Reconnected!

I´ve found myself talking often about the range of emotions that can be felt at one given time when we are taken out of our known and understood environment. One minute we feel at the same time elated in the present moment, seeing so many new things that its exciting but at the same time confusing and foreign. We struggle with feeling helpless while at the same time putting forth all our effort to make a difference. We wonder if anyone feels the impact of our work. The crazy emotional roller coaster is in and of itself a wonderful opportunity! We have to be taken out of our comfort zone sometimes to really understand and feel those high ups and low lows.

This first week off has been a wonderful break. A time to relax, explore and get to know Ecuador which is a country which I know very little about! I´m always learning something new, and I´m happy to have such positive, fun and intelligent people to share this time with.

Now that I´m in the connected world for a few days, I have had the chance to upload my photos and am excited to share them here!

Home sweet home! This is my dorm room in the high school. I sleep with a mosquito net, not because of malarial mosquitoes, but just for the bugs in general. The net is my saving grace and allows me to be able to read at night without attracting bugs. Notice the open screenless windows along the wall and the openings at the ceiling.

Jungle culture is hammock culture! I spend a lot of time here lesson planning, reading, lo que sea!

This is the outside of the comedor where we eat every day. Wake up is at 5:45 and breakfast is at 6:00. Before I came to Ecuador I was a vegetarian and have been quite abruptly thrown into an omnivorous diet. A very common dish here is called Guatita - cooked stomach. That was one meal I promptly handed over to one of the boys. Something I just couldn´t stomach...

Here are some of the girls dancing after classes. Traditional dancing is an important part of the culture here. Kids learn to dance to different styles of music from the time they are very young. They finally convinced us that there is no need to uphold a student - teacher boundary that prohibits us from dancing with our students. So we are learning all kinds of dance from Bachata to Merengue to Salsa!

We grow lots of fruits and vegetables at the High School. The kids spend half of their day working the fields and the other half taking classes.

I mentioned in an earlier post that we have a pet otter. Here she is! Her name is Yaku and is clearly very friendly.

From the lodge, on clear days we can see the volcano Somaco in the distance across the Napo River. Our only access to the community of Mondaña is by boat.

Yesterday we had the opportunity to go with our friend, Mauricio, a graduate from Yachana High School who is doing some teaching and organizing with the kids, to his family´s home near Misauallí. It is about an hour and a half from Tena and a slippy slidey walk down to a river, across, and then back up. Mauricio grew up and lived in this house for about 6 years. They have a beautiful farm where they grow all kinds of bananas, papaya and lots of different kinds of fruits and vegetables.

In the center of the house is an open fire. We roasted bananas and ate them hot! Yum!

When there are guests, it´s customary to prepare for them a large meal. We cooked for the majority of the afternoon and shared a delicious rice and palmita dish along with a deer meat soup. After we were stuffed and hurrying to get out the door to catch our bus back to Tena, Mauricio´s grandfather was concerned that we had not had enough to eat and pleaded our apologies for not having prepared enough food for us. We thanked him and assured him that we enjoyed the meal and his generosity and went on our way. I´m sure that this was one of the most beautiful days I have experienced on my trip thus far.