Ingapirca

One free Saturday, we finally took a day trip to Ingapirca, local Inca, and previously Cañari, ruins.  It is not nearly as large or complete as Machu Picchu, but an intersting day nonetheless.   Included are some pictures and a website link about the history for those interested...
Ingapirca website in English

For any of you interested in stonework, we took quite a few more closeup pictures of the stonework in different areas...  ask us and we can send them to you or show you when we return:)

Visit to Vilcambamba and Loja

The week before Easter, we had a few days free from school, so we traveled south in the mountains to the area around Vilcabamba.  It is advertised as a place to become younger, or live a very long time, so there are a lot of tourists, but we went for the scenery and hiking.  It was a long bus ride(s), but the view through the mountains really was beautiful.  We found a place outside of town with small cabins located near the start of many trails and enjoyed the nature.  We were able to spend one full day hiking, on a horse trail through a lot of mud.  We should have had waders!  But, it was a really nice hike, and we ended up in a cloudforest, which we had heard of but never seen.  Unfortunately, our camera batteries died right about then, so we don't have good pictures of it...

Seth relaxing and waiting for food in Vilcabamba

Jen relaxing in the hammock in the cabin.

The view from the hammock

Seth recovering from a fall in the stream...

Seth crossing the river.

The final destination, and a glimpse at the cloudforest...

 

This area has a lower elevation than where we live in Cañar, so we were able to experience much warmer weather, as well as large spiders around the cabin...  but we are not including pictures of these:) 
After a couple days around Vilcabamba, we spent a day in the city of Loja.  Here we bought coffee beans and just generally relaxed before returning to Cuenca early (Resurrection) Sunday morning.   We had beautiful views again on our early morning bus ride back to Cuenca, and attended a Spanish service in Cuenca before returning home to Cañar.

Guayaquil and Jennifer's Birthday

At the beginning of April, we went to Guayaquil to visit some Norwegian missionary friends that live there.  We were planning to go by bus, and as we were waiting, we met some nuns who were also going to Guayaquil.  We passed up one bus that has a bad safety reputation, and the next bus was full, and as the time passed, we started to wonder if we were going to make in, when the nuns suddenly said "We're driving and you will come with us."  (in Spanish)  So, we did.  They got a truck, and it was an interesting ride through the storms down the mountains!  It got more interesting as we realized they didn't really know the city, so there were a few tense moments sitting on the side of the highway and driving through traffic until our hosts came to pick us up in a convent. 
We were only in the city for a short weekend, but we were able to visit some of the city's highlights, attend church in Spanish, and had great times of visiting with friends.

 After returning early Monday morning (by bus), we were back to work at school, and Seth was busy preparing the goose for a birthday dinner, from live goose in the yard to dinner table.  We had some friends over to celebrate Jen's and Atle's birthday and had an enjoyable evening. 

Cañari Bible

In the middle of March, we were privileged to be able to witness the "debut" of the first complete Bible translated in to Cañari Kichwa.   They had a program on Friday night consisting of speakers and musical or folk dance selections from various groups in the Province of Cañar, as well as Kichwa representatives from other areas of Ecuador to celebrate with them.   A group of children from Mushuk Kawsay also sang a selection in Spanish, Kichwa and English.

The next day, people lined up in the town of Tambo to walk along the road to Cañar, where the official presentation would be.  At first, there was a bit of rain, and it didn't look as though there would be a lot of people, but people kept coming and adding to the parade.   There ended up being thousands of people that walked those kilometers!   It was really neat to see all the groups of people- mostly people from Kichwa Lutheran and Baptist churches from all around, and to talk to various people who were walking.  They were so thankful for the work that had been done and for the possibility to be able to read a Bible in their native language, and use it in the church.  It was also moving to meet an older missionary woman, that had lived here for many years, who had returned for the occasion.  When that generation of missionaries were here, they faced many trials, as did the Kichwa people, especially those first, who were Christians.   When this woman saw how many people were walking along the road in support, she had tears.   It was a great day to experience.

Mushuk Kawsay

The school we are working at is called Mushuk Kawsay ("New Life").  It was started in the 1990s by a group of evangelical Christian Kichwa families to provide an education for their families.  Each year they have added new grade levels, and 2012 will be the first graduating class.  Their aim is to be trilingual- Spanish as the primary language, with Kichwa and English also taught in classes.   Before we moved, we met with the director and interested teachers and parents to talk about our role as volunteers in the school.  First, they asked us to pray for the students and their role in helping them learn and develop.  Many of the students have one or both parents working in the United States, and, while most of them live with other family members, there are many children that haven't seen their parents since they were infants or toddlers, and don't have a close family environment. 

