A Zelonis Family Vacation

Where to begin…! I think it’s going to be easiest for me to go day by day so that I don’t forget anything…

Wednesday: I met my parents at the Quito airport around 7:30pm and we took a taxi back to the apartment. After a long hike up the stairs with the suitcases, we ate a light dinner and they got settled in.

Thursday (Mom’s birthday): Today was spent exploring the historic center of Quito. We ventured up to the top of el Panecillo, visited several churches and got a tour of the Presidential Palace. At night, we went to La Marsical, the touristy area of the city, for some contemporary Ecuadorian food for our birthday dinner!

The birthday girl with her birthday flowers!

On the balcony of the Presidential Palace

The Ecuadorian flag!

Friday (My birthday): We visited the Capilla del Hombre (Chapel of Man), which houses some of Oswaldo Guayasamin’s artwork. He’s one of Ecuador’s most famous artists, and we also got to explore the patio area of his former house before being kicked out by the people who maintain the property! After a pizza lunch, we visited the Quito Botanical Garden with its many species of orchids and other native plants. I spent the evening of my 21^st birthday playing cards with my Mom at the apartment. Wooo!

At Capilla del Hombre

Not your typical 21st birthday...

Saturday: We woke up early to take the bus to Otavalo, one of the largest indigenous markets in South America. Lots of colors and lots of people selling everything you could possibly dream of! We shopped for a while, ate lunch at a nice Colombian restaurant and then took the bus to the Quito Zoo. The Zoo houses primarily Ecuadorian animals, my favorite of which was the 3-toed sloth. I got really close to touching it, but then the zookeeper told us we had to wait for the tour to enter the exhibit area. I was still quite a happy camper though, as I got to be within 2 feet of my favorite animal!

Little monkey with his hands on his knees

Sloth!!

Sunday: Today we made the trek (the bus stops to let people off/pick people up every 30 seconds so it takes forever) to Yunguilla, the community where I lived last summer. My parents stayed with German, Sonia and their daughter Camila. German is the coordinator of the community’s corporation, so he speaks some English, and knows a lot about the community and surrounding area. We took a trip back out to Calacalí, where they’re in their month of parties to celebrate their founding, to see the bulls. Bullfighting is illegal in Ecuador, so this is just people who want to getting in an arena with a bull and running away from it when it comes after them. Some people sustained minor injuries, but the rest seemed to run away pretty readily from the bull instead of egging it on. We had a nice dinner with German and Sonia, and then my parents got to see the incredible night sky that I can never take a good picture of while in Yunguilla. So many stars!

The clown bull "fighter"

Sunset on our way back to Yunguilla from the bulls

Monday: We woke up early to go to the mirador, or lookout point, about 30 minutes away from Yunguilla via car. You can see 7 volcanoes from that point if it’s not cloudy! It’s an absolutely incredible view. We then came back and Galindo gave us a tour of the community’s farm, which includes the cheese and marmalade factories and the orchid greenhouse. We left after lunch with the family I lived with last summer and made it back to Quito for some grocery shopping and dinner.

View from the lookout point

Stop at the Equator on the way back to Quito!

Tuesday: After some shopping in the morning at one of Quito’s very modern malls, we visited the National Museum. Lots of ancient artifacts from all over Ecuador, an excellent collection of gold pieces and some religious art (of which I’m not really a fan). We returned to La Mariscal for some more souvenir shopping at a store that only sells products made in Ecuador and then took a taxi to Guapulo, a lookout point from which you can see the valley on the Eastern side of Quito (it’s home to the city of Cumbayá and the new airport that is scheduled to open in October). From there, we walked down to the church, which supposedly has a nice collection of artwork, but unfortunately it had just closed, so we had to settle for postcards.

Ceramics at the National Museum

Gold at the National Museum

View from the Guapulo lookout point

Wednesday: We left for Mindo this morning, which is about a 2-hour bus ride away from Quito. It’s at a lower altitude than Quito, so it was a bit warmer and much more humid. We ate breakfast at El Quetzal, a small chocolate factory owned by an American-Ecuadorian couple, and then took off for the waterfalls. After a bumpy truck ride and a cable car ride across to another mountain, we hiked to several waterfalls. Everything surrounding us while we were hiking was green. Well, except for the bugs, which always seem to like my blood better than anybody else’s! We returned in time for a tour of the chocolate factory and then went out for dinner. My parents stayed in a room at El Quetzal and I stayed at a nice little hostel down the street that’s popular with backpackers.

