Holidays in the Jungle

Happy 2011!! :-)
I hope that everyone is having a happy and a healthy new year so far.

As i´ve said before, being abroad for the holiday season was super strange, but quite an interesting experience as well. I´m trying trying trying to upload some pictures so you can see what the holidays looked like for me in Ecuador, but the internet at this cafe seems to go haywire every time I hit ¨upload.¨ Ill keep trying...sorry for the delay.

Christmas was lovely, I had my first Christmas tree and a lovely dinner at home. We all bought each other little gifts and wrapped them in leaves...exactly how Christmas in the jungle should be. When we decorated the tree it was a Jew, a Christian, and a Muslim...pretty great times.

I was bummed not to really have any time off at all, but we made the best of it. The children had no classes for a while, so we did a few workshops and activities at the schools to keep the kids happy and busy. We had arts and crafts, sports, bobbing for apples, miniature bowling, three legged races, story time, etc etc. It was so nice to interact with the kids in a different way, and have more time to hang out and chill with them, as opposed to just teaching. When it rained for a bit we taught them the macarena, which was pretty epic. We had some prizes, in the form of candy and pencils, so they were thrilled, and it was fun times all around.

We then headed off to Baños, and spent Thursday night doing a fundraiser at our hostel. In the form of a beer pong touranment. As all 18-30 year old Americans will understand, this worked out really well...drunk gringo travelers right before new years were thrilled to come play, and it was a pretty successful night. So yes, I did indeed bring both the macarena and beer pong to Ecuador in one week. Score. The best parts of our culture, no?

New years itself was amazing, probably the coolest celebration i´ve been a part of. There are so many cool traditions here, and it was awesome to be a part of it. For starters, everyone dresses up--its sort of like halloween, but on crack. One of the biggest things is for men to dress up as women and run around town being ridiculous and asking for money. And its a celebration for the whole family, as opposed to at home where kids are put to bed at 12:05 and its all about adults drinking too much. Another theme that I love is that they dont call it New Years Eve, but rather, its ¨año viejo,¨ or literally, ¨old year.¨ As it was explained to me, you cant just jump into the new year without first paying due and saying goodbye to the old year. Then, the celebrations carry on alllll dayyyy into January 1st, and THATS the new year. There are also big puppet-like things that are everywhere, which people stuff with paper filled with their sins and bad things from the year that they want to burn. Families do their own small ones, and then towns have huge ones in the center. At midnight, they are all lit on fire, to signify the start of the new year. It was really cool to see and be a part of...a few minutes before midnight they pull the puppets down to the ground, and I spent 12:00 kicking and beating a massive gorilla that was then lit on fire. Cool stuff.

Since then its just been back to work. My friend Jess has been stuck in Colombia waiting for her visa, so I am still both Teaching Coordinator and Project Manager, which is hard and stressful but overall good. The new semester started off well, we are still just working on getting everything organized. So far, so good though.

I am already shocked at how fast January is moving, and its hard to believe that as of Friday, I will have been here for 5 months. We have a theory here that time has started moving faster...does anyone feel the same way?

I hear that there has been tons of snow at home, and I am happier than ever to be skiping winter. It was odd though to have a 70degree New Years.

Lots of hugs and love to everyone. As soon as I am able, I will upload pictures...I promise.
Send me love in the form of emails, phone calls, or peanut butter.