Casa Quinde and About

An Ecuadorian potato dish was on the menu for last night. Venancia had asked me for $5 for the potatoes; when she arrived, she gave me a dollar in change and a plastic bag containing at least 100 potatoes! Venancia made chicken, broccoli, potato pancakes and a salad. And a salsa for Art, from a chili and a fruit called, I think, tomato de arbol. He pronounced it delicious. I took a taste on one fingertip and my mouth suffered for 10 minutes.

We are reading, mostly, as our bodies acclimatize. Our hosts have a small library full of books I'd thought about reading but never got around to. I just started The Time Traveler's Wife and wonder why I didn't read it when it first came out. Art is reading a recent issue of The Sun where the theme is work and lack of work; we're both interested in this as we watch our children dealing with the current economy.

In the back yard of Casa Quinde I can't help taking pictures. Someone who lives in this house has a wonderful eye for placement of plants, and the God of this area has blessed it with spectacular scenery, both close up and distant. I hope we can drag ourselves away from the house and explore the surrounding area.

Bird feeding station, Casa Quinde front porch, clothesline amid the fuschias

We walked into the village of San Pablo this afternoon. It's just outside the gate of our compound. I noticed the adults didn't make eye contact with us as we passed. I wonder if that's part of their culture like it is for the Lakota Sioux we learned about last spring in the Black Hills. We stopped at a panaderia (bakery) for a couple of pastries for which we paid a total of 60 cents. At a tienda (small shop) we hoped to buy an onion, but I didn't know the word for onion and my dramatic rendition of cutting one and then weeping elicited giggles from the children gathered around, but no onion.

Out of respect, we didn't take any pictures of the people we saw, except for one: I sat on a bench and behind me four teenage girls sat on another, talking and giggling, and Art set up a camera shot of them that looked like he was taking a picture of me. Sneaky, but respectful!

We shared the road with cars, pedestrians and animals.

We explored the cemetery as well. We'd been told the indigenous people are buried at the back of the cemetery, in the ground, but mestizos (mixed indigenous and Spanish from colonial times) are buried in the front of the cemetery, above ground in niches.

As we were returning to the gate, a young boy approached, kicking a soccer ball. I blocked the kick and my return went straight into an empty niche! The boy and his friend backed away. I looked around for a long stick but didn't see one, so I crawled in about four feet and retrieved the ball. When I emerged, the boys were at least 15 feet from me, watching. I tossed them the ball. "Lo ciento," I apologized. I think I might have violated sacred ground or something. I did check my hoodie and my shirt to make sure no large venomous spiders had attached themselves to my clothing.

At the wi-fi I found a google translator and began my own little dictionary: onion is cebolla; dessert (so I can ask Venancia to make us a local one) is postre; ice cream (so I can find some!) is helado. This is called just-in-time learning!