Let's Explore: My last week in La Calera

This was my final week in La Calera, I could get all sappy here but I'll make another blog post dedicated to my reflections and nostalgia. Here's what happened in my last week in the andes and here is a picture of my amazing family that I will miss most about my time here:

Monday:

We worked most of the day and did a color workshop with the women! One of the problems we face with WWBM is that when we place an order sometimes we get different colors than what we asked for, usually because their supplier didn't have that color in stock.

So we created a color wheel with each color bead that they had and gave names to all the colors and updated the order form with the new color names.

In the afternoon I had a puppy play date. It was wonderful. The puppies liked my toes.

In the evening Flora had a meeting with other women in the community about a project making Rosaries. I tagged along. Apparently, a women from the states is coming to la calera later this week to teach a group of 15 women how to make rosaries and she is paying them by the hour to do so for 10 days. It sounds interesting and we were even able to skype with her at the meeting. I'm interested to see what happens!

Tuesday:

We went to cotacachi this morning to look for leather strips that we could use for some of the necklaces, we placed an order at a store and are going to pick them up tomorrow. We also bought some trays that the women will use to work on so they can easily transport their work to different tables and put it away so they can use the table to eat dinner.

We also spent a good amount of time running errands with Flora. But at the end I of course had to visit my ice cream vendor.

We got back and had lunch and then got to work on the jewelry. Flora made us some colada naranjia and popcorn for a snack which I of course loved! I sent them our new order for WWB that I made and Monica was able to use the formula sheets I made last week to calculate the costs and amounts of seeds they will need to buy for the new order. We took inventory of all the seeds they have so they now know by weight how much they have and if they will need to buy more when an order comes in!

Feeling good about the progress we are making.

Wednesday:

In the morning we went to Otavalo to buy more beads and supplies for the new order, and Alia, Monica's daughter tagged along. It was fun to have her there, she is such a sweetheart!

After otavalo we went back to cotacachi to pick up the leather, but the owner wasn't there so we'll have to go back tomorrow. However, the trip to cotacachi was not wasted, because we were able to get ice cream.

In the afternoon I took my first "time off" from work. Marisol's family wanted to teach me how to make Quimbolitos, one of my favorite Ecuadorian treats and this was the only day/time that worked for them.

Marisol's husband's sister, Gladis, knows how to make them so we went over there and I got to know his side of the family, since before I had only known marisols brothers and sisters. We all went over to the other side of la calera, Camila, Lili, and Suri came too!

Quimbolitos are little cakes that are made inside of leaves. It was so fun making them and chatting with everyone! I thought we were going to make like 20-30 of them but we actually made around 70!

We had to go to the "backyard" and pick leaves off this plant to use for the cakes. We wiped down the leaves with a wet wash cloth. To make them the ingredientes we used were: a lot of flour, eggs, sugar, butter, milk, and some boiling water mixed with "anis de pan." After hand mixing (and when I say hand mixing I mean we used our hands to mix) this huge bowl of batter, it was time to put it in the leaves.

We scooped a pile onto the back of the big leaf and then folded it up like a little package. Once we finished, in order to cook them we put them in a pot with boiling water, but not touching the water, they were sitting on a metal plate with holes in it to let the water through.

They turned out quite delicious, although someone said something went wrong because they didn't rise like they are supposed to, I thought they were great and ate 3.

I also spent some time talking to byrons niece, Vero, who is also studying business in college and graduating next week! She really wants to learn English and come to the states and i told her she should come and stay with me! She was so nice and funny and I think may be one of the first girls I've met that is around my age, studying in college, and doesn't have a boyfriend or kids, so it was nice to be able to really relate to someone!

After baking and sitting around the table chatting for a few hours it was time to head back home. We took a bunch of Quimbolitos back with us and I grabbed a few and went over to share them at floras home. I ended up staying there for a few hours, I played some go fish! With Alia but spent the majority of the time drinking tea and having bread and chatting with Flora, Monica and Marisol. It was so fun to just sit around the table and talk about all that has happened in the past month and joke about ridiculous things. I really feel like my Spanish has improved a lot because one of the things I always felt like I struggled with was expressing my personality and being sarcastic or joking around in Spanish, but I am getting better and better at that!

After a while we went back home for some shut eye.

