Mindo covered in the warm glow of hundreds of candles. Playing dominoes on the deck with the candle’s fireplace like glow illuminating the room while hearing the zoom of the hummingbirds a few feet away was a blast.

(the hammocks were fantastic)

( there were always at least 20 hummingbirds flying around)

Sunday morning was filled with zip-lining. Flying over 200 tall foot trees upside down was fantastic. We also stopped at a national park with a few beautiful waterfalls and a great hike. While all these adventures were fun, the most fun I had all weekend was riding back to Mindo from the national park on top of a bus. Rarely have I experienced such a sensory overload. The lukewarm wind, the smell of burning leaves, the low rumble of the bus, were all aided by having to dodge jagged branches that were sticking out from the side of the mountain.


After all the hikes and all the thrilling adventures in Mindo, settling home to watch the last quarter of the Super Bowl palled in comparison. I can’t wait to travel to some of the other towns famous for their outdoor sports. Ecuador truly is the country of outdoor adventures and, as I discovered in Mindo, sore calves.

Organic Garden

A big part of the U of I program in Ecuador is volunteering. Maria, our program director, mentioned various options for volunteering and the one I ended up choosing was working at an organic garden in the rural community Lumbisí. Part of the reason I chose the garden was because I wanted to do something I was slightly proficient at, and thanks to Annette Held Landscape Design I am very proficient at what we do in the garden -- digging large holes.
Every Friday morning Andrew, a fellow gringo in the program, and I go to Lumbisí. Lumbisí is a fantastic town about a twenty- minute bus ride away from Cumbaya . A relaxed air fills Lumbisi. Children are always playing in the streets and the occasional herd of sheep is one of the many interesting rural sights.

The garden itself provides vegetables to a lunch hall for the elderly and a local school. The garden isn’t gigantic, but has provided plenty of work so far.

(The garden goes back to the second greenhouse)

(Andrew, off to do something productive)

Today at the garden during one of our frequent water breaks, a horse trotted by the entrance. Livestock pass by on a fairly regular basis, but this was the first time I’d seen a horse. The modest sized horse passed by leisurely, stopping to chew a few patches of grass along the way. I stood in awe of this beautiful sight, not noticing the broken rope around the horses’ neck, and like any good city boy, took some pictures. As soon as the horse had turned the corner I was greeted by a swarm of 12 year old boys, sprinting madly in pursuit of the horse. Andrew and I pointed in the direction the horse had gone as the boys continued their chase. Whoops. Luckily, despite my awe of seeing a horse and lack of help, two calm older women returned the horse.

(This is when I took a photo...and didn´t try to get the horse)


It’s really nice to get out of the somewhat Americanized Cumbaya and go to an area that is completely different than anything I have ever experienced. When I walk through the back roads of Lumbisí and only hear the sound of the wind blowing through the fields of corn while a giant lush mountain towers over me at every second, I feel truly amazed by the beauty and diversity of Ecuador.

Sunday Funday

As I’ve said before living with a family has really made the transition here dramatically easier. Little consistencies in family life, like a Sunday tradition, have helped me feel much more comfortable here. The Sunday tradition here isn’t lying around and eating pancakes like it is at my house in the states, but ending the week in the same way every Sunday is very comforting.

Every Sunday my family and I go to La Parque Carolina in the middle of Quito. I would say this park is about the size of central park in NYC, but completely filled with sports. My family goes to the humongous soccer section of the park and the son, the dad, and I play with the Dad’s older friends. These friendly games of Soccer remind me of 16’’ softball games in Chicago, with a bunch of old guys who obviously used to be quite the soccer players, but after a few to many Pilseners (the unbelievably popular beer in Ecuador) over the course of 50 years, have slowed down a bit.

(My host mom and host brother are sitting on the bench)

I really enjoy going to the park. Not because I enjoy being the gringo that’s bad at soccer and

always out of breathe, but because I really like seeing how a whole city can come together over one sport. La Parque Carolina is packed to the brim every time I’ve gone with people playing soccer and having a great time. I just can’t get over the hundreds, if not thousands, of people that seem so happy being together playing a sport that they all deeply love.

(A small section of the park, the soccer fields go back to the left quite a ways)

After we go to the park we always go out to eat, which while a treat in the US is not as much of a treat here. I far prefer my host mom’s home Ecuadorian cooking to KFC or mediocre Chinese food, but it is a nice way to end the day.

Speaking of food I’m getting up the nerve to ask my host mom if its ok to take pictures of her food, hopefully an all food post is coming soon!

School

I often forget that I came to Ecuador to STUDY Abroad, not just bask in the Equatorial sun. In Ecuador I go to el Universidad San Francisco de Quito. From what I hear this is the best and most prestigious university in Ecuador. However, due to the large class divide very few Ecuadorians can afford to pay the 8,000 a year for USFQ’s tuition. With the few exceptions of students who have received scholarships to attend, everyone at USFQ is pretty wealthy.

(I guess you could call this our quad)

USFQ caters to this upper class student body with a beautiful and manicured campus that is happily filled by beautiful students. Before I came to Ecuador an Illinois student who had previously gone to USFQ told me about the extremely attractive women in all of his classes. To illustrate this he mentioned how on a few occasions he saw girls from his classes on billboards as clothing models around Quito. The majority of the student body obviously takes great pride in their appearance with very nicely put together outfits. While there is a fair share of jean and t-shirt clad students, sweatpants are nowhere to be found and I have yet to see a pair of basketball shorts, a far cry from the casual dress at U of I-- this means no USFQ hoodies, which I´m incredibly disapointed about.

