SOMEWHERE OUT THERE

Pancho, Joe and Tim about to leave for the river trip
 

It's 12:30 am here in Tena. I doubt I'll be able to sleep tonight. One reason is that I have a pile mountain of clean laundry on the bed that should have been folded and put away yesterday. I've already scooted it to one side, then to the other, and tried to sleep next to it and on it, but it didn't work. However, the main reason I can't sleep is because my husband is not here and even if you threatened to take my chocolate bar that I have hidden in the back of my freezer, I could not tell you exactly where he is right now. How did this happen and why did I allow it?

 I can really only answer one of those questions since he is grown, and I can't "allow" or "not allow" him to do things he wants.
It happened because Joe is friends with Tim who works for/owns River People, Tena's oldest and most reliable river rafting outfitter whose office is located on 15 de Noviembre. Tim invited Joe and Pancho to come along with him on a tour he was taking a group of people from Quito on. At 1pm today the boys loaded up Tim's car while I watched, pretty much helplessly. Although I'm very excited for Joe, I can't help but feel a little bit worried for him. Ok, and maybe a bit of jealousy added in that mix. After all, this is not the regular rafting trips he does with Tim that's over in a few hours. No, this one will last three nights, three days and will involve camping in a cave among other cool shenanigans. To even get to where they are starting this trip involves a seven hour drive deeper into the jungle. As much as I love to camp, this would totally be the highlight of my life...if I was invited to tag along... which I wasn't. 

I let Joe borrow my pink Cannon camera. I know the boys are going to bully him mercilessly about the pink camera, but it's the only one we have and I begged him to take lots of pictures on all that I'm missing out on. I also think they will tease him about wearing his glasses and bringing his contact case and solution to the jungle trip. Real men travel blind. I also think they will question why he brought several types and sizes of swiss army knives that are too dull to cut ice-cream and are really only good for maybe picking at a hangnail. The saddest addition to his little travel knap-sack was his Teva sandals that literally have no soles. They tore clean off about four river trips ago. The way he just stood there as Tim and Pancho loaded up the boats, paddles, coolers, and supplies, I could tell Joe was even questioning himself why a boy who grew up in treeless, waterless Indiana was going on a three day class five jungle/rafting trip with broken shoes and a pink camera. I can't wait until he gets back so he can tell me all about it!
 

Sherbert Manor

Paint scheme of our new apartment? Only in Ecuador.

Not too much has happened in the past few weeks since I’ve blogged last. So instead of wowing my small but growing audience with all the latest adventures, I’ll now bore them to death with all the minute details of our life.



We have had about a month and a half of solid rain. When I say never-ending rain, I mean it’s raining when you wake up and raining as you fall asleep. And many nights we’re awoken out of deep sleep because the rain is so hard and relentless. Of course rain has meant knee-deep mud, clothes that never dry on the line and mold on our shoes and clothes. If we put anything away that’s the least bit damp (which is everything) it’s bound to have mold on it next time we get it out. Case in point: Joe had a talk the other night and his blue suit was covered in mold spots. I got out my black belt to wear with my black shorts. Moldy. My leather sandals, moldy. The mold settles over Tena like London fog and people walk and work outside continuously rain or shine. Or rain and harder rain. We have had a minor turn of events these past few days with some strong sun. Enough to dry my clothes on the line this week. But by late afternoon the rain returns to cool off the day’s remains and it rains until we awake the next morning. Going anywhere without bringing your umbrella is like going to a job interview without brushing your teeth; why would you do that to yourself?


Speaking of jobs, Joe got hired at Open English this week, the company I’ve been working at for six months now. Since we have next-to-no internet here where we live 25 minutes outside of Tena, we’ve been commuting into town and working at a friend’s place. The back and forth commute and busses and taxis and sharing one computer and making sure one of us is with Carlie has simply worn us out. We know that we could not continue at this pace if we are both to work online. How strange it is to have a job that is made for staying at home, yet we have to leave home to do it. So we made the HUGE decision this week to move….yet again. We will move back to the center of Tena on/by April 1st.


Our new home will in no way, shape or form compare to the awesome house we have here. We now live in a charming brick house in the country with pineapple and banana trees in our back yard and a river in our front yard. Our new home will be an apartment in a crowded family-oriented neighborhood with chicken coops in the backyard and mud puddles in my front yard. Our house now has a large welcoming porch with a bright yellow hammock. I lay in it daily and listen to the river rush by. Our new apartment has no place for my hammock and nothing but kids on bikes and cars whizz by. In my front yard now I’m growing different types of palms and hibiscus. In the new yard there is too many rocks and sticks to grow anything green. In our house now, I hear nothing much in the way of noise besides birds chirping in unison. In the new apartment I’m sure we’ll hear our landlord downstairs and her grown daughter listening to their radio or TV all day and night.


So it seems that this new apartment might not be such a good move if looking at all the external things. But inside it will have a strong internet and bright pink and peach walls that I will learn to love. The walls are so pink and so peach, Joe and I have decided to name our new home “Sherbert Manor”. It has three large bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large living/dining area and a small kitchen. It also has a mini terrace where the dogs can hang out and bark at the kids who ride by on bikes.

This will be our last and final move in Tena. Joe and I have decided that if we have to move again, it will be to some other city where we will 'get it right the first time'.

