la calera-photos

Life in La Calera

So I have been slacking big time in posting anything but let me reassure you that is not because i have nothing to post simply that I don’t have the time to do it. Well I must begin by saying my time here in Cotacachi is passing faster than I could imagine, I have less than two weeks left here and I feel as if I just arrived. Also the fact that I just started my monografia (my 25 page diagnostic research paper – in Spanish) reminds me how little time I have left.

But I really could not have ended up with a better family here, I absolutely love them! Yes they’re not perfect, people yell and fight but I am right there part of the family and I think that’s what I like. My little brother kirack is pretty much the cutest kid in the world and definitely feels like my brother… sometimes all I can do is hug him to death cause he’s so cute and other times I could really punch him in the face with all his mimicking and throwing of my things (ok I never would punch him ever.. but I did accidently kick a soccer ball in his stomach and he started crying.. I felt really bad)

So what’s life like here in rural Ecuador… well one thing about the people here… sleeping in does NOT exists, no matter what time you go to bed, for example today for some reason I did not have to go to work until 10! Super pumped thinking I will get to sleep past 6:15 for the first time in a very long time… wrong. 6:20 a little tap on my door “erinnnnnn” the voice of Karick, so I ignore it first, than a min. later this time accompanied by a pound “VENGA COMER” (come eat), I mean breakfast is amazing, I’ve even grown use to instant coffee, but its 6:30…

Even weekends, the early rising does not cease, for example this past weekend I went to a Minga. A minga is when all the people work together usually on Saturday (very early) for something for the community or someone in the community that really needs help. So we jumped in the back of the truck and headed up, and up probably about an hour we drove up, until the “road” which really wasn’t a road to start…really wasn’t a road anymore…when we got there, there were about 40 people with shovels in hand waiting for us… we jumped out and began to pass out the baby trees, everyone took about 3 baby trees ( totally around 300 trees) and we began to hike…we hiked so far up eventually we were using roots and trees to pull our bodies up… then everyone planted the trees right there in the jungle of the mountain.. it only took about 30 minute to plant over 300 trees which was pretty neat... the pupose was to help bring water to the community over time…

My morals haven’t changed but I must be honest here…I bought a chicken….

So two weekends ago I went to the animal market with some people from my community (at 6 in the morning on a Saturday) and Sam another kid from my program who lives in my community…. Well we decided to buy a chicken… but here’s the bad part, we bought it not just have or eat, we bought it to fight….

It isn’t became the talk of everyone in our community, everyday they asked us if we were training it, what we were feeding it… the fight was the next Saturday so we had a week to prepare… but to tell you the truth, if you hadn’t guess I know nothing about cock fighting nor support it in any way… but when Saturday came everyone (mainly all our cousins, and uncles…which make up about 80% of the town) were pretty pumped for the fight…

We got a truck and pretty much all the men and boys of our community hoped in to come watch our fight… it was pretty fun to be supported by a whole community…

Our rooster was just a baby, so we kept having to wait to see if one of equal age would come… after watching a few fights of other birds I was pretty ready to leave…cock fighting is not my thing… anyways finally another bird about the same size as ours came…and the fight began… everyone was going nuts (because our community was over half of the crowd) luckily because they were babies neither of the birds really knew what they were doing nor were that violent… after about 10 minutes the other bird was so scared it ran out of the ring and we won!

Everyone went nuts it was super fun… no one had really bet anything because they all thought we would lose... I only bet $5 for my own bird… but it was still so fun!

We didn’t have a truck anymore on the way back so we walked the long walk back… the whole way people would shout the name of chicken Inti-shu (… which means one sun in kichwa) or Samuel because no matter how many times we told them they couldn’t get their hands around the idea that we bought the bird together… a girl at a cock fight is kind of rare….

Anyways… that night the volcanoes were pretty excited that we won at well because there were THREE earth quakes! There weren’t that big but big enough to shake the whole house and knock some things on the floor! There were really only felt around this area so we think maybe they were volcano related since Cotacachi is located in-between two “active” volcanoes…

(oh and as long as im being completely honest here I have another confession: I ate chicken! My family killed it in the morning and we had for dinner that night… it doesn’t get much fresher than that)

Anyways I needless to say… I love it here…

I love waking up to a volcano out my window every morning

I love the BRAID! No joke it is beautiful on men!

I love riding in the back of trucks pretty much every day or back of a motorcycle

I love that there is soccer every single day

I love that I am related to almost everyone in my community

I love that every time I see the little girls in my town they run and jump into my arms

I love that sometimes there is only bread and coffee for dinner and sometimes there is a feast

it’s kind of hard though because I’m finally at the point where I’m starting to be decently good friends with the kids my age here and now I’m going to have to leave… but I’ve told them all I’m going to try to return.. So let’s see if I can live up to that!