Thursday:

In the morning Keenan and I went to cotacachi to pick up the leather for the necklaces. Unfortunately, she still wasn't there, so we went next door and asked if they could call her to see when she was coming. They were able to get a call of her and she said she couldn't find the leather color we wanted so she would give us the money when she got to the store in the afternoon. So we would have to go back again tomorrow.

We walked back to la calera for lunch and then did work in the afternoon. We had a fun time listening to music and working, and we made some new designs as well.

After dinner I went back to floras home with Lili and we played go fish we Alia.

Friday:

Today was the official last day of my internship and the first day the woman worked on the rosaries. A woman and her son came from Florida to la Calera to teach a group of 15 women how to make rosaries and they are paying them by the hour. I chatted with the Woman about her project and learned a little bit about how they are made as well.

After lunch at floras, Keen and I went to Cotacachi to pick up the leather, but the woman said she couldn't find the color we wanted, so she gave us out money back. I asked her to bring the other colors she had so we will see if those new colors will work when she brings them on monday!

Then went to my fave ice cream shop but decided to switch it up and get a milk shake-mint choco chip, it was delicious. At the shop the owner, and I can call her my friend now because of how often I go there, commented that she liked my necklace, which was one that sumak muyo made. I immediate thought and asked her, would you like to sell this jewelry at your shop? After showing her some more picture of the jewelry that I had on my phone, she was very interested! I told her I would send her an order form and more info tonight.

When I got back to Flora's I got to work on putting together a catalog of all their products with pictures along with an order form in excel. I was able to finish it all and send it off today!

Since it was our official final day of work, the women wanted to throw us a celebration dinner. My family, keenan's family and flora's family all ate at flora's house. The meal was great, and huge! Chicken potatoes, veggies, and rice. Yum! I gave a little toast ad got pretty nostalgic about my time in la calera, and then Ines and Flora also said some kind words!

After we ate, the little girls had put together a dance for us! It was adorable. They got all dressed up in their traditional indigenous dress and did a few different dances to some of the traditional music. They even dragged me and keenan out of our seats at the end to dance with them.

After the dances, they taught us how to play one of their favorite games: blind tag. And yes, I was up first. So basically they blind folded me and I had to tag someone to switch turns. I decided I would be safest on the ground, so I crawled around until one of the kids fell on top of me at which point I decided I should probably take off the blind fold. Everyone else took their turn and we had a fun time running around, playing, and laughing. Even flora went blind folded!

After running around the house, we had some tea and bread before heading back home to sleep.

Saturday:

Last weekend at the soccer parade I saw a gringo, first non-ecuadorian person I've seen in La Calera, so I decided to see what this guy was doing here, plus I love making friends. His name is Jacob and he is from Norway volunteering here for a month. Anyways, I went to Intag with him today because Keenan was heading to Quito and I really wanted to see a new place!

We left really early and got there and took a 2 hour beautiful hike to see a waterfall, which was lovey! Then we saw a big face on the side of a mountain, kind of like mt. Rushmore, but completely natural. After that, we went to try and find the coffee co-op because Intag is known for its coffee, a big reason I wanted to go, but it wasn't open! We then went to the thermal baths, which were similar to Chachimbiro, but not as many pools, and I liked the Intag scenery better. So beautiful and relaxing to be hanging out in a valley between mountains in a hot tub. I really wanted to find a coffee co-op and we ended up getting to see a coffee farm where the seeds are taken off the plants, de-shelled, and dried. I absolutely loved learning about the coffee making process and seeing the plants! The plants smelled soooo good, but not the smell of coffee, they smelled like flowers, and that is because little white flowers grow on coffee plants! I even ate one of the seeds off the plant, which actually tasted nothing like coffee. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a cup of intag coffee in intag, but I loved seeing the farm and learning about the process!

We then had lunch and took a drive through the cloud forrest before heading back. I really really really enjoyed driving through the cloud forrest, so much that I made our driver stop so I could stand outside in the clouds. This sounds so silly, but I have always been fascinated by clouds. When flying in air planes when I was younger, and still to this day, I would always want to touch the clouds. So I was basically living out a dream by standing in a cloud. It was great.

We got back to cotacachi and decided, since we were not able to get coffee in Intag, there was an Intag cafe in cotacachi that we decided to visit for a cup of jo. So I got to have my Intag coffee today... it just wasn't in Intag. We chatted for a while and I got to learn a lot about Norway which was fun! I then obviously had to show him where the best ice cream in town is, before we headed back to la calera.