FIRST FIESTA

I'm back in Quito again. My passport is finally re-registered and I have to pick it up today at 2pm. Tomorrow I need to get my censo, or ID card. This whole process has cost me hundreds of dollars and tons of frustration. In the end, all it will have gotten me is yet another way for the government to keep track of me and that's it. 

Anyway, I'm sitting here in my hotel room stalling until all the other hotel guests have eaten their free breakfast. Then I'll go down and have a nice quiet breakfast with just me and the friendly owners who have gone out of their way to make sure my stay here is a comfortable one. So I guess now is the best time to blog about the congregation fiesta we had this past Sunday.

First of all, I must relate the reason we had the party. When we moved here six weeks ago, that very first weekend was our two-day assembly in Puyo. At that assembly a brother who is barely 4 feet tall and in his 80s was baptized. He is the cutest little thing you've ever seen and claims that his eyesight is bad so all the pretty sisters will stand closer to him. Well, he was so happy to be baptized that he decided to mark the occasion by buying a pig and having a congregation BBQ picnic. The pig cost him two months wages, so at the party there was a contribution box to help him recoup his huge expense. The day of the BBQ was scheduled for Sunday at 2pm and there was lots of planning to be done.

First a list had to be made of who would be attending and what side-dish they could bring. All this pre-planning merited a pizza party, so about 15 of us went over Gary and Eleanor's house to eat pizza and discuss the party plans. That's when I received my assignment: I was to bring a BUCKET full of aji, the home-made Ecuadorian version of Texas Pete as a condiment to the BBQ. The day before the party I had Olivia come over and help me make it. First she went out and bought me a $9 bucket that had a lid. Then she bought the ingredients:
15 tomate de arbol (a fruit called tree tomato)
10 red onions
a bunch of cilanto and celery leaves
a head of garlic
about 30 red chili peppers
1 carrot
5 juiced lemons

We had to make it in batches and put in the fridgerator because the bucket wouldn't fit. Then before the party I just dumped the batches into the bucket, sealed the lid, and Joe carried it to the busstop. Imagine all the looks we got: we had met Rita and Woody, another gringo couple, at the busstop carrying a big salad and a bucket full of aji. People had no idea what was going on as we loaded it all onto the bus that would be taking us to the Sangeles' home across Napo river.

The Sangeles': Martin and Natalie Sangeles are a couple in their late 30s from Quebec, Canada. They've been living in Tena for 12 years. Before Ecuador was using the U.S. dollar, they were using Sucres and you could buy land here for the price of taking your kid bowling in the States. So  the Sangeles' were in the right place at the right time and were able to buy about ten acres of land right on the Napo river for next to nothing. Martin is a window washer by trade but a carpenter by hobby. He built a beautiful 2 bedroom  home for him and his wife, 2 mini-cabins complete with bathrooms, kitchenetts and tv's on the river for when their Canadian friends come to visit  and a playground complete with a wooden castle for any kid who comes to visit. Their land has a swimming pool, an outdoor wet bar, a small pond for thier geese, a chicken run and coop, a boat landing to the river, a greenhouse with nice garden and any kind of fruit tree you could imagine. They are the Trump's of our congregation, but a very humble and wonderful pioneer couple. Really, really nice people...but you can't help but be the tiniest bit envious-- their huge brick wall that separates their property from the main road has a decorative iron boa constrictor on the front gate, the epitome of coolness.

So the day of the party we took the bus to the Sangeles', but the bus only goes as far as the bridge, so we had to carry all our stuff and the bucket of aji in 100 degree heat over the river and about 1 more mile further to their boa constrictor gate. All the kids were already in their bathing suits when we arrived. Martin, (pronounced Marteen) being the awesome Canadian that he is, had hollowed out a bobsledding-type hole in his steep cement boat landing that ends in the Napo river. Then he lined it with plastic, made it more slick with a bar of soap, somehow inserted a flowing water-hose in the cement at the top and, Voila!! a water slide Emerald Point Wet N' Wild would covet. After a few other kids tried it out and lived, Carlie soaped herself up more with the bar of soap and went down with her hands in the air. It's times like this that I'm still pinching myself because I can't believe we live in the Amazon. I can't believe my Pop-Tropica playing Carlie is going down a home-made water slide into a river that flows into the Amazon river!

Anyway, the rest of the party was great! The food was amazing (espcially whoever brought that tasty aji) we had fun dancing Spanish line dances, including the Macarena and we laughed till we almost cried playing silly Ecuadorian games. The best game we played was when it got dark and Martin turned off all the outdoor lights. We were surrounded by jungle trees barely lit by the moon and we couldn't see two feet in front of us. Before he turned out the lights we were given a small piece of paper with the name of an animal. Mine was gato. (cat) When the lights went out you had to meow or make the noise of the animal that you were given and find the other gatos in your group. My group had 5 gatos. Imagine the noise and confusion of 80 people making animal noises in the dark and you had to find only your "species". Then the lights came back on. With your newly formed group, the game changed into a crazy version of American Idol, and you had to come up with a group song. Of course you could only sing it in meows or your corresponding animal. Then everyone else voted for the best "song".  Our group meowed to a Latin song "Tres Polliotos" , which thankfully I already knew the tune. But other groups were more creative. The dogs barked out a reggaeton rap. The chickens clucked out a love song. The cows mooed a opera song complete with a director. When it was time to vote by applause, Matin reminded us all who had hosted the party and prepared the pig. Yes, it was the little old brother who  had bought the pig, but it was Gary and Martin who had shot it between the eyes with a nail gun, slit it's throat, bled it properly and then roasted it to perfection in a fancy outdoor glass oven. In the end, the dogs won and were given a prize. I didn't see what the prize was, but we all celebrated with more dancing and chocolate cake that Jessamyn had made. It was one of the most fun parties I've ever been to, and definitley the most interesting.

