Hellooooooo!!
I'm
sorry that I haven't gotten a chance to write for so long, but I
haven't really had time!! The second I got back from Spring Break I
was assigned projects and papers and tests galore (hooray), so I've
been pretty occupied with all of that jazz.
Well
anyway, I suppose I should start at the beginning. So for the
majority of break, myself and three friends went to this smaller but
rapidly expanding town called Santo Domingo to do volunteer work at a
clinic called “Hombro a Hombro,” which works with the
impoverished population in town. The clinic was tiny; it consisted
of a waiting room, a doctor's office, a dentist's office, a small
office for files, and a vaccination room. The cost of services there
were incredible: two dollars to get a cavity filled, three to get a
tooth pulled (and yes, they used anesthetics). As volunteers, we
painted the waiting room (which used to be a brownish color, and not
because the paint was brown) white, helped the clinic catch up on
their filing system for their 3,000 patients or so, and I got to work
as a dental assistant!! Although I knew I was being a big help and
felt great about that, the experience also made me realize how much I
do NOT want to be a dentist. Some of the work I did was just fine:
cleaning tools, making filling out of copper powder and mercury,
handing the dentist what she needed (simple busy work stuff).
However, I also had to do some not-so-amazing stuff. Liiiike,
holding screaming children down to the dentist chair. I don't think
I've ever done anything so cruel in my life. It was down-right
depressing. But I was saving their teeth, so I suppose it was a good
deed, right?? Well there's not much more to say about the
volunteering, it was pretty much the same each day (with the
exception of working with different patients), so I guess I'll
continue on.
We
stayed with a doctor from Kentucky named Rich, along with his wife
Rita (Laura, a friend I came with, knows them from home) in Santo
Domingo. They are both retired, and figured they would do something
exciting with their lives since they didn't know what else to do, so
decided to come to Ecuador to volunteer for 2 years, and of course,
learn Spanish!! They were very accommodating and adorably funny, and
made really good food!! So our stay with them was very enjoyable, we
had a great time chatting and listening to Rich play the guitar as we
sang along =)
So
now for the other random happenings of Santo Domingo (we didn't
volunteer the WHOLE time, it was Easter weekend, after all). So the
day before Easter we went to a festival of the Tsachilas, or the
Colorados, which is a group of the last aboriginal people in Ecuador.
The festival was really cool; the people of the little community
were dressed in traditional attire, did dances, had contests for the
best dressed, and had a bunch of little stands where they sold crafts
and clothing. They also of course were sold quite a bit of food. At
one point during the festival, we got our picture taken for a
newspaper (yes, I was in a very well-known Ecuadorian newspaper!!),
and afterwards, a man that was in the picture with us invited us to
go get something to eat with him. We figured why not, so began
walking past the food stands, until we came across a stand selling
fried grubs. Yes... juicy, greasy, fat, and as about as long as my
pointer finger grubs. YUM. As we stood there with disgusted
expressions on our faces, we started drawing attention (I always
thought American grub eaters were pretty interesting, too?). Pretty
soon there was a group of people all urging us to eat the grubs
(although many of the Ecuadorians standing there had never eaten one
themselves, and were appalled at the idea of even touching one). So,
after watching the lady preparing the grubs skewer the squirming
worms onto skewers for about 15 minutes and then watching them cook
alive on a grill, we asked her for one of the skewers and each pulled
one off. On the count of three, we all took our first bites of grub.
Now, you're probably all disgusted right now, but hoping that I'm
going to say that they were actually good. But I'm not. They really
were bad. And extremely greasy. The really gross part is, that when
I took a bite, the skin of the grub wouldn't really rip, so I had to
pull it really hard with my teeth. In the process of doing this, I
also ended up squeezing the grub more, which made all of it's insides
ooze out.... into my mouth. Haha. I can imagine the looks on some
of your faces right now, and it makes me smile. I apologize for
disgusting you, but this adventure couldn't be left out of my email.
So anyway, let's just say we didn't eat any more grubs... although
everyone insisted that if you put lemon and salt on them, they are
better!! I didn't want to try it. I knew they were lying, anyway.
So
the day after the festival and grubs was Easter. We decided to be
bold about our church-going for the day, and got up at 2:00 in the
morning to go to this apparently very beautiful sunrise service at a
church run by a little German community outside of Santo Domingo.
The church was indeed very pretty. The service was mostly in
Spanish, but there was also a little Latin and German mixed in, and
it lasted from 3:30 until 6:30. I was proud that I didn't fall
asleep. Later that day, we went to a nice botanical garden, eating
fruit from the trees as we walked, and trying to play with the random
parrots and monkeys. It was very relaxing.
So
after our stay in Santo Domingo, three of us continued on to a little
town surrounded by a cloud forest called Mindo. We went to a
butterfly farm, saw lots of hummingbirds (Mindo is known for its
butterflies and hummingbirds), and went on many adventures. First of
all, we went zip-lining over the jungle. We were given harnesses and
helmets, and then taken around to 13 different zip-lines to fly
hundreds of feet over the trees. It was so cool!! You could also do
tricks while on the long zip-lines with a guide. One of the tricks
was called Superman, which is where your belly faces the ground and
you can spread out your arms and “fly.” The other trick, called
Mariposa, or Butterfly, is where you wrap your legs around the guide
and then flip upside-down while flying through the air. Although
they were pretty uncomfortable, the tricks were soooo much fun!!
After
zip-lining, we walked a little ways to get to this cage-like thing
called the Tarabita, which brought us from one side of the jungle to
the other on a cord. After being abandoned on the other side of the
jungle and being told to just wave when we wanted to come back (can
you say sketchy?? I guess that's Ecuador for you though), we took
off for the six waterfalls that we could hike to from the drop-off of
the Tarabita. The waterfalls were all gorgeous, and we even got to
swim in one of them!! The water could not have been more perfect.
After we had had our taste of waterfalls in Mindo, we went back to
our hostel, put on dry clothes, and went to celebrate my birthday
with a brownie =) It was a great day.
The
next day, and our last day in Mindo, Laura and I decided we wanted to
go white-water rafting. So we went to a rafting place, were given
life jackets and helmets, and put in a car to bring us to our
starting point. Now one thing you have to know about Ecuadorian
rafting... is that it's not really anything like American rafting.
Instead of having a pretty yellow tube to sit on with paddles,
instead, the raft is made up of about seven of those black ghetto
inner tubes, which are tied together with a rope. You don't get a
paddle either, you just kind of sit on a tube, and hold on for dear
life to the ropes that are holding your “raft” together. The
guides do all of the work; there are two guides, one on each side of
the raft. They basically do everything they can to push and pull the
raft in the directions they want the raft to go while running along
the bottom of the river or using the rocks sticking out of the river
to grab onto. It was one of the most amusing things I've ever done
in my life... and the guides even picked us flowers... WHILE going
down the rapids. I was impressed.
So
this is pretty much all of my past couple weeks in a nutshell. I've
also posted LOTS of pictures (of Cayambe, the volcano I climbed
before break, as well as Santo Domingo and Mindo)!!! Yes, I love you
all THAT much!!
So
now I suppose I should go study, since I won't have time this
weekend!! I'm going to the coast!! Wooohoo!! Oh, and here are the
pictures:
Cayambe:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2369544&l=8b5c4&id=8630239
Santo
Domingo:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2369554&l=ece35&id=8630239
Mindo:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2369600&l=bd194&id=8630239
I
hope you all enjoyed!! Miss you all tons!
Huuuugs,
Jenna
