Yo Estoy la Cumpleañera!

(I am the birthday girl.)

On Wednesday, I walked out of my bedroom to walk down to breakfast and was met with 3 ladies singing happy birthday (mi madre y mis hermanas). It was so sweet; they were so excited for me. Then they gave me a very pretty wrapped little present which turned out to be earrings and a bracelette. The earrings are tagua which are nuts – LOTS of the jewelry here are made out of this material – they’re dangling painted purple earrings that kind of look like a bunch of grapes. The bracelet is about an inch wide made out of tiny, tiny little beads arranged in a zigzag design in shades of blues. Such pretty jewelry, exactly my taste, well-made and of course, Ecuadorian made. It was such a thoughtful gift.

I get to school and I’m practically attacked by my students giving me hugs and kisses (I’m going to miss that so much if I teach in the States). I’m met by Mary and Dani giving me birthday wishes. I go with Mary to the copier room and when I get back I find a happy birthday surprise letter from Scott. I love surprises and it was a good one.

Kevin later came in to wish me happy birthday and we were going to walk together to get a snack during long break. Well, then Jo is being really weird making me come back with her to the classroom so she can get something. Usually, during lunch or break we all go our separate ways; her with her friend, me with mine. So I thought it was odd but I just went along with it. So we’re all walking to the cafeteria to get a snack and I see a big group of my kids in front of me. Jo is yelling at them to hurry up, which I also thought was odd. During break, unless the kids are absolutely killing each other, we leave them alone.

So we go into the cafeteria and Jo says, “Hey, I think I hear Jime calling you in the other part of the cafeteria.” (The room is separated into 2 rooms with lunch line in the middle). Also weird. So I follow her into the room to be greeted by most of my students yelling, “Happy Birthday!” They threw me a surprise party!! Jo had brought a delicious cake complete with candle where they sang happy birthday in English and in Spanish. They even sang the song which is a tradition in Ecuador where they say, “Throw it in her face!” by luckily Jo and Jime discouraged this idea. I got to blow out my candles and make a wish. I got about a million more hugs and kisses from my students, some handmade cards and even one girl got me a little purse holder. I was so surprised and touched by it all.

I even got to leave school because it was my birthday. Okay, no that’s a huge lie. Right after school, Jime said we had to go because the girls were at home sick. Fine with me. I went home an hour early and took a long nap.

Afterwards almost all the student teachers (7 girls and Kevin) met at Mi Cocina for dinner. I ordered the chicken lasagna, sangria and brownie a la mode. Oh, it was all so delicious and I was STUFFED by the time we left.

So then Friday night, some of the girls took me out dancing for my birthday. But first Liz and I stopped at Los Hot Dogs – this little hole in the wall place where there is only outside seating.

Liz and I grubbin' it up!

They only serve cokes, French fries, hot dogs and hamburgers but it’s so good. I got a double with ruffle chip crumbles sprinkled on top – delicioso. And of course, wherever we go, we seem to make friend. And typically with men. So one of the guys working there started talking to us and asking us questions, “Where are you from? What are you doing tonight? Are you married? How old are you?” Our Spanish is much better than when we first arrived but it’s still terrible and many times very humorous to the Ecuadorian. But we don’t really mind; they’re very polite about it all. So we talk to him for a while with very little confusion.

The ECE girls call their taxi friend, Joel and we’re off to Plaza Foch. The entire night I think we went to about 3 discotecs – the plaza is just this huge section of the city that has rows and rows of restaurants, bars, and dance clubs. I danced with this very handsome guy but he was only 20 – gosh, I’m getting so old! Every time I go out dancing I always learn new moves and this time was no exception. He was teaching me and said that I was a very fast learner (As a side note: Liz and I have decided that the Ecuadorians are patronizing us. We hear about how good we dance, or how impressed they are with how quick we learn – umm… we’re really not that good with Latin dancing. Either they just have this idea that American girls are TERRIBLE dancer or they are just big flatterers.)

The last club we went to was sooooooooo much fun even though it’s always EXTREMELY crowded that sometimes it’s hard to dance. We danced for a little while and then we headed up to the 2^nd floor where we could take a breather. There, we stared talking to this Australian man – the normal stuff: what are you doing here? How long have you been here? Where are you originally from? Standard stuff but I LOVE IT. I love meeting new people from around the world and just stricking up random conversations with people. It’s so easy to talk to people here.

So we’re talking to this Austrian guy and this young girls comes up to him dressed in this tiny little red sequin dress asking for some Johnnie Walker and cursing up a storm. Turns out the girl was the Austrian’s best friend’s daughter who was 16! Good gosh. They keep getting younger and younger.