LEARNING THE ROPES

This Tuesday will mark us living in Tena for 5 weeks now. It seems finally we're getting into a bit of a routine--by Ecuadorian standards. By that I mean, "In Ecuador all is possible but nothing is certain" as the saying here goes.

For instance, our routine came to a halt Thursday and Friday. They were fixing the streets in our neighborhood and the water pipes burst. We had no water for cooking, showering, or flushing toilets for over 24 hours. But little things that used to annoy us aren't that big a deal in the scheme of life. We used buckets of pool water to flush the toilets and made good use of a little extra deodorant. And since we couldn't cook with clean water, we met up with a big group of our friends for beer, burgers and BBQ wings at Iguana restuarant. We were having so much fun, we almost wished the power would go out too. (after all, we have gas stoves here to cook with) But I think Carlie was the most annoyed when, on return home, she noticed bird poop on her mosquito net. A bird had flown into her bedroom and had lots of fun and then left his mark.

Anyway, back to a routine, here is a vague rundown of how we spend a "normal" week:

Monday- Olivia the maid comes at 8am, bread from the bakery in hand. I cook breakfast for all of us and make Joe a sandwhich to-go. He leaves to teach English at a local private high-school called "Amazonica" during the midday hours M-F. Carlie gets started on homeschool lessons while I send Olivia out to do the week's grocery shopping. On return, I'll either have her cook an Ecuadorian-style lunch, or I will make something quick so that she can get started on the other house-cleaning duties. If I cook lunch, she'll make a light supper that we can all eat together when Joe returns. Olivia leaves at 5pm. So as you can see, Monday is our cooking, cleaning, and staying home in general day to get things done. Any given evening during the week, I might work 8pm to midnight teaching online also.

Tuesday- Long day in service, usually with Eleanor. Working with her means we get to ride to the territory in her car. Or it could mean breaking down on the side of the road like happened last week. If it's our lucky day, she invites us back to her house for a sampling of her latest pies, tarts, or torts or whatever other scrumptious British concoction she's whipped up. She also serves ice-cold sweet tea made from a certain dried tree leaf in her garden. It's better than Bojangles!! By the time we get back home, we're too lazy to do anything but take a nap in the hammock or watch Dr. Who on Netflix. (which, by the way, we can only get season 1-3 on South American Netflix! No more Matt Smith for us.) Dinner is Olivia's left-overs.

Wild Wednesdays- Again we meet at the Kingdom Hall at 8:30 for service. Those who want to, pile 20 deep in a brother's pick-up truck and we drive an hour down the road to go preach in tiny pueblos where you can't believe people live. If we want to be home before the driver does, we're on our own to catch the next bus back to Tena. The bus only comes once an hour and doesn't stop unless you do a funny dance and flag it down. The bus comes from Banos, a tourist town 3 hours away, so when you finally board, it's usually standing-room only for the whole hour's drive. At least there's a movie playing...if the TV works.

Thursday- Back to the homeshcooling, cooking, and cleaning. Since Joe comes home from work in the early afternoon, this is when we have family worship and can prepare for the service meeting. After dinner, it's time to leave for the Kingdom Hall so we can get there before it starts at 7pm. We usually leave enough time to catch the local bus. It's 60 cents for our family to ride. Sometimes we ride the same bus as Rita and Woody or other brothers. If we're running late, we flag a taxi for $1.

Friday- Anything goes. Carlie may be finishing up a school project or report. I may have some shopping to do. I may go with Jessamyn or Rita on a Bible study. We might catch the bus and ride 40 minutes to the pueblo of Misahualli to see the monkeys.Whatever happens on Fridays, it's for sure that we'll go with a group of friends to Iguana that night, our favorite American-style eatery here in town. It opens at 6pm but we make plans to meet at 6:30. We go early and let Carlie play at the park across the street. That counts as her Spanish lessons too, playing with all the kids there.

Saturday- We usually go preaching here in town starting again at 8:30am. If the territory is on one side of town, and we go on a Bible study on the opposite side of town (which is usually the case) we only have time to do like 4 doors of house-to-house in order to make it back for the study.  By the time we do the 4th door, the temps are already in the high 90s. We walk everywhere using an umbrella for shade, but usually take the Line 1 bus back home. If I don't have to work online, we might go swimming. Watchtower study, bed early if we can.

Sunday- No sleeping in. Our Sunday meeting is at 8:30am. I get up in time to walk to the closest bakery and come back and scramble eggs and get the coffee going. The smell of warm bread and coffee is usually enough to wake Joe. Carlie's a different story. We never make it to the bus-stop in time on Sunday's. We're always chasing down a taxi in our skirts, tie and bookbags. "The church on Cuenca street", we say in Spanish to the driver. Our hall is a simple but clean building with ceiling fans and plastic chairs to sit in. We usually have about 100 in attendance including studies and visitors.

