Greetings from Otavalo!

Life on the trip has been extremely full! Everyone has become very comfortable with each other, and we are starting to really feel like a family. Our village, Eugenio Espejo de Cajas, is also starting to feel like home. We have put a lot of work into the community, and are starting to make connections with lots of the locals.

Our arrival here coincided with the most important festival of the year in the Andean highlands, Inti Raymi, which is Quechua for 'the festival of the sun'. It celebrates the harvest season, most importantly the harvest of many distinct types of corn and maize, which is the staple food of this part of the Americas. In our indigenous village, people practice subsistence agriculture to survive, so there is much wisdom in giving thanks to the sun for providing the energy to grow all of food that we eat.

We had the opportunity to attend two festivals last week, the first in Cayambe, which was a colorful affair of parading dancers in vibrant costumes, musicians, and vendors selling all kinds of street food, such as sugar cane juice, llapingachus (tortillas de papa- fried potato pancakes, very different that latkes), mote (a steamed, white, large kerneled corn), and various other foods made with corn, like a special cornbread and accompanying soup prepared only once per year for this fiesta. We joined in the dancing and were welcomed by both our village´s representatives at the festival as well as many other groups of dancers and musicians. We also encountered some of the issues that can arise when traveling and trying to integrate into a different culture (such as feeling uncomfortable at times). In a meeting later that day with our main contact here in Espejo, Edwin, our students worked through this and ended the day with a much more profound understanding of both the local culture, and how to shift our own attitudes and perceptions to match the intentions of the local people.

The next afternoon, we were invited to a very local festival by a friend that we made at the Museo Inti Ñan, which sits directly on the line of the equator and which we had visited en route from Quito to Espejo. The museum itself was fascinating, with many demonstrations of the tricks that gravity plays at the equator, as well as displays of Ecuadorian folkways. In one part of the museum, a costumed dancer named Campo Elias led our group in a traditional circle dance and then invited us to his villiage´s Inti Raymi celebration, which was a bit more old fashioned and traditional than the celebration in Cayambe. So off we went, and our friend first took us to a hilltop where Ecuadorian indigenous kings who died fighting the Incas in the 1400´s are buried, and taught us a bit of local history. Then we proceeded to the fiesta, which was held on the town soccer field. The celebration consisted mostly of groups of dancers, costumed much differently than those in Cayambe, dancing around in large circles to a steady heartbeat rhythym. Of course, we also sampled the festival food which included empanadas de platano, fried bread pockets with banana inside.

The week in Espejo we have worked hard on several projects, building a store to sell local, fresh cheese that is made in town, and a second construction project building a community kitchen for the town. In addition, we have been doing trail maintainance (as locals do, using machetes) along a path leading to a hut perched on a mountain above town. From the hut, there is an incredible view out over an entire valley between volcanic ridges. Students have also started teaching English classes to local kids and adults, as well as playing with the local children in a daycare center and through sports. Students are now beginning to work on independent projects, which some of which include learning about traditional local medicine with a Yachak (Quechua for wise man), learning about local weaving traditions, milking cows, and working in the small cheese factory.

This past weekend, we traveled to the cloudforest of Mindo. The 2000 meter drop in altitude and significantly warmer climate (as well as the hot showers!) were a welcome respite. In Mindo, we did a series of ziplines over the lush, green canopy. We also hiked to and swam in a waterfall, and hiked back triumphantly in the warm rain and visited a butterfly sanctuary where some students had beautiful butterflies eating off of their fingers. Students also learned about chocolate from an organic cacao farmer, and we even made our own chocolate fondue by hand, from scratch! We began by toasting cacao beans, shelling them, grinding them into powder, and cooking then with water and panela, which is pure sugar cooked down to brown granular goodness. Needless to say, it was delicious! En route from Mindo to Espejo, we caught a brilliant view of Cotopaxi in the sunset, which is where our adventures will take us next weekend. . .

All is well here in Espejo de Cajas. We are adjusting well to local life, digging into the projects, improving our Spanish, meeting the locals, enjoying the scenery, and trying new foods. One student summed up his experience in the following haiku:

I like the food here.
It is Ecuadorian.
There are potatoes.

Indeed!

Until next time,
Josh and Suzanna