Happy Holidays!!

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year Too!!

Where are my manners?

I have just left my supportive audience to read my Why I Love Ecuador tidbits while I fail to give real updates, shame shame and it's gotten so bad I can't even send good tidings and cheer! I am have put myself in time out and I am back on it!

So your Christmas present will be pictures of my apartment. I was waiting to do an actual photo shoot when everything was in order, but it seems to never happen so I'm going to provide what I have which was taken AS I was moving in.


So I lived with a host family for a month and that was an adventurous one. That is going to have to be a series of stories you hear from me in person, I can't even write about all the shenanigans that were going on in that house. In the end I really needed space of my own but I like the family a lot. Now that I am able to spread my wings (and unpack all the boxes I was living out of in that tiny room) I feel more myself and I go hang out with the family when I have a chance. We are all good now.

Wait, I'm going to put pictures of Christmas on this post since it's more relevant and I'll post apartment pics for January. New Year New Apartment. Christmas was a blast. My friend Anna and her hubby own a hostal On the Beach and we cooked ALL day long listening to the waves crash and we went from DJing the Christmas music, to the smooth Brazilian tunes and closed out the night with Raggae. Such a beachfront Christmas. It was really great. There was plenty of food for everyone and everything turned out deeeeelicious!


Excuse the randomness, I'm super sleepy as I write this, but it's been to long so you gotta do what you gotta do right?

I am working at La Aldea and I will have pictures of that next year. The organization is really great and well...organized. It's an orphanage that is set up like a little village (which is what aldea means). They don't separate brothers and sisters and up to 9 children live in a house with one madre. It's a great set up and it lends itself to raising kids that have a sense of familya. I will talk more about that when I have some pictures to better explain.


I have had visitors for Christmas and I have ticket confirmations for more coming and I'm so excited. Next year will bring more friends, maybe a trip to Machu Piccu and who knows what else!

Speaking of next year, I really just realized I'm going back to the states in a matter of Days!
I am heading to Florida for my 30th Birthday Celebration and for a Family Reunion. I will be heading out on the 5th which felt like 6 months from now yesterday but now it feels like it's tomorrow. Time is a funny one I tell ya.

This will be the first time that I have gone home in over a year and a half! So Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday to me on that!!!

So Stay tuned for apartment pics next year, I might get a chance to post NY pics at the top of the year but no promises :)

If not Happy New Year to all! May this next year bring lot's of love, peace, abundance and wellness! I appreciate each person reading these words and who have kept up with me and supported me for the past, what, 18 months!! Really couldn't do it without you!!

Love and Hugs

#19 Ya Mismo, make it work for you….

If you were to ask a gingo, how they feel about ya mismo, they would probably say they hate it. In fact if you perused half of the blogs coming out of Ecuador, I’m SURE they all mention “ya mismo” at one point or another. It’s probably the name of half of the Ecuador blogs out there! “Ya Mismo” is probably what I would call the equivalent to the English “In A Second!”. When you tell someone you’ll be there “in a second” you don’t really mean literally in one second, you will be present. You mean you are on your way, you are thinking about coming, you are in motion…that kind of thing. Well “ya mismo” means about the same thing, and while some people usually use it in the way we say “in a second” a lot of times it’s abused. And that’s why time conscious, wound tight, lovin a to do list gringos hate it.

Q: “when will this meeting that’s going on three hours be over?” A: “ya mismo”
Q: “Hey partner I planned this event with, when will you get here everyone is waiting for us to start and YOU are the one that speaks the Spanish!?” A: “ya mismo”
Q: “WHEN are you going to come put out this fire Mr. Firefighter!? “ A: “ya mismo”

Do you see how it can be frustrating for those who want answers, who want results aaaand who probably want some promptness.

Me? I love me some ya mismo!

Q: “Jen when are you going to be coming to work” A: from the bed “ya mismo”
Q: “Hey we are at the club waiting on you to get here! What time you coming?” A: never agreed to go to said club “Ya mismo!”
Q: “When are you going to be the madrina, marry my son, dance in the parade etc” A: “ya.mismo.”

It’s all to the “G” double “D” , GOOD! Make it work!