After the meeting I get out my grocery list. The main super market, which is about the size of a large CVS, is on the corner. We always head to the store and pick up snacks for later or anything you can only find there for the upcoming week. It's THE place to be and be seen on Sunday, and we usually run into 20 other sisters shopping there as well as all our neighbors. After waiting in line for 58 minutes behind one person, we finally make it out of there alive and take a taxi home with all our goodies. We're usually invited over to someone's house to eat lunch on Sundays and then swim with a group in the river. Often, the brothers also play soccer after that. I try not to schedule myself to work on Sunday evenings so that we can benefit as a family from the wholesome recreation.

Sunday is Carlie's favorite day of the week. Mine is Monday because I love having Olivia's help accomplishing things in 100 degree heat. Joe's favorite day of the week is Friday night beers at Iguana. Joe also enjoys weekend nights because sometimes he gets some side-work as a bartender at a beautiful jungle lodge that a brother owns. Whiskey sours for everyone!

Well, that wraps up our week. Sunday nights for me is spent writing a grocery list for Olivia so we can wake up and start all over again. But like I said, this is Ecuador. I'm not sure there's even a literal translation for the word routine. That's something just to keep us Americans sane.

THE MORNING AFTER

Last night was sad for me. It was a tear-in-my-beer kind of night and I had noone to share my woes with besides the occasional flying ant. Today I woke up determined to have a better day.

 I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I looked out of my french-door windows just as a huge yellow butterfly fluttered past. It had rained all night and the fog was lifting over the distant mountains. Clouds were resting on the towering Sumaca volcano like a Panama hat and a double rainbow was shooting forth from it. What homesickness?

I went into the bathroom to take a shower. No electricity, which meant a cold shower because...well, this is Ecuador and of course most showers are now run on electricity instead of gas tanks like when we lived here before. The shower lasted long enough for me to get decently clean. I jumped out and grabbed a towel. There was my landlord, Elena, peeking at me through the window. She was asking me if the electricity was back on. She orderd me to check. Yep. It had just come back on.

Tank-top barely on and my hair still wet, there was a knock at the back door. Again it was Elena. She was introducing me to the electrician who had come to fix the light connections that yesterday's carpenter had accidentally torn out. Within five minutes of learning that I was American he asked if I was married. When I said yes, he acted as if I was a liar since Joe and Carlie are still in Quito and he didn't see any evidence of them. "OMG, I need coffee", I muttered to myself.

As the water for my coffee was boiling, Elena ducked back into my house via the back door that she had left open. She told me she was going to cut off our shared Wi-fi connection because she can't afford the bills anymore. Her ex-husband husband isn't sending her any money and her grown children hate her. She began to cry and there I am, hugging and comforting her in my own kitchen like she's my baby. She wipes her tears on my tank-top and looks up at me. "You're only having coffee for breakfast? That's not good", she cries.

The electrician begins to drill through the wooden jail cell that the carpenter put in yesterday. I can feel a hint of a head-ache creeping in. Elena's dogs are barking outside, my dogs are barking inside and the electrician is interrupting Elena's dramatic melt-down to ask me if my dogs are vicious. Elena interrupts him to ask me if she can have the broken bed that the neighbor gave us to borrow. The parts have been sitting in my bedroom for two weeks, next to the other bed that Elena let us borrow. That's yet another story...

Anyway, the electrician, who's name I learn is Galo, finally leaves after coming back again because he "forgot" his tools. Elena also leaves so she can go gossip with the neighbors. All the dogs in the world stop barking and I'm finally alone with my hot coffee. I sit down at my breakfast table and take that long-awaited sip. The milk for my coffee had spoiled and it was the most horrible sip of death ever. The home-sickness returns.

THE CARPENTER

With temperatures in the 100s each day, I've been complaining a lot to our landlord how hot our house gets inside. At 5pm when it's in the 80s, our house is still hovering around 98. I was at my limit with this house when Joe had to carry me to the cold shower the other day because I got heat exhaustion in my own kitchen. I told Elena, the landlord, that we would be looking for a new, cooler apartment. She immediatly called a carpenter to see what could be done. She wasn't about to lose paying tennants after just 3 weeks.

I got home today from house-sitting at Jessamyn's around 1pm after watching all her DVDs. In the courtyard of our home was the carpenter, all of 5 feet tall, sledge-hammer in hand. Elena knocked on my door and apologized ahead of time for the mayhem they were about to impose.
"I was about to go to the grocery store anyway", I said.
"Don't worry, pay Olivia a few cents and she'll go for you," Elena snapped.
Olivia is our shared maid who does whatever you tell her to do for $8 a day. She has no husband and several grown children who mooch off of her. I have no doubt that there are days when Olivia doesn't eat. Although poor myself, I try to come up with jobs for her just so she can have a dollar or two in her pocket. I gave her $5 and off she went to buy some chicken and veggies for my soup. I let her have the change and she was thrilled.

