And my week has been loooonnnggg. I've been to so many places and seen so much, done so much. This past week can only be summed up by saying, wow.
These people in South America.......these people are amazing. I have never felt so welcome and so happy to just be part of a family. I have a host family here, just so you know, and their family is like the family from A Greek Wedding. Huge. Crazy. Fun. Absoluteley.
This past weekend I was cordially invited to a family gathering of about 50 or so members. It was also a 50th birthday party, so you know there was going to be lots of drinking. And there was. But not just that. Eating. Dancing. Loud singing. Just full of life like you have never seen. And they just took me in. They tried to marry me off to some cousin of a cousin. I didn't even flinch. I just smiled.
And they have a farm, this crazy family. A farm not like a farm in the US. A farm in the sense that you basically are transported back to a slower time. No machines. Just lots of animals, lots of land, a huge house and oh yeah, a giant lake that was once not there, now is the only way to get to this place. Seriously in the cut folks. Once again, amazing.
So how can you wrong with this experience? You can't. To make it even better, I have been volunteering with little kids in a little school in a little town. FUN. All capitals. These kids are wild and they make you really stop, think and then talk. Always, what is this? what is that? Never a moment of peace. But you have to talk Spanish because these kids, that's all they speak. So guess what? I talk Spanish now. Not fluently, but enough to know what the hell is going on.
And I tell you, I had no idea really the magnitude of the poverty here. Outstanding in a way that can't even be compared. Maybe not on the scale of deep-Saharra Africa or the slums of Delhi, but it is a poor nation this one. Even those with money don't live the same as in the US. It's so much more...simplified. There is no reason to have 10 cars, two houses, three computers, 10 T.V.'s. Just enough to satisfy.
Ok...and the food? Like nothing else. Fruit like no other. Fresh lemons and limes in the back yard, potatoes that are still warm from the sun, avacadoes that just smell like candy. And this chocolate here? There is this special Ecuadorian chocolate that tastes like heaven. If heaven was made out of this stuff, seriously, more people would be trying to get in. All you need is a big glass of this chocolate mixed with milk, some little crackers, fresh cheese and maybe a banana, and you're set for the whole morning my friend.
What I really need to say though, is that this world is so small and we have touched so much of it. But deep within the pockets of these Andes (and I'm sure in so many other wild, wonderful places) there is still a little bit of Pacha Mama untouched. A little patch where no one has ever gone, no one has ever seen. And I encourage you, brothers and sisters, to find your own little patch like this in the world.
