Hola Cuenca, Hola machismo!
Hola!
I am so sorry that I have that I have kept a lot of you in the dark the last couple of months, but I'm glad to report that in this case, no news is definitely good news :)
Before I get into all I have been up to, I should let you know that all fotos up until my arrival in Cuenca are finally available for your perusal on www.flickr.com, under pennysa. Be warned that they are not that great as I had to scan each and every one of them and I appear to lack any skills at scanning straight! Well, at least it makes me chuckle as I look through them. Enjoy.
Cuenca has proved itself full of both delights and mysteries I find hard to fathom. It is a busy little city surrounded by really beautiful mountains and flowing with four rivers that make running a pleasure - when they don't smell like a mouse cage in need of desperate cleaning that is.
There is a wonderful mix of modern and traditional here, with ladies strutting the latest fashion and ridiculously high heels for cobbled streets (ridiculous only if you're not Sarah), and then ladies in full traditional dress: a skirt so bright it deserves sunglasses, a blouse, numerous jerseys and topped by an elegant panama hat. It's so full of colour, it's impossible not to get excited about J
Cuencanos love their music and dancing (find me a South American place that doesn't!) and this is definitely a great place for dancing the night away at the salsa clubs. In my teenage class, we were doing a worksheet on customs in Ecuador. One of the lines they had to complete was "You don't ________ in public". Hoping to learn some social etiquette from this exercise myself, I was delighted at their answer, all be it full of bad grammar. They said that, in Ecuador, "You don't not dance in public!" Loving it! There is always music, everywhere. The other night I was walking to a party and passed a garage with a quartet of men in suits jamming away on their violins, cellos and violas, for no apparent reason other than the enjoyment of music. Cuencanos also love making a lot of noise. We finally got rid of the builders and their drills beneath us, but thinking we were home and dry was a misguided assumption. Between 5:30 and 7:30 every morning (and through most of the day, although you don't hear it as much then) there are massive explosions, - ooh, there's one now actually, - that makes you wonder if we´re being invaded. This week they were particularly loud. I was standing on our balcony, peacefully enjoying the sunrise (yes, I have to get up that early) and sipping some soup (which, I agree, is a rather strange thing to be having for breakfast) when something exploded, by the sound of it, right underneath me. With reflexes of a cat, I narrowly missed pouring my boiling soup all over me and spilt half the cup on the balcony instead. My nerves shattered, I arrived at class and begged my students to explain to me these strange ways. So here it is: Apparently there are 52 churches in Cuenca. And they therefore each have a festival week in the year. Setting off firecrackers is an expression of joy and praise to God and so it is necessary to set off these blasted noisy things at ridiculous hours of the morning. Clearly, Cuenca is not a place for shell-shocked war vets to retire.
As the title of this email suggests, I have finally encountered the machismo that many of you warned me about. It is impossible for a foreign girl to walk down the street without being whistled at, yelled at and leered at. And men of any age and status do this. Men with their little children in tow, men with their girlfriends in tow, old men, young boys, all of them. It's a little hard to deal with sometimes but I'm getting a tough skin.
So, what have I been up to? I have been working, as I think you know, at an International school called CEDEI. I teach five classes, from kiddies to adults, starting at 7am and finishing at 7:30pm. It's a long day but there's a big break in the middle for siesta, so not that bad, although I am yet actually to have a siesta. It's been very busy really. I also take Spanish classes and have an intercambio. Intercambio's are a meeting between you and a Spanish speaking person. My intercambio's name is Maritza, and she's really friendly. We have an hour of conversation, one half in English and then one half in Spanish, so we both get better. It's loads of fun and means that my Spanish is improving rapidly, thank goodness! I can finally talk to people at the running club! The running is improving a lot too, I can finally make it most of the way through a decent run without my lungs threatening to explode inside my chest.