Meanwhile, Carlos the Carpenter was busy sawing a hole through the wall. We live in a slatted wooden cabin and he and Elena decided to open it up more to let air pass more easily between the front and back parts of our house. The final result was a wooden slatted "window" that looks more like a wooden jail cell in my living room. This makes now the second indoor window we have, the first being in our bedroom and overlooking the kitchen. Odd, I know. As I'm cooking my soup Elena proceeds to redirect my attention to clearing off my other countertop so that Carlos the Carpenter can stand on top of them. Within seconds of me moving my glassware, he's swinging the sledgehammer between the wall and fiberglass roof. Cement was flying all over my kitchen, and before it was all said and done with, the remains of what used to be part of my kitchen wall was sitting broken in a wheelbarrow. It was still 98 degrees in my kitchen, or maybe hotter since now the soup was boiling.
"Wow! Feel that cool breeze," said Elena. "Tomorrow I'll buy another water-hose so we can rinse your roof when it starts to sizzle".

I guess I can tell my friends that I basically live in a wooden tent now because I feel like I'm camping outside in the elements. Except tents are pretty secure when it comes to keeping out bugs. In our home here I might as well leave out the Welcome mat for any type of creature that stops by for some left-over soup. Even as I type this, a kite-sized moth is hovering above. My chihuahuas are afraid that it will swoop down and eat them. Elena is making plans to have a capenter put in screens in our windows- a luxury here in Tena. But she won't hire Carlos ever again.
"He's a crook," she grumbled as she mopped the dust off my kitchen floor. "He charged me $15 just to do those two things".

LIGHTS OUT

No sleeping in. We live next door to a high-school and each morning we are awakened with bells, sirens and the principal giving a very loud 'have-a-great-school-day' speech in a mega-phone. Halfway between dreaming and reality, I always think it's Joe yelling at me in Spanish to get up and cook breakfast. So I did. It was 7a.m.

Today was another hot one. Real feel was 105, according to accuweather.com. I was inside teaching online and Joe and Carlie were living it up in the pool, trying out Carlie's new dolphin float I bought her yesterday. It was hot, I was hungry and I was done cooking for the day. Time to go out to dinner. After Joe and Carlie showered and dressed, I texted my new British friend  Eleanor (who was raised in Zimbabwe and had me over earlier today for iced tea and lemon tarts) and she suggested we all meet at a burger joint called Brutus. (Yes, the one from Popeye) But it was closed, so we walked over to our favorite hang-out, Iguana.(Iguana is the same outdoor restaurant that a random six year old off the street walked up to our table the other night and finished drinking Jessamyn's drink and then walked away without so much as a thank you.)  Eleanor and her husband Gary never met up with us. Their car had broken down and they had bigger fish to fry.

At Iguana the American music was thumping and the BBQ wings were the best I've had in my life. Carlie was enjoying drinking her Nestea and Joe was wolfing down his cheeseburger. We were right in the middle of naming that tune (Beck, Spice Girls and Beyonce) when all of a sudden the power in the entire town of Tena went out. Little screams could be heard across the street at the park where about 75 kids had been playing. Each parent lit up thier cell-phones to find their corresponding kids. At Iguana, the music stopped and we were left to stop mid-chew staring at nothing but the millions of stars above us. As some of the other customers scrambled away in the darkness as to avoid having to pay for dinner, we sat there holding hands until our waitress brought us a candle--which only attracted a million mosquitos and other odd flying creatures. We ordered another beer and kept singing to inaudible music. Finally we paid and left. As we were walking through the middle of the street in the dark (to avoid stepping on dog poop or tripping on broken sidewalks) I couldn't resist the urge to relieve myself of some of the beer. Doing as other Ecuadorians do, I found a drain hole in the road that would serve that purpose. Midstream, a motorcycle flew past me with its brights on, lighting up all of Tena and...my backside. I've never heard Joe and Carlie laugh so hard.

Back on the main road, Quince de Noviembre, every resident of Tena was outside acting as if this was the event of the millenium. Apparently it isn't very often that the power goes out in the whole city, just certain areas. But everyone was prepared for just such an event. Food carts were lit with candles inside of plastic cups, diners still ate at restaurants lit with candles, teenagers roamed the bridge over the river with cell phones lit, a cart loaded with jungle trinkets was lit with a tiny flashlight overhead. It was something out of the movies with all the candles, and a lone bar that had a generator with the lights still on. We flagged a taxi in the darkness and took it to Jessamyn's house. She had no power either, but wanted us to briefly meet her dad and grandma who just flew in from the States. We laughed all the way there with the taxi driver who joked that the lights were out because Tena forgot to pay the light bill.

By the time our visit at Jessamyn's was coming to a close, the lights came back on. We were relieved, because Jess lives on a very dark road by the river and it would have been a fiasco trying to manuever our way back to the main road. All in all, we had a great time tonight and forgot we have to get up early tomorrow to go to Quito, 5 hours away, to register our Visas. Good thing we have an automatic alarm clock at the highschool on megaphone. We're still not sure how to explain it, but Tena keeps growing on us each day.

LONG AWAITED

Here is the long-awaited blog  post about our new life here in Tena, Ecuador. And yet the title also signifies finally begining the long-awaited life we've been wanting since our return to the States in 2008. This post is dedicated to the friends and family I miss so much and wish I could fly (and bus) them here to see what all the fuss is about.