Cable car ride to the waterfall trails

Thursday: Mom woke up early (i.e. 4:30am) to go and see the birds for which Mindo is famous! I enjoyed sleeping in, and then Dad and I went to go see a small hummingbird garden. We then met back up at the butterfly garden/farm before heading back into town for some quick shopping and lunch before our bus back to Quito.

Hummingbird in Mindo

Friday: We spent the last day visiting Guayasamin’s other museum in Quito, which houses more of his artwork, along with his collection of religious art and pre-Colombian artifacts. His work is truly spectacular, and I’m excited to have bought several prints to hang up in my dorm room back at Bryn Mawr in the Fall! We ate some delicious crepes for lunch and then came back to the apartment to pack. I took my parents to the airport, where Galindo met us to say goodbye. I couldn’t accompany them into the check-in area, which might have been for the better because they had several flight problems which led to heated conversations (read: screaming and yelling) with the airline employees. They made it to Guayaquil, and then to Miami, and finally to Indianapolis, however, so all is well, it was just unfortunate that they had to end their trip on a kind of sour note.

Yunguilla :)

I spent this past weekend in Yunguilla, which was lovely, as always. We didn’t go to see the bulls again, though, so I unfortunately missed my chance at becoming a bull “fighter”. We played lots of cards (Galindo’s friend’s 15 year old son from Quito is staying with them, so I taught him how to play Phase 10, my favorite card game), swung on the swings in the community’s farm, watched soccer and volleyball and I tried to finish all of my food (they always give you so much!!).

Swinging in Yunguilla

I’m now back in Quito and am starting to realize that I only have two weeks left. I don’t regret changing my flight because I know that I’ll need the time back in Indianapolis to work on writing my final research paper, but I already know that I’m going to miss Ecuador quite a bit when I get back. It was fun to be able to show my parents the places that I love so much, and overall, I think that they enjoyed it (minus the flight back)! I’m off to the beach next weekend with some friends to see humpback whales and blue-footed boobies, so I’m super excited! I need to do some more reading, writing and figuring out of my life (i.e. fellowship applications) before then, but I think it’s going to be a fun way to end my time here. Will try to get another blog post in before I head back, but no promises! -Maggie

The Zelonis Family in Ecuador!

Halfway Point

Can’t believe I have less than a month left in Ecuador…!

It was also interesting to see how academic events are structured here. The event, of course, started on “la hora ecuatoriana” (Ecuadorian time), which, unlike Bryn Mawr time (where events start 10 minutes after their scheduled start time), can range anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour. The question and answer portion at the end of the panel was also structured a bit differently than what I’m used to. Instead of answering each question after it’s asked, the moderator fields 3-4 questions from the audience and then allows the panelists each to respond to different aspects of those questions. I found it to be a bit confusing, as not all of the questions were addressed by the panelists and there didn’t seem to be a logical structure that the panelists were following in answering the questions. As I was walking out after the panel, I was approached by someone who looked to be my age asking me where I was from. I think I probably rolled my eyes, as I’ve become so tired of being approached by people (especially men) here who can obviously tell that I’m not Ecuadorian. After explaining where I was from and what I was doing in Ecuador, I asked if he was a student at FLACSO. Turns out he was actually Spanish and in Quito for the summer for an internship. We ended up going out for a bite to eat and discovered that we both have similar interests, and as we are both visitors in Quito, made plans for later in the week.

I don’t know any Americans here in Ecuador, so my 4^th of July was relatively quiet. I returned to FLACSO for the presentation of a book titled “21^st Century Rural Ecuador”. This event started a grand 40 minutes late, but was neat in that it had a wide range of panelists, including the Ecuadorian Minister of Agriculture, the President of an Indigenous organization and a representative from a women’s rights group. They also gave us a free copy of the book at the end of the event, so I’m excited to begin skimming through it to see if it has any information that can be of use in my research.

That night, I was able to watch a spectacular fireworks display from my balcony. I’m assuming it was probably a production of the US Embassy here in Quito, but I have no idea. Happy belated birthday, America! US-Ecuadorian relations are a bit tense at the moment (Ecuador hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for example, this past January, and is also debating granting asylum to WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange), but people here, in my opinion, have a generally favorable view of Americans (just not our Government). 