#18 Action Jackson/Gestures

Man, I could show you better than I can tell you but this should definitely make it on the Why I love Ecuador list. People are SOOOOOO animated and it’s my favorite. Of course, this is a generalization, but in just observing that has been something I have picked out. I love it first of all because my Spanish is mas o menos and it really helps. I can be on the bus looking at people on the corner talking and I pretty much know what they are talking about because people are SO animated. I also love it because I love animated people! People who use gestures, face, and whole body to convey a message. In training they said that is something you’ll find more on the coast, and all the better that I’m here. It’s hilarious to see now how we volunteers have picked up things like pointing to stuff with our lips, doing the full body “shoulder shrug” or the super frown face when you don’t know something. We may look ridiculous, but I call it integration.

#17 Mas Futbol

Well I had this in my notes, not sure why… but it was probably when Ecuador was in the Seleccion, with the potential to go to the world cup, which we know did NOT happen. All the volunteers bought their Ecuador camisetas and I still sport my proudly today. I will say that I DO enjoy watching futbol and I DO like that camaraderie that builds around it. Everyone in the world loves futbol (soccer) except for us (north) American’s thinking oh so much about futbol Americana. I liked going to watch soccer games at sports bars and when the world cup was on and I was pretty into it. I would have never done that in the states. Aaaand just in case we forgot what else I love about futbol here……

#16 Eighties Music

This might sound ridiculous, but don’t mess with Ecuador and it’s Eighties! I can be at the mall, on the bus, walking past a store. Sure there is salsa and cumbia most of the time, but sometimes the Eighties music is blaring and when it is they are playin the JAMS! I found myself like Oooooohhh I forgot all about that song!!! I love Eighties music and Ecuador delivers every time on that one. They don’t do just the popular hits that err’body knows, they get into the “what choo know about THIS” hits! Fine, laugh if you want, but that is a definite plus about living here for me ☺

#15 Dolla Holla y Montñas

So an ick thing about the city is the potential for crime. However, there are definite ways to keep yourself safe and minimize the loss if anything does happen. For us ladies, what was suggested to us, is keeping our phones and money in our bras. Now if my grandma was reading this, she’d be like, “That old trick?” but hey, it’s our survival skill. Now do I like doing this? Not at all. I don’t like having a phone that close to my body at all with all of it’s harmful waves, and if you have never tried to pay for something with a soggy sweat dollar, then you don’t know real shame. However, this list was born in an attempt to see the bright side of things even when they are not so sunny. Well the bright side of this one? When you come home ick from all the sweat and ready to jump in the shower, it never fails, the pouring out of money that had inevitably been sticking to my body. Hey it’s a stretch, but I do get delighted when I’m like, SWEET I still had 5 dollars on me. Or sometimes ,I don’t know how, I forget all together that I had money in my bra. I can only imagine this is the high that strippers get finding dollars in their underthings. May be a stretch, but on a crummy day, dolla dolla bills ya’ll on the falling on the bathroom floor are all I need to pick me back up ☺

#14 When Machismo = Chivalry

I was attempting to take the machismo that I often encounter that I cannot STAND, that makes it hard for me to leave my house some days and change it into a positive and try to draw some parallels how it can be consider chivalry. But Hablo Serio! Machismo SUCKS and that’s really there is to it. Sorry. I’ll do better next time.

Naranjal

Naranjal, now this is one you may not hear a lot about. It’s a small city outside of Guayaquil where a volunteer I was visiting lived. We were throwing a surprise party for a friend and decided that a hike would be the best birthday present. Naranjal brags of waterfall hikes, that an be physically challenging but worth the trek. I will say I like Naranjal. The city was small, but not campo like I thought. It’s an actually city with stores, cars and even a Tia! (that’s a store that I liken to Walgreens). We had to drive a little ways (in the back of a truck, you already know) to even get to the location to start the hike. It started off chill enough, but soon it became an issue of if we wanted to advance we had to climb ropes to get there. It was crazy and I never thought I was going to be able to climb using the ropes,
but I did and it was great. We swam in the waterfalls and climbed the rocks. Our group ranged from experienced and adventurous to I-just-have-on-street- clothes-and-I-don’t-do-this-kind-of-thing! The experienced helped, us less experienced and we had fabulous time. We rewarded ourselves with ice cream and brownies to close out the birthday and headed home. It was a great day trip and I liked knowing that an adventure like that is only an hour or so away.