On the weekends, I have been running off to different parts of Ecuador with fellow teachers and exploring all I can get to. I have been to several other little towns, ruins, and many markets. Once I even returned with two baby chickens, given to me by a guy who was trying to get more from me than a friendly smile of thanks - sometimes there are upsides to not understanding a language and so I was blissfully unaware of his intentions until we had left and my friend translated for me. Poor little Rio and Bamba (the chicks), after enduring a two hour train journey and a 6 hour bus ride, they survived only another 2 days and then died, I think maybe of cold. I am clearly not a very good mother hen, possibly due to a lack of feathers. I hate to admit it, but I did feel a little relief at their passing. I mean, what was I going to do with them when they got a bit bigger? There's no way I could ever have killed them, which is clearly what their fate was supposed to be, Christmas dinner probably!
Last weekend I went to a beautiful place called Vilcabamba. It's in the Valley of Longevity, about 6 hours away. Apparently, this valley has the largest population of people living over a hundred years old. And it really is incredible. It's so quiet and peaceful and just amazingly beautiful. Nice and warm too. I spent most of the weekend lying in a hammock staring out across the garden of sugar cane and avo trees to the exotic mountains beyond. It reminded me a little of parts of South Africa, like up near Nelspruit. So beautiful. So magical. On the way back, we found ourselves, unsurprisingly, on an overcrowded bus. A man was standing in the aisle next to me, holding a baby and trying to balance on the bumpy road. Feeling bad for him, but not bad enough to give up my seat for the next 4 hours, I offered to hold the baby for him, which he gladly agreed to. Hmmph, well, apparently they weren't that into unleaky nappies. By the time they got off the bus my trousers were soaked! That'll teach me about quasi-generosity!
I have just come back from a tiny village about 2 hours away where CEDEI offers English classes once a week. We take it in turns to go out there and teach the class every Friday night. The group that we teach are adults who are trying to get some tourism happening in this tiny village and want to learn some English to help them with their project. They are all lovely and we had a lot of fun with them. Jima is also surrounded by many hills and mountains and we spent the morning climbing some of those. Tomorrow I am joining a Cuencanan hiking group on a hike in Cajas National Park, a place I have been dying to visit since I arrived. I'm really excited about it. Also, because there won't be many English people on the hike, it will be a great way to meet locals and practice some Spanish.
A couple of weeks ago was festival week in Cuenca. It incorporated celebrating Day of the Dead and Independence Day. On Day of the Dead, we visited the cemetery, as tradition calls for. Cuenca's cemetery is very peaceful and nicely kept. Instead of the graves in the ground that we have though, they have large tombs with many people in them. Everyone gets there own alcove where a plaque goes and one can leave flowers or candles or whatever you want to remember your loved ones. Traditionally, everyone eats "guagua pan", a sweet bread shaped like a baby, and drinks "colada morada", a thick, warm fruit juice which is really yummy. Independence day was marked by parades and the most incredible firework show I have ever seen. One thing Ecuador is really, really good at is impressive fireworks (gees, they get enough practice!).
I have also become a great soccer fan and have been to about three games in the stadium, which is insane and has added a lot of new, rather expressive words to my Spanish vocabulary!
I really have so much to tell you and share with you all and it is just impossible to write it all down, especially without keeping you for hours! I will try and write more regularly so I don't have so much to cram in all the time. I am having a really lovely time here. I have made many friends and have seen a lot of beautiful things here. It 's been an amazing experience so far. Over Christmas, I am leaving Ecuador and going to the States to visit my aunt, Jen, and my cousins Fae and Tom. I'm hoping to see some of you who are there too! It's very exciting but it's going to be strange to be back in the fast lane for a month.
I love you all very much and hope you are doing well. Please let me know how you are and what's going on in your lives too, ta.
Big love and bear hugs to all of you,
Penny.
my housemate, Rebekah, my chickens, Rio and Bamba, and me :) - if you can actually see them this time that is!