4th of July fireworks

Carefully balanced fruit

On Saturday afternoon (which was gorgeously sunny and a good 82 degrees warm), I did some exploring around the neighborhood, including walking through the nearby German cemetery. Why there’s a German cemetery here, I have no idea. It was gorgeous, however, with each person having their own mini-garden along with their tombstone. I also went for a $6 pedicure, and I think that the woman had never seen feet my size before!

A gorgeous tombstone in the German cemetery

Sunflowers

Mini-gardens

I ventured up to Yunguilla on Sunday afternoon to watch my friends play soccer (they won 4-2) and spend time with the community. I went to one of the community’s corporation meetings, which in typical Ecuadorian fashion lasted more than two hours and was completely disorganized (everyone speaks at the same time, there’s no agenda, etc.). They’re always fun, though, because I love seeing how things work in other places and what the rationale is behind the corporation’s various decisions (i.e. how to make the marmalade better, whether they should continue making cheeses, whether they need more administrative support so that things can run more smoothly, etc.).

Yunguilla

My new friend!

I barely slept on Sunday night because of the crazy roosters, but enjoyed spending time with my friend’s mom on Monday morning sorting beans and listening to her stories. I asked her about el buen vivir, and while she’s generally supportive of President Correa, I don’t think she really had an understanding of what it was in terms of the 2008 Constitution. She’s one of the kindest people, and while she’s the same age as my Mom, she looks much older, partially because she’s raised nine kids, but also because of the manual labor she does every day. It’s truly incredible to think of all the work the women in rural Ecuador do each day. They clean the house, they cook (when I woke up at 7am on Monday morning, she had already made potato and yucca soup), they hand wash all of the family’s clothing, they tend to the animals (in this family’s case, this includes guinea pigs, chickens and pigs, as well as the random dogs and cats) and they plant and harvest food. She mentioned that one British tourist who stayed with their family a couple of years ago had told her that in the UK, they bought soup in cans at the grocery store. To her, this was unimaginable. Yes, she’s seen soup in cans before, but she just couldn’t believe that it was healthy for those cans to sit on the grocery store shelves for months because they contained vegetables, and in some cases, meat. I had to agree – it’s a bit absurd when you think about the chemicals required to keep food like that edible for so long. It’s hard though, because with the way our society is set-up, not everyone has time to grow their own vegetables and raise their own chickens, yet alone prepare fresh soup several times a week. As I ate my bread and fresh Yunguilla marmalade for breakfast this morning back in Quito, I thought about how great it was that I knew exactly where those chigualcan fruits (there should be a picture of them somewhere on my blog from last summer) had been grown and that I knew the women who had prepared this marmalade. It made my food taste so much better, and I wish I could say that I knew where everything I eat comes from, but alas I’ll have to settle for working on that as I return to the States in August.

My friend's house

This poor little guy got stepped on by a big rooster and so my friend's family was taking care of him

Yunguilla :)

Tonight I’m off to see “The Fog of War”, a documentary about former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. And then tomorrow evening, my parents arrive! Their flight is scheduled to arrive at 6:30pm, so hopefully they’ll be able to get a good view of the mountains as their plane descends before the sun sets. We have plans to explore Quito, celebrate our birthdays (my Mom’s is the 12^th and mine is the 13^th), travel to Yunguilla and shop at the largest indigenous market in South America in Otovalo. Should be a good time, with me playing tour guide/translator for the 9 days they’re here! Hope everyone is well! -Maggie

And my weekly food picture: A white carrot (not a parsnip) fried thing that I made

Good afternoon! Here’s the latest:

On Thursday afternoon, two of my friends from Yunguilla came to Quito and I went with them to set-up Yunguilla’s stand at Quito’s Ecoferia (eco-fair). We made dinner back at my apartment and then went out to Quito’s touristy district, La Mariscal, for the night. While I normally think Bungalow 6, one of the more popular clubs in La Mariscal, plays too much American music, this night, they seemed to play a perfect mix of popular American and Ecuadorian songs and we had a great time dancing and drinking delicious mojitos.

The view from my terrace on a gorgeously sunny day. And yes, that's part of a volcano (Pichincha).

