Fiesta!

A FAREWELL TO JANI...

This weekend we hosted a fiesta in our apartment. What was initially planned to be a small gathering of the English teachers grew to a party of 35 people (mas or menos). And…although we initially expected guests to bring only a beverage and/or snack for the party, by the end of the week, the Ecuadorians had organized a full feast with three types of spaghetti, two dishes of meat and homemade dessert. To Sara, a person who prefers proper advanced planning, it felt a bit like chaos. And, the kitchen DID look like chaos from about 8pm until 10pm when dinner was finally served. In keeping with the custom, every guest was personally served with a full plate of food (We pushed for the buffet line but got overruled). Fortunately, our “super” kind neighbors (the family who owns our building) loaned us plates, silverware, chairs and even their dining room table.

Guests slowly began arriving around 8pm. As is custom here in Ecuador, EVERYONE is provided with a handshake or kiss to the cheek upon greeting. As the room filled it up, it was interesting to watch each new guest make the full circle to greet everyone in the room. The only odd thing is that despite there being an emphasis on greeting everyone, people rarely give their names. Many people came and went without us knowing their name.

Without much furniture, we were able to leave plenty of room for the dance floor (as requested by the other teachers). As we are learning, the traditional arrangement for parties is a large circle of chairs with an open center floor for dancing. The dancing started almost immediately. Although we as Americans may prefer to ease into it after a few cocktails, the Ecuadorians go straight to dancing. As the hosts, Ben and I were asked to warm up the dance floor to encourage others to dance (maybe it’s a tradition although we never determined it). Imagine us doing our American style dance in the middle of a large circle of Ecuadorians. UN-com-fort-a-ble to say the least! They don’t give much credit for head bobbing or arm moving here. It’s all in the hips….

The party was in honor of Jani (the other Ellensburgian who hired us for SEI and made our adventure here possible). Jani is returning to the United States on Friday. In her honor, two teachers put on the traditional clothing of the indigenous people here and entertained us with a traditional dance. It was a sweet tribute to our fellow gringo.

Scrub-A-Dub-Dub

Rain, rain go away. Come again …when we don’t need to do laundry!

Doing laundry can be a bit of a drag wherever you live, but upon moving to Ecuador we realized what a luxury it is to have a washer and dryer at home. As a general practice, laundry here is washed by hand and hung out to dry… sometimes for days to dry because of the rain. Dryers are not very common (we think) because of the cost, but also because every week you can usually count on at least a couple of hours of hot sun to get the job done. Its amazing how fast the ambient tepurature rises when the sun is out.  Sometimes it’s a matter of patience.

Like almost all apartment buildings in the city, we have a laundry facility on the rooftop which consists of a concrete washing sink (because everything here is made of concrete) and wire clotheslines. Well...most, as far as we can tell, although we regularly see families washing their laundry in the river on a sunny Sunday afternoon. If we have sun, we wash by hand. If we have rain, and no clean clothes, we take it to the lavendería. It’s about $8 bucks for two medium-size bags of laundry- which we accumulate in about a week. Drop it off at 10am, Pick it up at 3pm. It’s washed, dried even folded for us-- not bad, right!? However, given that we are attempting to live only on our Ecuadorian income and travel as much as possible, saving $8 bucks here and there can quickly add up to a night in a hostel or a lovely 12 hour bus ride to a new destination. So, we utilize the rooftop laundry facility as often as possible. Unfortunately, in terms of conservation of water, washing machines seem to be more efficient …. And easier on the hands.

We like to get up to the rooftop in the morning before it’s too hot and in order to give things all day to dry. It takes about an hour of scrubbing, rinsing, wringing and hanging (that is the present-continuous tense for those of you who are wondering) to wash a week’s worth of clothes, but when we’re done we like to see it as $8 earned, which is almost a day’s salary for some people here, and a good arm workout! Also, considering we are living on our Ecuadorian income without use of debit and credit cards, it’s something to consider.

End of Hunger Project

We wanted you all to be aware of a great project our friend Derek Bauer is working on in Los Angeles. He is trying to raise funds for the final stretch of a documentary called "The End of Hunger." He and his film partner, Geoff Erwin, have launched a fund raising effort on kickstarter.com to raise $15,000 in donations to cover post-production costs and get it submitted to the Sundace Film Festival by September. This has been a 7 year project including two trips to Africa and interviews with many influencial people from around the world. If you can afford to make a donation, please do so by clicking on the link at the right. This is a totally non-profit project and every penny is appreciated. Cheers!