Seth's primary role is to teach English in the high school.  Sometimes he is teaching in conjunction with the school director, but usually he has the classroom.   The books provided to the school are way above the actual level of the students, so Seth has developed his own curriculum, starting from the beginning, with "Good morning" and "How are you".  
I help with at least one English class period per week per grade level in the elementary school, and spend other hours working on health projects.  The first project, after consultation with the director and doctor from the local health center, was to make a basic medical chart for each of the 200 students, including birthdate, height and weight, for the doctor and/or other health workers to use when they come to examine students or give vaccines. 
 We enjoyed our home stays during our first few weeks- it was a great way to meet new people, learn about about a culture and practice speaking Spanish, but we have been very thankful for a place in which we can prepare meals, invite people over on occasion and relax by a fire.  We are including a couple pictures of our place and our view (if there is sun)...  Blessings until our next update!

Quito and Baños!

The beginning of March marked the Carnaval holiday, and the school had one day of programs and games, followed by more than a week off from school.   We had heard that with Carnaval time came water balloons and games, but we weren't prepared for the water fights that ensued!   Throwing handfuls of flour or spraying colored foam from cans is also common.  We also saw eggs in some of the more serious fights, but fortunately we were able to avoid this:)   The biggest day to celebrate is Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, but, since there was no school during that week, they allowed the kids to play on the Thursday prior.   Their games started with flour, but ended with dumping buckets of water.   Not carrying "weapons" does not make you immune!

As that Thursday was the last day of school before a week long break, we decided to take the time to do some traveling.   That night we took our first long bus journey, an overnight trip to Quito.  We didn't see much for scenery, nor sleep, but I suppose we arrived more quickly than we would have traveling during the day!   For any of you familiar with it, it was kind of like a Megabus trip from Chicago to Minneapolis:)  We were hosted by friends of Seth's uncle, and after a bit of a rest, we spent the weekend visiting parts of the city of Quito and areas around, such as La Mitad del Mundo (Equator), the beautiful and famous market of Otavalo, and a Teleferico (cable car) ride to some great hiking near Mt. Pichincha, some 4000 meters above sea level.  We really enjoyed our time touring and visiting with new friends.

From Quito, we head back south through the Sierra to Baños, a vacation destination for tourists as well as Ecuadorians.  We found a lovely guesthouse filled with paintings from a local artist.   We arrived on the evening of the biggest day of Carnival, and as foreigners seemed to be particularly targeted, even if you weren't trying to participate, we kept a lookout for water buckets on the roof and dodged our way to an upper level coffee place where we could be observers and photographers until the majority of vacationers made their way out of town.  

In the next days we experienced the hot baths, went hiking and biking, visited waterfalls and relaxed at our guesthouse.

We arrived back in Cañar to learn our apartment was ready and we were finally able to fully unpack, for the first time in six weeks!  We were ready for our new beginning.

Move to Cañar

On Februrary 22nd, after a meeting with missionaries from this area of Ecuador, we packed up and moved to the region of Cañar.   As our living quarters were not yet ready, we stayed with the director of the school in which we would be working and his family.  We were warmly welcomed from the beginning by this family, and were able to practice more Spanish, eat traditional meals, and try to learn a few Kichwa words.    There are two small children in the home, age 2 and 4, so it was here we learned the Spanish words for things like "tickle" and were glad for the children's books we had brought.

Each weekday we walked the short distance to school, and started to learn about the daily routine of the school and what our role would be.   There were four Norwegian Bible school students completing service at the school, so we spent time learning what they had been doing in the area of English teaching, talked to students and teachers, and observed what type of health education/work might be helpful.   In those first days, we worked out a general schedule of classes we would attend, and started making ideas and plans in the area of health.    We experienced a program for Día de la Bandera (flag), the first of many programs that take place at the school, and had our Spanish tested by having to introduce ourselves and our work in front of the gathering of students, teachers and parents.

We also had the opportunity to visit the home of the parents of the director's wife.  We walked about 45 minutes on a mountain path to an old adobe house, drank a traditional hot drink made from grains, visited with family, and saw where they raise the cuy (guinea pig) and rabbits for eating.  It was a beautiful day, and on the way back, we learned of a place to buy live trout.  

 

 

 We enjoyed these first weeks of getting to know the kids and our new neighborhood!

Arrival in Ecuador

Hola!  Though this is late in being truly started, we hope we can post a few things about what we have been up to the last few months, as well as some photos.

We arrived by plane in Ecuador on the 22nd of January, and went directly from the airport in semi-tropical Guayaquil to a van that took us up into the Andes Mountains.  It was a spectacular view, as after about an hour of driving through flat lands covered with banana, cacao and coffee felds, we abrubtly started travelling up steep and windy roads that eventually brought us to our home for the first month, Cuenca. 

Cuenca is one of the larger cities in Ecuador, with remnants of colonial times prevalent in the architecture.  There are artisan markets and supermarkets, coffeehouses and two dollar lunch spots.  Here we studied Spanish four hours a day for four weeks and gradually acclimatized to the altitude.  We spent two weeks in a guesthouse, and two weeks living with a family, which forced us to use the Spanish we were learning. 

We really enjoyed our time in this city- we were able to attend church services in Spanish, find running routes, and Seth had the opportunity to go trout fishing in Cajas National Park with some other guys.  It was a good start to our time here in Ecuador, but by the end of the four weeks, we were ready to start doing our work!