 

I went back to the convention center on Friday afternoon to visit the eco-fair and help out with Yunguilla’s stand. We attended the fair’s official inauguration ceremony that evening, and afterwards, Galindo introduced me to his friend who sat on the panel we had just watched, who is an advisor at Ecuador’s national planning and development office. I was super excited because I’d begun to read that office’s national development plan for el buen vivir 2009-2013 and she was one of the authors of that document and had been an advisor at the conference when they wrote the Constitution! We arranged to meet-up on Sunday, which I’ll get to in a little bit…

I wasn't the tallest one at the eco-fair! ;)

My two friends and I went out again on Friday night and met up with one of the teachers from Yunguilla. Not as much fun as Thursday night, but I had a delicious chicken and spinach calzone for dinner, so I was happy!

I stayed in for most of the day on Saturday and attempted to clean the apartment. There was surprisingly a non-dubbed English movie on TV at night, “Love Comes Softly”, starring Katherine Heigl. The reason you haven’t heard of it – it’s a 2003 Christian drama Hallmark Channel movie. I tuned in about halfway through, but at the end (when it was getting good!), the movie started skipping. How does a movie on TV skip? Well, here in Ecuador, apparently the TV channels play movies via a DVD player and are somehow broadcast for all to see. I kid you not, at the end of the movie, you could tell that someone had pressed the stop button because there it was in the top right-hand corner of the screen!

Yesterday I did a little bit of shopping at a mall that puts some US malls to shame – they even have a Dunkin’ Donuts! Clothes here are ridiculously expensive – there are literally organized excursions to Miami that people here in Ecuador can take to go shopping because things are so much cheaper in the States! (Of course, there is only a small percentage of the Ecuadorian population that can afford to do this, but nonetheless…) I then walked across the street to Carolina Park, which on Sunday afternoons is full of people playing soccer, using paddleboats and having picnics with their families. There was another mini-environmental fair with a concert stage, so I checked that out and then went back over to the eco-fair at the convention center (also located in the park). I met up with the woman Galindo introduced me to on Friday evening, and we toured the fair with her friends, who all work for various governmental offices and NGOs. I had a great time getting to explore the fair in more depth, as there were booths from small communities like Yunguilla, but also booths about municipal projects in Quito (we got to learn all about the water purification system here, although I’m still not convinced that I, as a foreigner with a weak stomach, can drink the tap water) and from private sector companies that manufacture green cleaning products, green roofs, etc. Quito is installing a bike-share program (although it appears to be nowhere close to as accessible as Capital Bikeshare in DC), so we also got to ride some bikes around the top level of the convention center! 

Photography exhibit in Carolina Park about the devastation caused by oil extraction in the Ecuadorian Amazon

Chevron -- Clean-up the Amazon

The highlight of the afternoon, however, was getting to ask these women questions about el buen vivir. Their answers and opinions gave me lots to think about (they were of the opinion that not all Ecuadorians are even aware of el buen vivir and one blatantly stated that she did not feel like she was living el buen vivir because of security issues in Quito), and I’m excited to hopefully keep in touch because I know they’ll continue to be helpful in my research. We went out for pizza after visiting the fair, and I was reminded of one of the main reasons why I love this country – the people are so friendly and kind!

Quito Bikeshare at the eco-fair

If you’re reading this from the States, I apologize for the awfully hot (and in the case of DC, stormy) weather you’ve been experiencing! The highs since I’ve been here have usually been in the mid-60s, although if it’s sunny, it can feel a bit warmer (and you get sunburnt in 2 minutes). It gets pretty chilly at night (mid-40s-50s), and I wear a sweatshirt to bed because there’s no heat, but I guess I shouldn’t complain because I think it’s definitely better than 100 degree heat! I’m sure I’ll get my share of hot weather when I’m back in Indiana for 3 weeks in August, though.

Paddle boats in Carolina Park

This weekend was at times full of cultural differences, and I struggled not to get upset when I felt like my friends were being close-minded or not doing things the way that I felt like they should be done. I know that this is all part of living in a different country with a different culture, but it still takes some getting used to. I have a busy, but exciting, week of lectures, debates and film screenings at FLACSO ahead. The deadline for my mid-summer report is also approaching, so I have some writing to do as well. Hope everyone is well! Chao! -Maggie

Llapingachos, a fried egg, rice & Fiora Vanti apple soda -- a deliciously Ecuadorian meal!