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Market in Gualaceo.JPG128K View Download
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View from Chordeleg.JPG86K View Download
I am so sorry that I have that I have kept a lot of you in the dark the last couple of months, but I'm glad to report that in this case, no news is definitely good news :)
Before I get into all I have been up to, I should let you know that all fotos up until my arrival in Cuenca are finally available for your perusal on www.flickr.com, under pennysa. Be warned that they are not that great as I had to scan each and every one of them and I appear to lack any skills at scanning straight! Well, at least it makes me chuckle as I look through them. Enjoy.
Cuenca has proved itself full of both delights and mysteries I find hard to fathom. It is a busy little city surrounded by really beautiful mountains and flowing with four rivers that make running a pleasure - when they don't smell like a mouse cage in need of desperate cleaning that is.
There is a wonderful mix of modern and traditional here, with ladies strutting the latest fashion and ridiculously high heels for cobbled streets (ridiculous only if you're not Sarah), and then ladies in full traditional dress: a skirt so bright it deserves sunglasses, a blouse, numerous jerseys and topped by an elegant panama hat. It's so full of colour, it's impossible not to get excited about J
Cuencanos love their music and dancing (find me a South American place that doesn't!) and this is definitely a great place for dancing the night away at the salsa clubs. In my teenage class, we were doing a worksheet on customs in Ecuador. One of the lines they had to complete was "You don't ________ in public". Hoping to learn some social etiquette from this exercise myself, I was delighted at their answer, all be it full of bad grammar. They said that, in Ecuador, "You don't not dance in public!" Loving it! There is always music, everywhere. The other night I was walking to a party and passed a garage with a quartet of men in suits jamming away on their violins, cellos and violas, for no apparent reason other than the enjoyment of music. Cuencanos also love making a lot of noise. We finally got rid of the builders and their drills beneath us, but thinking we were home and dry was a misguided assumption. Between 5:30 and 7:30 every morning (and through most of the day, although you don't hear it as much then) there are massive explosions, - ooh, there's one now actually, - that makes you wonder if we´re being invaded. This week they were particularly loud. I was standing on our balcony, peacefully enjoying the sunrise (yes, I have to get up that early) and sipping some soup (which, I agree, is a rather strange thing to be having for breakfast) when something exploded, by the sound of it, right underneath me. With reflexes of a cat, I narrowly missed pouring my boiling soup all over me and spilt half the cup on the balcony instead. My nerves shattered, I arrived at class and begged my students to explain to me these strange ways. So here it is: Apparently there are 52 churches in Cuenca. And they therefore each have a festival week in the year. Setting off firecrackers is an expression of joy and praise to God and so it is necessary to set off these blasted noisy things at ridiculous hours of the morning. Clearly, Cuenca is not a place for shell-shocked war vets to retire.
As the title of this email suggests, I have finally encountered the machismo that many of you warned me about. It is impossible for a foreign girl to walk down the street without being whistled at, yelled at and leered at. And men of any age and status do this. Men with their little children in tow, men with their girlfriends in tow, old men, young boys, all of them. It's a little hard to deal with sometimes but I'm getting a tough skin.
So, what have I been up to? I have been working, as I think you know, at an International school called CEDEI. I teach five classes, from kiddies to adults, starting at 7am and finishing at 7:30pm. It's a long day but there's a big break in the middle for siesta, so not that bad, although I am yet actually to have a siesta. It's been very busy really. I also take Spanish classes and have an intercambio. Intercambio's are a meeting between you and a Spanish speaking person. My intercambio's name is Maritza, and she's really friendly. We have an hour of conversation, one half in English and then one half in Spanish, so we both get better. It's loads of fun and means that my Spanish is improving rapidly, thank goodness! I can finally talk to people at the running club! The running is improving a lot too, I can finally make it most of the way through a decent run without my lungs threatening to explode inside my chest.
