Animal Sacrifices

Over the last two weeks we have started venuring out into sector four of Arbolito, which is down the road aways. We have been picking up these kids named Leonardo and Elena to go to Semillas. The other day we went to their house and started talking to their mom. She proceeded to tell us that she was going to kill her duck for us. We were all confused and decided that we had heard he wrong and that something was lost in translation. The next day, when we picked up her kids she gave us this pot and said that she had made us secco de pato, which ended up being delicious. I looked around and the family´s only duck was missing. Then she told us that she was going to kill her pig for us and she pointed to two pigs. One was a pretty normal looking pig and the other couldn´t stand on account her giant pregnant belly. Jon and I looked at each other and I think that we were both hoping that she wasnt going to kill the pregnant one(dont worry, she didnt). So, we went over to their house yesterday and they gave us a pig sausage soup, which was hard to stomach. The sausage texture was very soft and strange. I did my best to be polite. After soup, they gave us each a giant plate full of pork products in various shapes, sizes, and from different locations on the animal. This was delicious, even though our guard had warned us that if we ate pork we would get parasites that ate our brains. After this she brought out a cake. It was the most confusing cake I have eaten in a while. It was really dense with fruit in it and it was covered with whipped cream, orange marmalade, chocolate, and dulce de leche. Don´t get me wrong, it was delicious, I just kept thinking about how I just wanted the cake to decide what kind of cake it was.

I will try to bring some pictures in for my next post if possible. :)

a little more flaco

It is a beautiful Thursday in Duran. I am sitting at ´Cyber Emanuel´ and Emanuel is dancing to Shania Twain´s ¨I feel like a woman.¨ I am pretty sure if he knew the words to the song he would neither be dancing nor listening to the song at all. :) So, Last week was my first retreat group, from Santa Clara. I was glad that it was a small group of nine. They were pretty easy going for the majority of the week. In the beginning they were very much uneasy and unsure of what they could do or say. This awkwardness slowly transitioned into a comfort that I have been familiar with for some time. During the middle of this week I got really sick. I think I ate some bad(but delicious) food at one of my neighbors houses. I was sick for a about 2 days and I lost over 10 pounds, which pretty much makes me antimatter by about now. I imagine that there us much more of this to come in the rest of the year ahead.
Working at Semillas de Mostaza, one of Rostro´s afterschool programs, has been wonderful, but frustrating. Every day we get from 30 to 60 kids ranging from 4-15 years old. right now I am working on activity for the little kids that uses maps. When we started introducing them to other countries of the world they were very confused and asked which country was Barcelona or Emelec(the two futbol teams in Guayaquil). I dont think that they have any kind of concept of how big a city, country, or the world is. So I am printing up a map of their neighborhood(thank you google earth) and having them trace their walking route to Semillas. Then I will show them a series of maps to help them understand how Arbolito (our neighborhood) fits into the city, the country and the world. Hopefully it won´t be too much for them.