Day 1:
Our hostel provided a private van ride from Quito to Tena. It takes four hours to get to Tena because it's downhill, but five back to Quito. We passed through the outskirts of Quito, the capital of the country, and whizzed passed farms and random llamas. Soon we were in the middle of Mars-like terrain passing nothing but silent paramo grasses and an occasional waterfall. Noone in the van talked, as if our passing up and down these mountains was some kind of sacred pilgrimage not to be disgraced by chit-chat. Over the following mountain we arrived at other pueblos, some with one lone stop-light for the 5 people who live there. (none of whom own a car!) At each pueblo, Joe's face read, "I hope this isn't Tena. I hope this isn't Tena..." Carlie slept most of the way. On the decent of the last mountain before Tena, thick fog lay on our van like a velvet cloak. We had to crawl around steep curves and prayed that we were on the correct side of the road. Sometimes bamboo would jut out through a cloud and over the windshield, knocked over by a previous rainstorm, or we'd drive through an impromptu stream. I began to peel off some of the layers I was wearing. The fog lifted. Palm trees and sandal-wearing locals surounded us.We finally made it to Tena. "So this is Tena," Joe said with a hint of delight in his voice.

Week 1:
For the first week we lived with Jessamyn & Aedyn, a friend of mine and her son, in their home. We slept on the bottom bunk, Carlie slept on the top, and all our luggage slept in the third bedroom. Every night that week while getting dressed for bed we'd run across a huge roach the length of a No. 2 pencil and every morning while relaxing in her hammock on the front porch, we'd spot a tarantula in the grass. The "culture shock" really came when we'd help Jessamyn prepare a meal and have to try to keep tiny ant-like spiders out of the pots and pans as we cooked, or the bigger black ants out of the scraps of food left on our plates. But worse than the bugs was the heat. Never in our lives have we experienced such heat and humidity without any relief from some minutes of AC. Even when we've visited places throughout the Carribean and Mexico, at least we've had an air-conditined lair to return to after hanging out all day at the pool or beach. Tena is the Carribean minus the AC for tourists and, of course, the beach. One morning I checked an online weather website. It was 9am and 101 degrees. And just when you think you can't take the heat anymore and you're about to slit your throat in delerium, a violent thunderstorm will swoop down from the surrounding mountains and cool things off by no less than 20 degrees. Still, daily life in "only" 85 degree weather with no AC, having to walk to the grocery store that's a good 3 miles away and carry all your goods back on foot if you don't have the extra money for a taxi is no picnic for someone used to a two minute air-conditioned drive to Trader Joe's. Near the end of week one, we were all often in companionship of Jessamyn's toilet and I was crying myself to sleep from lonliness. I missed my friends, my family, "normal" food and every convenience under the sun. "These locals have no idea how hard they have it", I pondered. "I think I hate it here", I told Joe. At this point, the only positive thing I could name about living here was that we had lost some weight. Then came Sunday.

Sunday:
We were introduced by Jessamyn to Gary and Eleanor, a couple who moved here from Ireland 18 years ago with their four young kids. Now empty-nesters, they invited us to their lovely home for a gourmet meal , complete with orange-liquour poundcake, outside under a grass-thatched roof. It was 96 degrees in the shade, but as I sipped on the lime-flavored tea, I felt myself not caring so much. Afterwards, a few other friends including a couple of children Carlie's age, piled into Gary's van and they drove us to a spot on the river that's clean and paradise-like. There was about 20 of us in all and we swam the rest of the afternoon under waterfalls and in currents so cold it took my breath away. Carlie had fun learning Spanish with her new Ecuadorian friends and jumping off of rocks into her daddy's awaiting arms. At one point I took her aside and we sat on a rock together looking off into the dense green distance. "We live in the Amazon now," I whispered as I held her wet hand. She simply nodded without even looking at me, as if we've lived here her whole life and I'm dumb enough to just now realize that. She dove back into the water to collect rocks with her new friends and left me alone staring at the flaming sunset over the jungle trees. "It's not so bad here," I thought.

Week two:
By the middle of week two we had found our own home, moved in, and had begun to make it our own. Carlie hung a hand-painted poster on her wall, I folded all my new yellow dish-towels, Joe cleaned out and refilled our landlord's above-ground pool. The days were still hot and hard, but the evenings balanced it out with trips to the local public pool (complete with slides and wooden diving boards) with Aedyn and Jessamyn or our new favorite outdoor restaurant, Iguana, for cheeseburgers and a cold beer. I was crying less, missing NC less, and even making more friends. "I love it here," Joe blurted out one morning as we drank coffee on the balcony off our bedroom. (where I'm still sitting now as I type this) Two parrots and a hummingbird flew by. "It's not so bad," I answered.