On the weekends, I have been running off to different parts of Ecuador with fellow teachers and exploring all I can get to. I have been to several other little towns, ruins, and many markets. Once I even returned with two baby chickens, given to me by a guy who was trying to get more from me than a friendly smile of thanks - sometimes there are upsides to not understanding a language and so I was blissfully unaware of his intentions until we had left and my friend translated for me. Poor little Rio and Bamba (the chicks), after enduring a two hour train journey and a 6 hour bus ride, they survived only another 2 days and then died, I think maybe of cold. I am clearly not a very good mother hen, possibly due to a lack of feathers. I hate to admit it, but I did feel a little relief at their passing. I mean, what was I going to do with them when they got a bit bigger? There's no way I could ever have killed them, which is clearly what their fate was supposed to be, Christmas dinner probably!
Last weekend I went to a beautiful place called Vilcabamba. It's in the Valley of Longevity, about 6 hours away. Apparently, this valley has the largest population of people living over a hundred years old. And it really is incredible. It's so quiet and peaceful and just amazingly beautiful. Nice and warm too. I spent most of the weekend lying in a hammock staring out across the garden of sugar cane and avo trees to the exotic mountains beyond. It reminded me a little of parts of South Africa, like up near Nelspruit. So beautiful. So magical. On the way back, we found ourselves, unsurprisingly, on an overcrowded bus. A man was standing in the aisle next to me, holding a baby and trying to balance on the bumpy road. Feeling bad for him, but not bad enough to give up my seat for the next 4 hours, I offered to hold the baby for him, which he gladly agreed to. Hmmph, well, apparently they weren't that into unleaky nappies. By the time they got off the bus my trousers were soaked! That'll teach me about quasi-generosity!
I have just come back from a tiny village about 2 hours away where CEDEI offers English classes once a week. We take it in turns to go out there and teach the class every Friday night. The group that we teach are adults who are trying to get some tourism happening in this tiny village and want to learn some English to help them with their project. They are all lovely and we had a lot of fun with them. Jima is also surrounded by many hills and mountains and we spent the morning climbing some of those. Tomorrow I am joining a Cuencanan hiking group on a hike in Cajas National Park, a place I have been dying to visit since I arrived. I'm really excited about it. Also, because there won't be many English people on the hike, it will be a great way to meet locals and practice some Spanish.
A couple of weeks ago was festival week in Cuenca. It incorporated celebrating Day of the Dead and Independence Day. On Day of the Dead, we visited the cemetery, as tradition calls for. Cuenca's cemetery is very peaceful and nicely kept. Instead of the graves in the ground that we have though, they have large tombs with many people in them. Everyone gets there own alcove where a plaque goes and one can leave flowers or candles or whatever you want to remember your loved ones. Traditionally, everyone eats "guagua pan", a sweet bread shaped like a baby, and drinks "colada morada", a thick, warm fruit juice which is really yummy. Independence day was marked by parades and the most incredible firework show I have ever seen. One thing Ecuador is really, really good at is impressive fireworks (gees, they get enough practice!).
I have also become a great soccer fan and have been to about three games in the stadium, which is insane and has added a lot of new, rather expressive words to my Spanish vocabulary!
I really have so much to tell you and share with you all and it is just impossible to write it all down, especially without keeping you for hours! I will try and write more regularly so I don't have so much to cram in all the time. I am having a really lovely time here. I have made many friends and have seen a lot of beautiful things here. It 's been an amazing experience so far. Over Christmas, I am leaving Ecuador and going to the States to visit my aunt, Jen, and my cousins Fae and Tom. I'm hoping to see some of you who are there too! It's very exciting but it's going to be strange to be back in the fast lane for a month.
I love you all very much and hope you are doing well. Please let me know how you are and what's going on in your lives too, ta.
Big love and bear hugs to all of you,
Penny.
my housemate, Rebekah, my chickens, Rio and Bamba, and me :) - if you can actually see them this time that is!
3 attachments — Download all attachments View all images
Market in Gualaceo.JPG128K View Download
Popsicles at the market.JPG109K View Download
View from Chordeleg.JPG86K View Download
posted by ph @ 2:54 PM
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