(another section of the Universidad)

Another characteristic I instantly noticed about USFQ students is their intelligence. In all of my classes students excitingly participate and supply profound insights. Not to mention that almost every student is bilingual, at least.

Classes are quite the switch from U of I. Instead of a 600 person lecture, in English, I have a few classes with no more than 6 students, in Spanish. While I’m sure the small classes are great for learning when you speak the language, right now the small class size simply allows the teacher to see my lack of understanding up close. Here are my classes: Basic Photography, Intro to Final Cut Pro, Intermediate Spanish Grammar and Conversation, and Comics & Sequential Art.

Classes are frustrating right now, but I understand more everyday. And with classes about comic books, photography, and film editing, the homework isn’t exactly a chore.

Otavalo

So I am going to try to do an entry every friday, but when something really cool happens I´ll put a post up in the middle of the week.

This weekend the group and I went to the city of Otavalo for the world renowned market. For Chicagoans, thinks of Otavalo as Maxwell Street, just replace the stolen radios with handmade rugs.

(the center of the Otavalo market, the rest of the market goes on for blocks)

The trip was filled with far more than Otavalo as we stopped for Bischotti at a hole in the wall restraunt before. After the market we stayed at a fantastic bed and breakfast called La Casa Sol. Filled with walls as colorful as the market, delcious food, and incredibly hot showers everyone in the group loved it.

Our program director, Maria, really seems to find the best and most interesting spots for us. The morning after our comfortable night, she took us to see the other side of Otavalo. We went to a rural house where the family makes blankets and other trinkets that are sold at the market. The house seemed comfortable, but far from what anyone would consider acceptable in the US. And finally, we hiked around a lake, in the middle of a 3 million year old volcano, and yes, it was as cool as it sounds.

It was a fantastic weekend, filled with the most fantastic views I´ve ever seen. I can´t wait to see what else this beautiful country has to offer.

(a view from one of the may stops in our trip)

Family differences

As I’ve gone through the daily motions here, I couldn’t help but noticing a familiar feeling. It was a feeling I had felt before, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then last night I figured out what that feeling was—studying abroad feels exactly like when you go over to a friends and or relatives house and they do little things differently than your family.

To help you understand lets create a quick hypothetical example: maybe you go to your friend Sean’s house for dinner and you’re having spaghetti. As dinner starts, Sean’s mom mixes the noodles and the pasta together in the kitchen, not like at your house where they are brought to the table in separate bowls. I always found these slight changes of family routine at friends and relatives houses interesting and subtlety unnerving. Well, studying abroad feels the same way, just every second of the day.

So if you want to know what it’s like studying abroad in Ecuador just picture this scenario and include the feeling mentioned above. You go to a friend’s house where, the weather is always perfect in the backyard, the family speaks Spanish, every window in the house has a fantastic view, and you eat as much cilantro as you drink water. Here are some differences in my house that I’ve noticed that may give a clearer picture as well:
· We(the Castillos) don’t have dog food. The dog food in our house consists of left over bones and food from breakfast, lunch, and dinner that are thrown in a big pot on the stove. Over the course of the day various amount of water, salt, and cheese are added to the pot before it is brought to a boil and given to the dog around ten at night.
· The dog never comes in the house.
· It seems that everyone has a dog, but I have never seen a dog being walked.
· Naps are popular. Most people in the house are asleep at some point between 4:30pm and 7:00pm.
· Dinner is a much more relaxed affair, some nights we eat together some nights not. The time often changes as well.
· We eat a ridiculous amount of delicious bread during all meals.
· Every meal I’ve eaten for dinner has had homemade soup before the main course.
· The fridges, we have two, rarely have much food in them at least compared to the US. The mom, Daniella, often goes out before breakfast and dinner to buy what she needs for the meal.
· It seems the people get by on less sleep here. 6 hours or less seems quite common.
· Coffee= Warm milk and instant coffee.

Noticing family/cultural differences like these has always made me question why my family does the things we do, the way we do. And right now the biggest question I have from these differences is this--Is dog food the biggest corporate scam ever perpetrated onto the American public? Because our dog here is unbelievably nice, super fit, and ridiculously intelligent and he eats a pot of table scraps and luke warm cheese every night. I’m just saying, something smells a little fishy.

First Days

Hello everyone. So I’m finally in Ecuador! A plane full of nervous international students and I arrived on the night of Janurary 2nd with no problems. I got picked up by my host-dad, Frances Castillo, from the Quito airport around midnight. Going 80 on the curved and steep roads beside the mountains was quite the welcome. (view from my rooms window)

The house and the family are both great. I’m living in a large apartment in Cumbaya, a suburb of Quito, with Frances, Daniella, Juan and the grandma Castillo. The whole family is obviously used to having a stupid foreigner around because they put up with me only understanding about 5% of what they are saying. Possibly the best thing about the house is the roof. On the roof you’re surrounded by beautiful mountains on every side as well as a view of Quito. (the roof looking towards Quito)

Cumbaya itself may be a suburb, but is about as close to an American suburb as I am to speaking Spanish correctly. It’s about a 20 minute walk to USFQ that includes an incredibly steep hill that, as a lazy Midwesterner, causes me great discomfort every morning.

The transition so far hasn’t been to much of a shock, the delicious food certainly has helped. And while the language barrier is frustrating, it seems every day I learn more Spanish than I did in a year and a half of college Spanish classes. I hope everyone in the US is doing well! Photos and info on USFQ to come.

Oh jeeze

Tomorrow, at 11:20 pm Central Time, I will be in Ecuador