Merry merry Christmas!!!

It's afternoon and last period... pizza party has been thrown after dragging kids through our current novel... i feel like a sleepwalking zombie, but I'm GOING HOME next Wednesday! Happy Birthday to me, and Merry Christmas to you all!

Ecuadorian Census

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

My roommate, Tina, wrote this and I wanted to share it with you:
Hello Friends and Family,




After five years in Ecuador I tend to think that few things will continue to amaze me about the differences in cultures. And then the time to census the population arrives. I know the US just completed their census, so you all will have good comparison data. I am listing them here for you to read and share with others in shock and reflection.



• The crucial and sensitve census data is placed in the hands of high school students.

• It is scheduled to take place on November 28th during the hours of 7 am to 5 pm. (The entire country will be censo-ed at this time.)

• High school students will go door to door interviewing people through a 6 page survey.

• NO ONE is to leave their houses during this time.

• There will be NO transportation during the scheduled hours. This includes air, bus, or taxi.

• NO store, shopping center or other businesses will be open that day.

• Ley Seca, the law prohibiting any alcohol consumption, will be in place 36 hours before and 12 hours after the census. (Jr ust in case your prior consumption or plans for future consumption may affect your census responses.)



Some census questions and available responses:

1. Where do you dispose of your trash?

a. Street collectors

b. Throw it down a ravine

c. Bury it

d. Put it in a river, the ocean or a lake

e. Burn it



2. What are your house walls constructed out of?

a. Cement block

b. Wood

c. Bamboo

d. Straw or grass

e. Found Materials



What is your house roof constructed out of?

a. cement

b. asbestos

c.metal

d. palm, straw or leaves

e. tile

f. no roof



3. What kind of toileting facilities do you have?

a. in door toilet

b. shared toilet in the building

c. latrine

d. no toilet



4. Where is your toilet waste disposed?

a. public sanitation system

b. septic system

c. directly to a river, ocean or lake

d. ravine

e. buried



These are just to name a few of the interesting topics selected to survey Ecuadorian citizens and residents. What I find the most interesting are the options available as likely behaviors. Sometimes I forget, being surrounded by the upper echelon of citizens, that I live in a country where latrines and grass walls are plausible options. It definately causes a person to stop and think about how blessed they are. Interestingly, there are also over 15 indigenous tribes listed that you can select under Indigenous Ethnicities. Mind you, these are groups of people whose cultures and traditions are alive and well. What a diverse and impoverished country I live in!



Hope all is well and that you have a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Sincerely,

Tina Marie

Who Are "My" People?

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Who Are "My" People?

by Angela Boddie on Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 6:25pm

Wanderlust is a beautiful thing, but sometimes being a "misfit" leaves you falling in between the cracks of the continents. A heart that skips a beat from the smell of jet fuel may struggle to find an equilibrium when forced to stay in one place for a long period of time, doing the same thing over and over and over again. The ecstasy of a new place or a re-visit to an old love may give way to reverse "culture shock" and leave the traveler grasping for her (his) place in the world; this blue-and-green-ball that has little pieces of her heart seperated by vast distances. Someone called it the "pitfalls of cosmopolitanism;" Tony Cohen calls it "Displacement as arrival; flight as sanctuary.”

I found this today randomly in the bookstore and it summed up my recent musings:

"Who Are My People?"

"I went into the church where the congregation
Worshiped my God. Were they my people?
I felt no kinship to them as they knelt there.
My people? Where are they?
I went into the land where I was born,
Where men spoke my language...
I was a stranger there.
"My people," my soul cried. "Who are my people?"

Last night in the rain I met an old man
Who spoke a language I do not speak,
Which marked him as one who does not know my God.
With apologetic smile he offered me
The shelter of his patched umbrella.
I met his eyes... and then I knew..."
~ Rosa Zagnoni Marinoni

I LOVE this ... I saw the man on the right twice, always singing and roller-blading... here he waves at the kilted bagpipe player as he rolls across the intersection (TORONTO 4/09)

Saving Energy for Happiness

"I could hear myself say in a lazy voice, 'I believe they all experienced happiness more than we do. Even Emma, who never made love. Because happiness comes only when you can experience things deeply. And she experienced so much that it was shining in her eyes. I could see that. We only bum around in the world, talking about where we'll go tomorrow or what we did yesterday... Once in a while, when we get drunk or make love, it seems to us for a moment that right then we should stop, because we are really experiencing something. Maybe we live as we do because we are saving our energy for happiness, making sure that when it comes it will last. But Emma did not save it.'" - Milan, in "Year of the Frog" by Martin Simecka

spirit week

Me & Chris...