I got back and went to Marisol's sister, Marlena's house down the road. She was working on a DIY project and I was instantly intrigued. She was making a bowl out of recycled newspapers and spray painting it. She said she saw something on TV and wanted to try to make things to sell at the market. Being the pinterest fanatic that I am, I of course had to show her the site and told her to come over after dinner and we could look up craft projects.

I had dinner at home and then went to Flora's with Marisol and Keenan to have some tea because it was Keenan's last night in la calera. We chatted for a bit and laughed about all that happened over the month.

I also promised Marisol that I would give her lessons on how to use Facebook/ the internet and also Marlena was coming over so she joined the lesson. I helped sign Marisol and Marlena up for Facebook, helped Marlena get a new e-mail account because her other one didn't exist, and also signed Marlena up for Pinterest. She was amazed at all of the different things your could make using magazines, newspapers and other recycled products. She wants to try making things to sell in the markets and I think this stuff would sell well because it is differnt from what everyone else is selling! Marisol was having a blast finding friends and looking at photos on Facebook. I'm excited that they are both on Facebook now so that I can keep in contact with them easily when I'm back in the states!

COFFEEEEE

Norwegian friend!

I'M IN A CLOUD!

Cloud forest!

Sunday:

Today was family fun day! I had been wanting to go to Peguche, a near by town, to see a waterfall that everyone told me I should go to. I asked all of my family members if anyone wanted to go and Marlena and Carmen said they would want to go! Lili and Carmen's two kids, Yani and Ibrahim came too. Unfortunately, Marisol and the others had to work.

We left in the AM and took a bus to Peguche and took a long walk from there. The waterfall was better than I expected! There was a lot to do in the park: many look out points to climb up, a cave, a mini waterfall you could climb through the water to get to, medicinal baths, parks with beautiful trees, lovely hikes, fun bridges and more! It was such a blast. Marlena and Carmen are hilarious and the kids are so adorable and well behaved that we all had such a good time together. We took so so many photos and roamed around just seeing what there was to see! We roamed for about 3 hours until we randomly hiked up a hill that led us to the outside of the park. We were all pretty hungry so we got some empanadas and colada morada to hold us over until we got back.

We walked out of peguche and waited on the side of a high way for a bus to drive by and then hopped in to go to cotacahi. We had planned to make some ice creams and a carrot cake in the afternoon so we went to the supermarket to get the ingredients. We went back to Marlena's home and had some more food before heading to Carmen's home to get baking! I had a blast baking and dancing and singing with everyone in the kitchen as we put together some ice creams and carrot cake! The carrot cake was quite delicious and I have to wait until tomorrow to try the ice cream!

After baking, we decided to try to choreograph a little dance that we would perform tomorrow for my last night. Everyone is coming over to Marisol's home to make a dinner for my last night in La Calera. Sad to leave, but happy to have met this amazing group of people.

Taxo fruit!

Making ice cream!

Carrot cake!

Monday:

This morning I went back to Cuicocha lake, which is the lake I went to last weekend to watch the swim competition. I wanted to go back to do the hike around the lake. I went with Yani, (10) Carmen's daughter, and we took the hike around the lake! It was beautiful! and actually a very strenuous hike... we climbed a mountain. It took us 3 and a half ours to make it around the lake. I thought we got lost because at one point we ended up on a main road with cars… the whole hike was a trail and somehow we ended up on a highway. We walked down the road for about 30 minutes and I thought we were lost so we waved down a taxi and went back to la calera. Apparently, we were not lost, and the highway walk was a part of the hike.

We had lunch and then I did some laundry and while letting my clothes dry I decided to get to work on my final project of my time here- making cookies. I got all the ingredients and made some yummy chocolate chip cookies for dessert tonight. I started packing all of my things to prepare for my departure tomorrow.

In the evening after dinner, we had a going away fiesta with the family. Carmen and Marlena and I made guacamole, the brought the ice creams that we made yesterday (which were great!!) and we had the cookies I made. The kids and I preformed our choreographed dance, which was pretty hilarious and then we sat around and chatted and laughed and did "aerobics" exercises/ hilarious dance moves to attempt to burn off all of the calories we just consumed. After making sure we had each others contact information right, we had to say haste luego. The kids made me the cutest cards and gave me such good hugs I didn't want to let go!

It has been an amazing time here in La Calera. I am so grateful to have met these people and lucky to be part of such a giving community. Until next time, ciao!