Sunday, March 18, 2012

Activities in Loja

I´m starting my last week in Cariamanga, the city in Loja province.  My daily routine has been to get up early and meet my coworkers at the municipal building.  We then head out to the many small communities around the city.  The closest one has been only 15 minutes away, but the farthest was about 2 hours driving.  When we get to a community, I mark a point at the school, take a picture, and then we find someone who is home that can give us some information about the community.  We usually try to find the president of the community, but sometimes he or she is elsewhere working.  I also walk the paths I can with the GPS, or draw them on a topo map.  Once I get back to the hotel, I put the GPS tracks and points into the computer and note the driving times to each community.  The people are very nice and often give us fruit or frescita, a watered down fruit juice drink.  I`ve been eating and drinking everything they give me, and thankfully haven´t gotten sick. One time in between houses, we saw people making panela and gararpo (I don´t know how to spell the second one).  Panela is a hard candy made from boiled down sugar cane juice.  It is very similar to maple sugar candies, but tastes more like molasses.  Gararpo is also the sugar cain juice boiled down, but it is still a liquid.  It looked like a bucket of very muddy water, but tasted pretty good.  Many of the towns are very close to Peru.  I gotten within 3 km or so of Peru now. Last Friday, we went through a military checkpoint, and right behind the checkpoint was a sign that warned of landmines in the fields.  They are leftover from a border war in 1996.  Poor cows.  Last Saturday I went camping on the top of the mountain that looms over Cariamanga.  I also saw the squirrel type animal that lives only on this mountain.  It was about the size of a cat.  Here are pictures of the city, mountain, and squirrel.  http://micariamanga.galeon.com/  There is a big metal cross at the top of the mountain, and I climbed to the top of the cross.  The people I went camping with sometimes rappel from the arms of the cross. 

Interesting Fact: This is a bit of a stretch calling this a fact, but it is the opinion of myself and the people in Loja province that they have the most correct Spanish pronunciation in Ecuador.  In the Andean highlands, like Quito, the people pronounce the double L´s like a J sound.  For example: ¿Como se llama? sounds more like Como se jama.  Also, in the coastal provinces, they often pronounce only half the word.  So dos, tres, and seis, (2, 3, 6) sound more like do, tre, and sei.  Loja is a really good place to learn and practice Spanish. 

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Half Way There

   I have officially been living without Johnny for 10 whole days. I cannot say that I like this situation at all. I would like to have him back at home...but I will have to wait 10 MORE days for that. 10 long days. Without Johnny at home I have nothing to do, nothing to clean, no one to talk to. Last week was alright because my boss from Ohio was here and there was a conference. I went to work early and stayed there late. This week I have had normal hours...
   So what have I been up to besides only eating cold food and reading my weight in books? Well since Johnny has been away I have seen the mountain on the equator (Cayambe) almost everyday and I am taking pictures of it for him to see. (Side note: When John is around the mountain usually likes to hide behind the clouds...maybe it is scared of him.) One morning while I was eating breakfast I saw a baby llama down the hill from my house. I couldn't get to my camera fast enough, but rest assured I will get a picture of that beast. I have been helping the countless bugs that think my home is their home back outside (and perhaps giving them a nice little fling down the hill). I tried to make Spanish flashcards but I got bored and stopped. See I told you I was boring.
   On the bright side... I think that I got rid of my parasite. Well actually I had two... Frank and Hal... and then they married and became a horrible parasite named Hank. I think he got tired of living off cereal and tuna and decided to leave for good.
     John tells me that he has been eating a bunch of stuff in the field, from sugar cane juice to oranges to basically anything that the people have to offer. Good thing he has a stomach of lead and has not gotten sick. When I talk to him it sounds like he is having a good time. He went camping on Ahuaca (a mountain with a cross on the top) last weekend and will explore some caves near there this weekend. I hope he is ready to cook for me when he gets back... I am looking forward to it.

Interesting fact:  The city of Quito restricts the days that you can drive based on the last number of your license plate. They choose two numbers per day. For example on Monday cars with plates that end in 1 or 2 are not allowed to drive during the busy times. If you are caught driving during the restricted times your car will literally be taken away from you. The first offense, you will lose your car for 1 day but the second offense and you will lose your car for 3 days. Pretty crazy. They did this to try and cut down on the number of cars causing the traffic jams every work day but I have heard that it doesn't really work. My way to get around the traffic? I walk.
 

