Fruit, fires and birthday fun

I am really loving the independence and free time my program gives me to explore the city and be out observing and learning. It sounds corny, but the city really is my classroom here. Our main assignment of this past week was to explore various markets and streets throughout the city. As a fruit fanatic I see the markets as great storehouses of delicious treasures. Ecuador is like the fruit capital of the world, as far as I am concerned. I could live here years and never know all the fruit. Another HECUA student introduced me to a fruit called granadilla that you pop open and that seriously looks like fish eggs inside. I was a bit skeptical, trying to suck out the fish-eggy-looking insides, but it was definitely one of the best fruits I’ve had yet.

Thursday we took a break from exploring and went up Pichincha Mountain in the teleferico. It was a much longer way up than I had imagined (like 10-15 minutes) and incredibly high altitude. It was beautiful to see the city and realize that I could actually recognize some things, like the Basilica in which we climbed all the way to the top the first weekend, or Parque Metropolitana, where a fire has been burning for a few days. (It is so dry here, as we are nearing the end of the dry season, that there are fires all over Quito and on the outskirts.)

My birthday was Friday (my first birthday outside the US!) and it was definitely a birthday to remember. I ate cake with my host family at lunch and then was surprised with cake again in class. The other students and I went out dancing and I learned that I really must take some dancing classes while I’m here so that I stop being a super gringa and embarrassing myself.

On Saturday we had had a host family reunion in which all fifteen host families brought food and we celebrated with a potluck in the Parque Metropolitana (the non-burning part). It was also the same day as my family’s annual Garage Party back home, in which we invite all our friends and neighbors and everyone square dances in our garage. It made me a bit homesick.

Today I worked through a new bus route to get to the way far south of the city to visit some family friends in Solanda. Quito is about 25 miles long – a long, skinny city. Their neighborhood wasn’t even on my map of Quito! I got another surprise birthday cake there and the kids, Cristina and Carolina (fourteen year old twins) and Nicolas (a feisty eight year old) took me to an amusement park nearby that was passing through town. It was a really beautiful day and made me thankful to have so many family friends here in Quito and scattered around Ecuador. To feel truly welcomed somewhere is such a comfort. I am privileged to have enough confianza with our friends here that we have personal conversations about politics, life, and cultural issues that teach me much more than I could ever learn from a reading for class.