The next group of people we met were Ecuadorians. 4 men and 2 women – I think they were probably in their late 20’s. They were so incredibly nice! They kept teaching us new Spanish words and then laughing at us. I must say, we were pretty comical because our vocabulary is so lacking so things get lost in translation. While I might be articulate in English, I sound like a 1^st grader in Spanish. One of the words I wanted to learn was clumsy so I was pretending to trip everywhere. As a whole, the group just had this presence about them that was so warm, welcoming and fun.

Later we ran into of the girls that the ECE girls knew. She was incredibly sweet, too and we danced with her for a while.

Toward the end of the night, Liz and I started dancing with these 2 friends. As always, he taught me some more moves and we would talk a little bit during dancing (in Spanish). Later we talked to them in English and I found out that the guy I was dancing with was French! I had no idea (the music was really loud in there, in my defense). I was so excited because now was my chance to speak French where I at least sound like a 4^th grader. Specially because when I first got to Ecuador, I kept wanting to say French words instead of Spanish because French felt more natural to me. Well, here was my chance. And you know what? My mind was BLANK. All the words that would come to mind was Spanish! I finally got him to start speaking French and I was so excited. By the time I thought to myself, “Okay, I’m in the French mind set now” it was time to go. GRRR. I kept telling him, “I promise I know how to speak French.” It’s just been so long. I keep saying things like “Je regrette porque je sais francais pero es difficil ahora…” mixing the 2 languages.

When we left the club, Joel picked us up and took us to McDonald’s.

Saturday (which has nothing to do with my birthday celebrations) I met Mary and Dani to go to the open-air market in Quito. Ah, more shopping. I love the shopping here – they sell all these Ecuadorian-made things like alpacha sweaters, scarfs, gloves

You can't go to Ecuador without buying some EcuaPants!

. Tons and tons of jewelry ranging from $1.50 – $20 (the “expensive” stuff is typically real silver). Thin, beautifully woven scarves, the typical clothing of the indigenous people here – embroidered white linen blouses and dresses. Hand-made Andean flutes and other instruments. Brightly colored wooden masks (these are all things that are sold in Otavalo which I just remember I need to also write about!)

As I’ve mentioned before, I now am more competent with my Spanish. However, that does not mean I do not always run into problems. I bought few pairs of earrings from this really nice. I was feeling so excited because I was just chatting up with all the vendors saying things like, “How much is this? It’s hard to decide because it’s for my mom; I don’t know if she will like this. I like all of these – I don’t know which to choose. What is this made out of?” instead of just pointing to something and saying, “Cuanto?” Well, I was talking with this jewelry vendor who was asking me where I was from and the like. Then he went off to get me change and I was apologizing about it being difficult (change is always so hard to get; it’s so annoying!) and he was saying, “Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s part of the service” being so nice. I walk to the next stall and in a couple minutes he comes up to me and starts saying things in Spanish, very quickly. After a couple times I ask him to slow down. Some gringas next to me start laughing. The poor man must have repeated himself about 5 times but I never understood him. He said, “Don’t worry about it. It’s okay” – being extremely nice. To this day, I still have no idea what he was saying.

So we buy gifts for our friends, family and ourselves. I really want to write about what I got but ya know… I’m not. You’ll have to wait and just see yourself. I might have even gotten YOU something. But after last weekend in Otavalo (the largest outdoor market in Ecuador) and then this weekend, we were DONE. Done shopping, done searching for things, done haggling.

Afterwards, we meet Kevin for lunch at one of our favorite places Los Choris. They only have about 5 things on the menu and we usually only order of the 3 of them: papas fritas, chicken sandwich, or steak sandwich. The food is soooo delicious and cheap – specially if you split the HUGE sandwich with someone. Well, we order our food to find out that out of the 5 things on their menu they don’t have one important one – the French fries. Gotta love Ecuador.

Then we decided to go see a movie. We go to the theatre and buy our tickets in advance for Alicia en el País de las Maravillas (Alice in Wonderland). It didn’t seem logical to go back home so we decide to spend some time just around in Quito. We hit up our favorite music store, the ice cream shop, the outside vendors selling Ecuadorian soccer jerseys, and a pizza place before our movie.

Let me tell you about the movie theaters here. We cannot for the life of us figure it out but some movies (like Alice) come out the same time that it does in the States. Other movies, like Fame are going to come out soon but are practically on DVD in the States. It’s also funny to see the movies that are advertised to be in theaters soon in Ecuador but yet they’re already in the DVD stores in Ecuador.

While we’re waiting to go in the theater (you can’t sit until 10 minutes before it starts playing) we’re having a long involved conversation about movies and actors. We can’t figure out this actors name and start going through the list. Out of nowhere, the guy who has been standing next to us for about 20 minutes says the actor’s name in perfect, unaccented English. We busted out laughing because we’re so used to the people around us not really understanding us.