Sunday, March 4, 2012

A time apart...

  We learned on Wednesday that Johnny will be leaving for Loja (a southern province of Ecuador) on Sunday (today). He will be gone for 20 days. I, Amber, am not thrilled about being alone for so long here in Quito. As you may know, we don't have a computer, television or any real form of entertainment at our house. Also, I don't really know how to use the stove because it is gas. So what does this mean? I will be going to bed around 7 pm out of boredom and I will be eating anything that doesn't need to be warmed up (we don't have a microwave either, just in case you were wondering).
   As for John, his dog bite is healing nicely. It doesn't bother him at all and nothing much ever came of it... not even a big bruise. Down in Loja he will be working on a GIS/GPS project for the research program at Catholic University and Ohio University. He is flying down there alone and will not have anyone to translate for him. He is however bringing the Spanish-English dictionary. Who knows..he may come back completely fluent. While down there he will go to different communities and take points of where all the houses are in the area. He literally has to time his walk to and from each house so that in the summer we will know how long to spend in each village.  From past experience we know that some houses are as much as a two hour walk from the center of town and Loja is a fairly mountainous province. Sometimes he will be with some Ecuadorian workers and sometimes he will be alone.
   On a happier note, we bought a blanket at the market... FINALLY! It is a very nice two sided (one black and one white) Alpaca hair blanket. It will be my best friend while John is gone... along with my books of course. The lady at the market wanted $35 for it but we walked away paying only $25. Not too bad. Also, the other day I found a nickle on the side walk. That officially brings up the amount of money we have found here to $1.56.

Interesting Fact: The roads in Ecuador leave something to be desired...especially when you are outside a major city. For example, John is flying to Loja. The flight will take 50 minutes. If I wanted to take a bus to Loja, it would take over 13 hours. (The bus isn't like a greyhound... it doesn't make other stops.) The time difference is due to the fact that the roads are dangerous and they zig-zag across mountains...not to mention that sometimes there are potholes so big that can swallow cars. The total distance from Quito to Loja is around 250 miles... only slightly bigger than the width of Ohio (which can be driven in roughly 4 hours). The one nice thing about the roads in the country... the views : )

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Bad timing

So I(Johnny) was going to write a little bit about the food, because we didn't really do much this past week that's very interesting.  The most exciting thing we've done is go to the movie theater last Saturday.  We watched The Descendants which fortunately was in English with Spanish subtitles.  The tickets are only about 5 dollars a person. Unlike theaters in the U.S. all of the seats are assigned when you buy the ticket.  I'll talk about the food when we truly have nothing else to say, but yesterday's events are worth mentioning.  So on our daily walk to work, we often see and hear lots of dogs either in the street or behind people's gaits.  Yesterday, as we were walking, there was another man about 50 feet ahead of us walking his dog.  When the neighborhood dogs see this, they all bark and get excited.  At that same time, a man was coming out of his gait.  As he opened it a very excited dog went before him.  Unfortunately, I was walking right in front of the gait when he opened it.  The excited dog immediately bit me on the leg and then returned back inside the gait.  I had no time to react.  I showed the man who opened the gait, but he kept walking.  I then called our boss at the university, and he came to help.  We talked to the owner and the police were called to fill out a report.  The police came and wanted to take me to a clinic to get it cleaned up.  I got to ride in a police truck (they drive pick-up trucks instead of cars).  We think the dog is healthy, so I hopefully won't have to get the rabies shots in the stomach.  We'll find out more tomorrow.  The bite was not serious, but it did break the skin.  It was just a quick, hard bite just below and to the left of my left knee.  I guess that's one way of leaning how to say "to bite" in Spanish.   If I start to foam at the mouth and go crazy, Amber will have to write the rest of the blog posts.

Interesting fact-The correct way to handle an aggressive dog in Ecuador:  With the exception of the very privileged dogs, every dog in Ecuador has had a rock thrown at it at least once in its life.  What you're supposed to do if a dog is being aggressive is to pick up a rock and act like you're going to throw it at it.  They almost always cowers and back down.  If there are no rocks around, then just pretend like you picked up a rock and are about to throw it at it.  They don't know the difference.