EcuadorSabbatical

Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans and cherry pie. It was a pared down Thanksgiving celebration one day ahead of time, and it did feel like a special occasion, but nothing like what we are accustomed to. Maya expressed her disappointment that it was not like our usual yearly event, with days of preparation, hours and hours in the kitchen and massive amounts of food and so many people. I think that is the most difficult part of our lives here; that we are always surrounded by so many friends and family at home, and here in Quito it is always just the three of us. There is much to be thankful for. Our lives are settling and we are adapting to our new home. Maya is making progress at school, Eric's projects are moving along, I am enjoying my Spanish and salsa lessons and am seeing and learning more about Ecuador each week. I am almost enjoying myself too much in that I am not sure I can return to my life at home. I like the freedom I have now; I am not compelled to follow any...

For the three of us, I have decided to simplify, simplify, simplify. Maya likes dark meat and Eric likes white meat, so I have two turkey breasts and two humongous turkey legs. Mashed potatoes are essential, and Eric and Maya love green beans. Neither eat the stuffing or the cranberry sauce, but Eric will like the gravy. I most appreciate all the extra side dishes, so I may decide to add one or two. Maya asked for a cherry pie, so I used my toaster oven to bake a pie tonight. I usually buy the piecrust already made, but there were none to be found in Megamaxi, so I made my own piecrust, and it worked out, at least it looks good, so I hope it tastes as good as it looks. We will celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow. I doubt that Maya will notice that we are a day early. There is school anyway this week, and I am not sure there is any mention of Thanksgiving in her classes. I am excited about our time in the rainforest, my absolute favourite part of Ecuador. It is a magical place and every vis...

We are planning our next trip to the jungle. I have never been to the south side of the Napo River, where 'Shiripuno Lodge' is located. We will fly to Coca, take a three hour drive, and then a four hour boat ride to the lodge, deep in Huaorani territory. We will leave Thursday morning and return by Monday. Maya is very serious about preparing for a Christmas performance and does not want to miss any ballet classes, so I am making last minute arrangements to have her stay with Isabel, who will take take wonderful care of her. I am also hoping that Maya will learn more Spanish when she does not have an opportunity to ask for a translation. The Huaorani are an indigenous tribe who live deep in the jungle and have never been truly conquered. Their language and origins and character are quite different from the Quichua we usually encounter when we visit Sacha Lodge or Casa del Suizo. They are unpredictable. We will be visiting a Huaorani village to learn about their customs and tr...

Maya has a difficult time sleeping in Yanayacu. She cries out in terror in a sleep state and I have to lie beside her on the narrow twin bed. I am not sure what scares her so much, but the first time we visited it was the insects which were being examined by the students which affected her (they caught the insects in a white sheet with a light behind it and we thought it was interesting, but it seems to have affected Maya negatively even though we have twice again returned to Yanyacu). Eric worked until midnight and then he took over. I climbed up the rickedy bunkbed and slept a few hours until Eric woke up at 5 to record the Plain Tailed Wrens. It was raining too heavily to make the recordings, and it continued to rain all day. I met some molecular biologists from Yale who set up nets to catch birds and tag them and insert a radio tracking device for the birds for whose nests were unknown. I spent much of the day hiking through the mud to the nets to check for birds, to untangle the ...

Everyone I spoke with about my plans to go to El Quinche advised me against it. I was told that the bus would leave me with several kilometres to walk to the church, that thousands of people would crush us and Maya would be scared, that it was better to watch it on TV, that I would be stranded, that I would be robbed (gringos don't go to these festivals), that I would be thirsty, hungry, hot, cold, wet, would not see anything because of the crowds, the list goes on and on. I did not really decide on anything. We woke up when we were ready to wake up, we started out of the house an hour later and I had a coffee and read the paper. It was sunny and warm, we brought snacks and bought a few bottles of water and took the Ecovia to the terminal. If there had been complications, we would not have gone further, but a row of buses were waiting to go to El Quinche, so we joined the handful of passengers and took a wild ride to the next valley and Cumbaya, Tumbaco, Pifo and finally El Quinche...

El Quinche is a small village north of Quito, with a famous ornate church and sanctuary dedicated to its own 'Virgen'. We have driven through and by the town several times on the way to Otavalo, and it has always been too late or too early to stop and visit. Crowds of pilgrims visit the church for blessings all year long, but tomorrow, November 21, is the biggest and most significant procession of the year. People from the Quito area will start walking tonight, and will walk all night until they reach El Quinche, where they will attend mass and seek a blessing. As many as 500,000 or more will collect at the shrine tomorrow starting at 6 AM and masses and blessings will continue all day. Truck and taxi drivers seek special protection from the virgin, but children and marriages and girlfriends and boyfriends and everyone and anyone can seek and receive a blessing from the virgin. My plan is to take the bus to El Quinche. I cannot get a certain answer as to how far away from the ...

Maya was ready for school this morning. I warned her not to say anything about H1N1 otherwise known as swine flu. She felt ready to go, had no fever for over 24 hours, was taking her Tamiflu, ate breakfast, had her energy back. I was worried about another phone call from the school asking me to pick her up, but it never came, and when I met her after school, she was ready for ballet class on pointe, so sending her to school turned out to be the right decision. Maya has recovered more rapidly than I have. But I forced myself to write my essay for Spanish class ( I wrote it in English and used Google translator to help me, not quite what I was supposed to do, but I did not feel energetic enough to do it entirely on my own), take a two hour class with Amparo, and get to my salsa lesson, which woke me up and brought me back to life. It feels wonderful to dance. I am not sure how it happens that I dance, because I really do not know what I am doing, but my feet move and my body moves and s...