Loja Academia de Béisbol vs. SEI

Today we faced off against the Loja baseball academy in a more spirited game than the previous one. The field, once again, was a modified "futbol cancha" but it was on the property of the local military academy so it was much nicer. The whole field was grass so it made fielding a little less intimidating for the kids. Anyhow, they showed more signs of improvement as the result of a couple of full team practices last week. It was a more select group of kids narrowed down from 22 to 13 (which was a little painful in itself) so we were able to focus a little more on the particulars. The kids did great and were able to hit, field and understand a little more about the nuances of the game.
In the end we lost 14 - 21 (yes, it was a baseball game) but the kids staged a great comeback in the 5th inning scoring about 8 runs and batting around with 2 outs. Fortunately that is what they took with them as they left the field. The other team did great as well and were excellent competition for us.
And yes, I pitched again, but only to our team. My ERA must be at least 15.00 by now.

Our new and improved field.

The coach of the other team, Alex, pitching with our fielder at his side.

Béisbol; Stranger in a strange land.

Over the past few weeks many of you have been inquiring as to how the baseball program is coming along, so I thought I would provide you a wrap up of events thus far. The most important thing to understand is that baseball is truly a unique sport down here and our school is especially unusual for offering it. I have detirmined the best analogy for this situation is that teaching baseball to Ecuadorean kids is akin to teaching Eskimo children how to surf.  It’s not that they are incapable, but rather there is very little cultural background or understanding of the game. For example, Loja is a city of over 200,000 people and as far as I have determined there is not a single baseball diamond to be found. I once asked to see the field where the other team in town practices and was driven to an empty lot where litter mingled with tall weeds.

This was both good and bad at the outset. On the one hand it was like working with a clean slate (no bad habbits), and on the other hand it was difficult to explain why they had to learn how to throw and catch as well as hit (which is naturally way more fun).So after months of watching kids run to third base when they hit the ball and cover their face with the mit when the ball is thrown to them, they have shown enough improvement to have an actual game.

Warm up before the "partido".

For months they have begged for a "partido", but until now it would have been impossible to have anything that resembled an actual game. We started with the basics like hitting from a tee (made of welded metal and flexible hose) and playing catch. I learned a few drills online and from books and the other coach helped me to learn some basic Spanish commands like "run" and "catch". We practiced with soft-toss into the soccer goals and started playing kickball to get to know the field and understand the game. They loved it..... well most of them. The natural athletes took to it pretty quick, especially those who have been playing tennis. There are also a few who would prefer to stab pencils into their eyes... or stay at school and study.

Me conversing with the other coach, Max, who speaks less English than I do Spanish. Makes for some interesting and sometimes confusing conversation.

Anyhow, last week we selected 22 of the best players (out of the 50 or so that have baseball class) and we formed 2 teams. It was not easy selecting the players and naturally some feelings were hurt and parents were upset, but this is the way it goes I guess. We were given 2 hours to play our first game during the school day on a nearby soccer field. Given the recent rain, it was a little pitted and bumpy but by the time the chalk lines were put down and the bases were laid out it sort of looked like a baseball field.

Half of the team waiting to bat.

And to say the least I was truly impressed with their performance. Almost all of them hit the ball at least once and some of them hit it hard. They had a few infield plays to first base and even caught a few infield flys. The outfielding still needs some work but that seems to come later in the States as well.

I haven't done this since little leauge. It's probably best for everyone.

Notice the short porch in right. The downside of using a "soccer diamond".

So after 5 innings and a score of 23-20 (it was that exciting!) we had completed our first official game. The only part that I didn't enjoy was pitching for two and a half hours in the afternoon sun. I was exausted when it was over but also a little relieved. They have actually been learning something all this time. Who knew?

Stay tuned, because the next big game is on Tuesday when we match up against the local baseball academy which is run by a Cuban ex-pat. They practice 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. Should be a pretty rude awakening for our team but also a good chance to see how good they can become with a lot more practice.

Terremoto in Chile

Many of you have asked about the earthquake in Chile and if we had been impacted by it. Fortunately the answer is no, everything here is business as usual. At school this morning there was a prayer said before class, and we have several teachers who have family there. The quake was felt as far away as coastal Brazil, but we are quite aways from the Chilean border.

That said, Ecuador is definitely prone to this kind of shaker as is any country in the world. Fortunately the construction here is much better than that of Haiti, but maybe not quite as good as Chile. You can still see many structures built in the traditional adobe mud style right in the center of town. In addition, stuctural codes are still negotiable if you know the right person and much of the concrete work is done by laborers who don't always have an interest in seeing that things are done properly. We see the effect of this in everything from sidewalks to fences.

As for us, we live on the third floor of a somewhat modern structure and because the building owners live on the floor below us and have a business on the ground floor, we trust that it was built well. Parts of our school building on the other hand, are about 100 years old. If something like that happened here, it would be a while before anyone heard from us because our city is quite remote relative to other large cities.

It's a dangerous world out there. Think good thoughts for those in need and be thankful for everyday that passes without trouble.