Week 3:

It's almost week three. It's still crazy hot, bugs still come in and out of our house like they pay the rent, the food in general is still pretty gross and our feet are constantly dirty from walking in the streets thick with river dust and mud. But today, Sunday, we were invited to another lunch with our other new friends Rita and Woody from Florida. Through them, we met 11 other new friends. Among them was Abbey, the daughter of Gary and Eleanor, who is now a 28 year old adult. She speaks perfect Spanish and guides tourists on river rafting trips. She helped Rita serve the chicken over rice as she told Carlie her adventures of growing up as an Irish blonde girl in the Amazon 18 years ago; stories of being pushed off cliffs into the rivers below  by her two brothers or how she went to public school here and learned to love lemons stuffed with salt as an after-school snack or about the pet monkey named Elvis they once had but had to give away because he kept eating all the family's food out of the fridge.(Elvis finally kicked the bucket when he accidentally ate poison) Then she told us how she earns extra money, working as a kayak guide in western Canada once a year. Of course this led to more stories about confrontations in her trailor with moose, bear and wild squirrles. Carlie's eyes were wide and she hung on Abbey's every word. "I really like it here, " Carlie finally admitted on the twenty minute walk home, dodging huge cracks in the broken sidewalk and dog poop.

 On the corner, I flagged down a taxi and took it to Jessamyn's house. We can't afford a washing machine, so she's been letting me do laundery at her house and I needed to go pick it up. When I arrived, Jessamyn was just awaking from her afternoon siesta and Aedyn was Skyping his grandpa who is coming to visit tomorrow from the States. The afternoon sun was hot, but not unbearable as I gathered my laundry off the line. "I like your capris", Jessamyn said as she handed me a cool glass of water. I looked down and realized I had worn basically pants in 90 degree weather to Rita and Woody's and now, getting my clothes off the line in the sun, I still was not too hot. I guess I'm starting to get accustomed to being baked alive. She handed me her house keys. We'll be house-sitting for her while she's touring her dad around Ecuador next week. Jess is my first really good friend here. She's really helped me to endure these first few hard weeks and I couldn't have done it without her. I picked up my huge laundery basket, about as tall as I am, and walked about a half-mile up the road carrying it in the evening sun so as to catch a taxi on the main road back to our place. My taxi driver was impressed when I told him I was from the States, (just seven hours south of New York City) but that I've now made Tena my home. "Por que?" (why?) he asked with amusement watching me hold my laundry basket in my lap to avoid it tipping out. "Because I love it here", I answered back in his language. The words just popped out before I could help myself! And then I realized I meant it.

And so there it is. We've lived in Tena, Ecuador just three short weeks and we've already fallen in love with a place that has more cons than pros. I'm not sure how that happened, but I feel blessed that it did.

Deer Friend

This morning I had the left-over quiche for breakfast as I hurried off to work. Although tasty, it wasn’t what my stomach really wanted so early in the morning. This is what I usually have for a quick breakfast: mix four parts plain European-style yogurt, one part canned organic pumpkin puree, and agave to sweeten. Just a side note so I don’t have to type it each time: I buy all my food organic when possible. My reasons for this are health, taste, environmental, and simply to support local farmers. To support your own garden Google info on buying organic seeds from Fedco. Lunch was steamed veggies over brown rice, which I had to choke down on my 15 minute break. Boy was work busy today! Then when my shift was over I had to fight rush-hour traffic over to my friend Karen’s house to pick up my daughter. She got to play with her two best friends today and mommy got to sell (and lift) 100 cases of Charles Shaw. When I finally arrived home there was a deer in my yard. It looked just like Bambi in his teenage years. My daughter and I didn’t get too excited. Deer in our yard is as common as cats in alleys. But then it started to come closer. ..and closer... and closer! Within a minute or so I was petting Bambi on the nose! I know it sounds like I am making this up, but I am not. Bambi then walked over and said hello to my daughter. The whole world seemed to stop and even my neighbors stopped their cars or came out of their house to see this rare occurrence. It’s truly something I’ll remember for a very long time to come. Yes, I may have rabies, but at least I can still cook and blog… for now. Tonight was a simple meal because no one was too hungry. We had roasted cauliflower and pan-fried cod. Easy to make: chop a head of fresh cauliflower into bite-size bits and put into a shallow baking dish. Squeeze a whole lemon on top, then drizzle with Sicilian olive oil and sea salt. Stir it up until each piece is coated. Bake 45 minutes on 350. Throw your pieces of rinsed cod (or whatever fish you like to fry) into a gallon size zip-lock bag filled with bread crumbs, Trader Joe’s 21 Season Salute, and some sea salt. Dance like you have ants in your pants until the fish is well coated. Have your fry pan hot and ready with like maybe 1/3 c. of canola oil. (I never measure anything) Cook for about 4 minutes on each side. Done!

About Me

 

  

 

