Impromptu Adventures, Banana Cake, and “Stressica”

Hello my loves!
(I wrote this Tuesday night..)

I thought about changing it up a bit and saving the weekend adventures until last, but that would not make much sense. I left my house early Friday morning to meet up with Sophie and Emily to start our journey to Papallacta…or so we thought. The plan was to spend a relaxing two days close to Quito, hike, and take advantage of some thermal baths…but that plan changed shortly after getting on the bus. We decided that we were not being adventurous enough and that we should take advantage of the fact that there is a jungle in Ecuador, and decided to extend our journey another 4 hours to Tena. We got off of the bus at a crossroads, and waited for a bus that would take us to Tena. After experiencing one of the most bumpy bus rides ever, we ended up in a cute little town in the Orient with 13 other students from CIMAS! I felt HEAT for the first time since I´ve been here and felt that I had finally arrived to the Ecuador that I had envisioned. ;o)

We visited a park where we swam in the Rio Tena and saw some jungle animals (monkeys, parrots, a TUCAN, snaaakes..eep, and some animals that I had never seen before). On Saturday we got up early to explore the town, then went to visit some caves in another town near by. Our guide taught us how to take advantage of the mud baths inside of the caves, and that we did! :o) When we were climbing up out of the cave, I thought I was in the middle of a movie. As we climbed up, we saw more and more light, and we climbed out onto land where it was raining…beautiful! Overall, a great way to spend our last weekend traveling together before we all move to our internship sights.

Last night, I attempted to make banana bread with my host mom. I was excited to show her one of my very favorite foods from home, but that is not exactly how it turned out. First, she did all of the cooking. She insisted that I do not know how to cook and that I should watch her so that when I get married someday I will know what to do. I thought to myself, “We are making banana bread, this is not gourmet cooking. I think I can handle it.” But I did not worry about it too much and let her “teach me.” She proceeded to let me know that we needed more butter than the recipe called for and added a TON of baking powder, some vanilla, and suggested that I put raisins on the top (note: our bread was put into a circular pan). I did not want to give in completely, so I put raisins on half…bahaha! Our creation turned out while, although not exactly the banana bread that I love…instead, we have more of a banana cake…but that works too! :o)

And that brings us to today. This is our last week in Quito, and unfortunately we have to write an essay before the week is over. The essay was supposed to be a group essay, but our professor decided that our track should write it individually, which is great, but I think I hit the biggest creativity block EVERR today. I thought that I had something great to write about, but quickly realized that my idea went way beyond the scope of what we have learned about education, so I decided to start from scratch. I secluded myself in the basement of CIMAS and listened to my ipod and I started to answer a list of questions that our professor had given us as a starting point. One of the last questions on the sheet was, “How has what you have learned in the track of education changed your perception of Ecuador/Latin America?” I´m not sure exactly why that question made me think, but it did. It made me think that I have learned a lot about this country, especially when it comes to education, and I think I have created a special place in my heart of Ecuador without even realizing it. It has been amazing to experience a developing country. But this country is more than developing…it is a country with aspirations for a better life, with motivation to make improvements where there are challenges. I am lucky to be here.

Well, I am off to bed in hopes of avoiding “Stressica” tomorrow! :o)

Abrazos,
Jessica