Mixmatch day

Twin Day 1

Twin Day 2

Twin day 3

Holla! Holla! LA and ATL!!!

Teacher twins

Anonymity, of course

"Home"

Home
by Bruce Weigl
I didn't know I was grateful for such late-autumn bent-up cornfields yellow in the after-harvest sun before the cold plow turns it all over into never. I didn't know I would enter this music that translates the world back into dirt fields that have always called to me as if I were a thing come from the dirt, like a tuber, or like a needful boy. End Lonely days, I believe. End the exiled and unraveling strangeness.

Rain

I love rain. Pouring down, thunder that makes you jump... lightening that distracts you out the corner of your eye. This Ecuador thing could easily become 2 years. I do miss, really miss, the leaves changing in Georgia and the relief that the weather change brings. Here it will always be the same, though colder when it rains. I learned how to pack food for catering today. I watched a student put a green ball-shaped pencil sharpener in her mouth, and managed to mail my Master´s application off to the states for $4.25. My laptop should be ready tomorrow... only for another $95. And, hopefully, I´ll get my Ecua-debit card. Hehe. Kinda cool to live on little ¨moolah¨...

Rain on the teacher bus (yes, it leaks!) Hah

the 3 little pigs (deconstructed for 6 graders)

Other teacher buses (sorry!!! can´t get them to stand up straight)

Viva la revolucion

The cops decided to go on strike ´cause they don´t like the prez... kids freakin´out, parents pickin´ ´em up... we only worked a half day Thursday and Friday was off! Sweet. Still had Master´s classes, but it wasn´t so bad. My laptop´s been in the shop but my roommate´s letting me use hers for now. Highlights below:

Me & Tara during her visit

 

Road Scenes during our bus trip

Road Scenes

Otavalo



Che is popular here. During the "coup" we saw kids driving by with Ecua/Che flags 

Te Amo, Shorty :)

Our Hostel in Otavalo

Otovalo Hostel

Downtown Otavalo

Remains of the religious parade

CRIPsy chicken

With Tina at the Italian Restaurant

Eating in Otavalo

In the rain at the soccer game in Quito



Liga Soccer Stadium

My dream (tree!) house in Mindo



The French coffee farmer of Mindo

Butterfly Garden

Our room in Mindo

View from our Hostel in Mindo

Downtown Mindo.



Fall break?

Canoa... (hopefully) destination for Fall Break '10

Scenes and Dreams

Listening to Live Music in the Mariscal

La Ronda

Festival de Guapulo; chillin' with the friends at T___'s adorable little cliffhanger apartment over cheese and wine... meeting more international teachers from the ATL!  Walking down the zig-zaggy street and the cobblestones, all the way into the town square in front of the old church. 800 people from Quito drinking canelazo (hot spiced alcohol) and dancing while the men in blue suits on the stage play all the brass instruments and dance in funny sync and the wooden-tower-of-firework-contest is showed off and then the wooden-STRANGE-cow-structures-that-shoot-fireworks-at-the-people-in-the-crowd chased us around and around and we got shoved and jumped and covered our hair and got as close to the ground as possible... me knocking canelazo all over poor T___ and L____ hovering over me as fireworks shot at us and A____ spilling canelazo all over me and then she lost her shoe while dancing and the 7 foot tall basketball players from LA and Mississippi who have family in College Park and East Point flirting with the redhead and I loved how feisty T___ was one one got too fresh and the WEIRD very drunk teacher from Americano who wanted to kiss me for pictures and the long long long never-ending kilometer walk back up the zig-zaggy streets to T___'s house as A___ stumbled without her shoe and the policemen laughed and we posed against the cliff... then caught a cab and went home by one. Thank goodness I don't like to get drunk (firework cows would be terrifying and i could be the one without the shoe!). More than enough festival for a long time.

Guapulo

Balloons and Firework Towers

Sweet sweet sleep and naps...dreamed about Burger King haha! cutting flowers for our apartment and shopping at the monster-sized mall with Tinita :)