First of all I’m typing this as well as trying to watch a Ken Burns film so that should give you a hint as to what kind of girl I am. I love history. Most couples perhaps spend their tenth anniversary on a cruise around the Bahamas or some other beach that makes me yawn. My husband and I were touring around Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin with our German friends. We conversed about our itinerary over spaghetti dinner in the flat we rented near the Sony Center.  In Amsterdam my first stop was the Anne Frank house, not the Red Light district. I also love food as much as travel and history. Well, probably more. In each country or city I have visited, I can remember a specific meal I enjoyed there: Indonesian platters in Utrecht. Apple pie with clotted cream at Sally Lunn’s in Bath. Ceviche in Sosua. Clam chowder in a sour dough bowl in Monterey. A donner in Hamburg. And hopefully I can add paella and tapas in Madrid soon. I love to eat, cook, and dream about food. No, I'm not fat. I collectively have worked at either a grocery store or restaurant for about 6 years just to surround myself with food. My husband has worked at a restaurant supply warehouse for most of our marriage which keeps me outfitted with the latest kitchen goodies. I am blessed with a kid who can name almost any vegetable in two or three languages and eats them like most kids eat candy. Most people are on here blogging about Brangelina or their favorite TV show. I’m blogging my favorite recipes and the stories that encircle them. I’m half Italian. I can’t help this. Red wine flows through me in place of blood, an artichoke heart pumps it. If it’s from a franchise I won’t eat it. If that makes me a stuck-up foodie, guilty. I could go on and on about how I love good food, but that’s what the blog is for, so I’ll save my gushing. This is not “Julia and Julia”.  I write this blog for me and anyone who happens to stumble upon it or purposely is drawn to it by similar interests. I’m not online looking for followers, people to post comments, “friends”, or tweeters. You, the individual reading this, realizes I am out shopping the farmer’s markets,  borrowing cookbooks from neighbors, planting or harvesting something fresh in my garden, having wine and cheese parties with dear friends, reading up on how to build a chicken coop, or watching Rick Steves on PBS for hints on my next excursion. I’m not here online to hang out. My snack for watching Ken Burn’s: Trader Joe’s all-natural peanut butter pretzels and a glass of cold water.

Good Enough For a Rat

So how did the ratatouille turn out, you may ask? AMAZING. I first fell in love with this recipe when we lived on the equator. This is also where I adopted my new philosophies on food. Shopping daily in the market and speaking with the farmers who also happened to be my neighbors, I decided to always eat fresh. Fresh to me means eating food that had a life--recently. Living there, it also meant drinking milk from the cow I called by first name, eating eggs that needed to be washed since they still had actual bird poop on the shell, eating fish with its original head still attached, boiling  tea from bushes on trails I hiked, and sometimes, unfortunately, water so fresh it still had things in it that also continued to live inside my tummy. That’s a bit too fresh but you get the point. What was I talking about, anyway? Oh yeah, the ratatouille. So one day in the market I decided to get all the ingredients to make it. At the time it was one of my little  girl’s favorite movies, so I thought it would be nice to make a project out of it. We lived in a world where everything was foreign- from the language to even the altitude- and I wanted to make my daughter feel comforted by something familiar to her. I soon learned it was this foreign world that comforted her most. She had already conquered the strangeness of it and truly made it her home. After making many new friends and taking some cooking lessons to learn the recipes of the land, finally so did I. The secret to a great pot of rat: roast the peppers under the broiler until the skin scorches, use only fresh herbs, and simmer for at least 40 minutes. I served this along with brown rice cooked in veggie broth and a glass of “Well Read”.  

 

Snow Daze...II?

 

 

This is day two of the big I-40 storm that crossed like from Colorado to Wrighstville beach, NC. We got six inches, which is enough to empty the shelves of any grocery store or mini-mart within miles, beer and fritos usually the first to go. My grocery cart was full of veggies for my famous soups, stews, and salads. (oh my!) Since my blog is mainly about food, wine, and friends I will start off by saying we had wonderful homemade blueberry pancakes today with warm agave syrup, spinach omelettes, and mango slices. Organic decaf coffee made an appearance too. Lunch will be ratatouille made by my daughter and I after we watch the movie for the 700 millionth time. Hopefully that counts as dinner too so I don't spend all day cooking. We'll soon head over for more sledding at Hayes and Nicole's house and then indoors for a nice fire, games, and snacks. That's about all going on here. Back to work tomorrow...

 

  

  

  

 

Snow Daze

So we ended up getting 6 inches of snow, which equals an inch per episode of "LOST" season 5 I watched under the blankets in my pjs. Dude, stinko for Juliett. Anyway, as hard as it was to peel the pjs off we finally did it and drove down the road to our friend's home for a bit of sled action. (They live just far enough away not to hike in the snow with a kid) They live on a huge hill that basically counts as a mini-mountain. After about 45 minutes, we called it quits. Why suffer in the miserable dampness of the snowy evening when a roaring fire and unlimited glasses of Prosecco awaited us? Exactly. Our friends, Hayes and Nicole, live in beautiful cabin home surrounded by deep woods. They have lots of curtainless picture windows in which the likes of cardinals, blue jays, and baltimore orioles came up to feed at the tiny troughs on the outside sill. The Prosecco was traded in for a wonderful bubbly from Spain to get us in the mood for our trip to Madrid in a few weeks. We four helped to prepare dinner: a lovely root veggie stew with yams, butternut squash, turnips, onions, olive oil, and dried herbs from their garden. I also did up some garlic, herb, and olive oil bread under the broiler. We invited their neighbor Karen over, who has some neat job studying poultry and fowl. She brought over some amazing home-cooked collards and we ate and ate and ate while discussing everything from Karen's son who lives in Florence, Italy to what we were all putting in our upcoming communal gardens. My little girl helps feed and care for Karen's horses and loves all things Karen. Karen left after dinner to care for her six dogs and eighteen cats and the rest of us sat around the fireplace until Hayes busted out the Oreos, which he dropped most on the floor and I think ate waaay after the 30 second rule. Time to go.
I was going to post a  picture of snow. But it was from my trip to Canada with my sister, not from here, so that would be like lying which I feel uncomfortable with. I thought I may be able to get away with it, but Niagara Falls was in the background and for you smarties out there you probably would know it's not NC.