Thanksgiving and more

ok, it’s been a little while since I have written in this…my bad. These last couple weeks have been quite busy, which is good and bad, but at least now I have a bit of time to catch up.

We celebrated thanksgiving here this past Saturday and it was actually a really good replacement dinner for not getting to be in the US. Susanna, Grace, Andy, Elliot and I are all doing our ISPs in Intag so we all met up in Peñaherrera, of the pueblos within Intag (it’s also where Grace lives and where Susanna and my soccer game was) the weekend before to discuss our menu and what we all planned on preparing. Then that Friday we went to Otavalo, about a 2 hour, $2 bus ride, which is the nearest town to purchase all our supplies. We were able to get all the dry ingredients in little shops throughout and then dedicated the afternoon to finding produce in the open-air market in the streets. We returned to Santa Rosa that same day and left all the stuff at Andy & Susanna’s house. On Saturday we all met up at their house and got a ride (back of a pick-up as usual) up to a reserve called Siempre Verde, which serves as a tourist place but is pretty rustic all the same.

Right as we got there we just started cooking our different dishes. Susanna braved lighting the gas oven and nearly burnt her eyebrows off but made it out just fine. Grace made her sweet potato dish with camote—the sweet potato that grows here but is actually purple instead of orange—and it was super tasty. Andy was in charge of the turkey (it was a chicken but we pretty much referred to it as turkey) and it turned out really good and moist. I made a fruit salad with apple, mango, pineapple, and banana and I believe everyone enjoyed. I bought some pears to add at the market that were kinda hard but the guy told me they were Chilean so they’re ripe even when they’re hard. Once I got to the reserve I saw the USA sticker and got made fun of for being so gullible. But the fruit salad was great regardless! And Elliot made an apple crisp for desert that was quite delicious. After eating we spent the rest of the evening sitting around this really cool fireplace and chatting. made some turkey sandwiches with the leftovers for dinner, which was quite excellent. It was a really awesome evening and a really beautiful place to be so for missing Thanksgiving at home, it was a good as it could possibly be.

So this last week has been dedicated to visiting one last reserve in Villa Flora and writing my paper. The Villa Flora trip was super frustrating because I tried to get the woman who was helping me to understand that I had this map and needed to find palms on the map but basically in the end I measured 6 and she told me the rest “se desaparecieron” or that they had all disappeared. At least it was a beautiful ride to and from the reserve on the back of a motorcycle that actually had shocks to make it a bit more enjoyable.

And now I am trying to finish up writing my paper. I planned on going to Apuela to use the internet, do some last minute research, and then print my paper to turn into my advisor. The plan was to go in the morning but the electricity went out so instead I went in the afternoon. I arrived at 2:15 and the bus out leaves at 3 so I had to be quick. But right as I got there they informed me that the lights went out once again. So I ended up not getting done what I wanted to but whatever. I will try again tomorrow. A lot o the group is already back in Quito and I know I am going to be one of the later arrivals but I think I am ok with that. gives me more time to finish the paper (right now 13 pages 1.5 spaced in Spanish…pretty proud…but it’s supposed to be more like 15…whatever) and say good-bye/thank you to people here in Intag.