After the movie, Liz came over to my house – we were laughing because it felt like a sleepover in high school, where your friend comes to your parent’s house and we stay up whispering in the dark so no one can hear us.

We wake up early to go Jime’s parent’s country house in Cayambe. The girls are already there with the abuelos (grandparents) so it’s just the 4 of us in the 1 hour car ride there. Of course, the view is spectacular as always. Green mountains with many valleys and twisting roads.

We finally drive into this tiny little town and pull up to a gate. When we drive in, Liz and I are amazed – the fenced-in space is huge and there is ample space for the huge house, the play house, the playground, the large garden, and 2 smaller houses. Mi abuela comes out to greet us and give us hugs and kisses and she says in my ear “ohhh, la cumpleañera.” She then takes us on a tour around the place. The huge main house is actually 2 houses put together.

Only half of the big house

The first one is the one they use that has a dining room, kitchen, bathroom and 3 bedrooms all with double beds. The other side of the house they just re-did, with a living room, bar, a bathroom and 3 other bedrooms. On the side of the house is a huge patio with 2 picnic tables and in the corner under a small roof is the large clay domed oven, counter with sink and the large grill. And all around us, the view was of the Andean mountains that seemed so close. Liz and I just couldn’t get over the place. Mi abuela said that the place was her grandmother’s and that her sisters live on their own land down the street.

After Abuelita’s tour (that’s what the kids call her) Alberto takes us and the girls to Quitsato, which used to be an Incan ruin. The Incans set up shop there because it was one of the highest places of the equator – the closest to the sun. Now, there is a HUGE sundial created out of stones – looks like a big circle made out of cobblestones.

Me, the sundial and the Andean Mountains

There are also stairs made out of stones that you can walk up to see the sundial from below and to be in the highest point of the equator. When we went there, the guide told us all about the equator – which I’ve been learning a lot about. He also explained that on the equator is where you can see all the stars from both hemispheres – that’s why in the jungle we were able to see that multitude of incredible stars. Only on the equator, baby. After our short info session, all us girls climbed around on the rocks and stairs while Al took our pictures. We got to take in the scenery while there; it was beautiful (of course). We could see the large mountain of Cayambe and the surrounding Andeas. Below the mountains were large green cow fields spotted with trees and houses in the town.

Once we had gotten our fill of Quitsato, we went back to the country house. Jimena and Abuelita were preparing food while the girls dragged us down to their playground. Eventually, they called us up to the patio because the juice was made. I think I have found my favorite juice (and it’s hard to decide here where everything is homemade). Mora (blackberry) and guanábana.

This is what guanabana looks like.

Wikipedia says that in the U.S. we call guanábana “soursop.” It’s hard to describe the taste of this fruit; it tastes fresh but it’s a very strong fruity taste. It’s shell is bright green with porcupine spikes all around the outside. In the inside, it’s white. Here in Ecuador they have this as a favor in a lot of things like yogurt. So anyways, these 2 fruits are a great combination. And it was special because it’s difficult to make juice out of these 2 fruits because of the seeds.

Then Jimena offered us the sausage that was done grilling. She served it to us on soft wheat bread – ohhh, it was soo delicious. Like an Ecuadorian pigs in a blanket.

Mi familia grilling out.

We started helping her make shish kabobs – putting on the red peppers, chicken, mushrooms and onions. MMMmmm. I’m telling you it was perfect – one of my favorite foods. Overall on the grill was: steak, pork, grilled chicken, shish kabobs, black sausages, and regular sausages – tons of food!! On top of that, Abuelita had made roasted little potatoes with this creamy cheese sause (almost like sour cream), and salad with a vinaigrette (which was also nice because it’s rare that salads have dressing on them here). Everything was SO DELICIOUS. I ate myself sick. And to add to that, mi abuelo had me try Cuban wine and this Ecuadorian liquor called Espiritu del Ecuador (the spirit of Ecuador). It was made out of various fruits from Ecuador and it was very tasty. I said that it would be good with the mora and guanábana juice but I think he might have been a little indignant. He said he liked to taste it without anything else.

Our lunch was so much fun. We stuffed our faces like crazy and had interesting conversations in a mixture of Spanish and English. For the most part, Liz and I could keep up with everything and if not, Jimena or mi abuelo could help out. I didn’t know this at all until that day, but mi abuelo had lived many, many places in the States and told us all kind of interesting stories about when he was our age in the States. We also talked about Spanglish and had some funny stories about mix-ups.

After dinner, they brought out an orange bunt cake with vanilla frosting – once again, perfect. No chocolate cake. They sang happy birthday and I got to blow out my candle. After all that food, all of us were in a food coma and getting very sleepy. We kissed the abuelos good-bye and headed back home. It was a perfect day.

My birthday cake!