Family Day at Colegio Menor

Thought it was about time to give you a Colegio Menor update.  Things have been going pretty well at school.  Let's be honest...it's my first year teaching so by 'pretty well' I mean that I'm keeping my head above water most of the time.  Javier is thriving at school.  He has been subbing for a few teachers as absences pop up and seems to be getting to know a lot of students that way. (They're frequently saying 'hi' to him as we walk around campus!).  He is also helping in the English classrooms and seeing students regularly for help with essay writing.

One of our only complaints about school might be with the number of days that we have to work.  The Ecuadorian Ministry of Education (yes we have a ministry...I'm practically working at Hogwarts...) requires a 200 day schedule for teachers and students.  (In the US there are only 180 school days).  That said, Menor has done their best to make some of those extras day a bit more fun, like this past Saturday.  While all teacher and students had to report to make it 'count' towards our 200 days, the day, Family Day, is designed to be a lot of fun for everyone.  We were pretty bummed about working on a Saturday, but we both had a really good time (and didn't have to stay the full day either!).  I tried to document some sights from the day to give you a feel for the festivities.

Big tent set up by the food stands for folks to sit and eat as needed.

All Colegio Menor students are required to learn an instrument during their 4th, 5th and 6th grades.  The stage was full of students performing for parents and guests throughout the day.

Javier was put to work early (mostly hanging up signs!) because of his height.

The Tomobola was a fundraiser for the school and included over 400 donated prizes for folks to win!  (I won some organic night cream that I fully intend to start using!)

Family Day was also part of the Copa Amistad that Colegio Menor hosted over the weekend.  Three additional schools (Terranova, Spellman, and Americano - Guayaquil) traveled to participate in a friendly soccer tournament.  Colegio Menor's first game was actually Friday afternoon and the entire Upper School came out to watch (missing the last two blocks of the day to kick off the weekend!).  Unfortunately, we lost our first game in penalty kicks, won our second and lost our last game to the tournament champs (again in penalty kicks).  The soccer games were going on throughout the day on Saturday so that friends and family could watch in between other activities.

Tents were set up everywhere to try to block some of the intense Ecuadorian sun.  Each team's bench sat under a tent to try to help shade some of the athletes.

The lower school uses the day as their Juegos Internos (Intramural Games).  Each class designed and sported their team shirts (each representing one of the six pillars of character: responsibility, respect, fairness, trust, citizenship or caring).

The lower school performed a little parade to show off their shirts and class pride before running off to compete in their field games.

During the early part of the day, Javier and I walked around to see where we might be useful during set up.  We were lucky enough to stumble upon the NHS group setting up signs for the small zipline we have permanently installed at school.  The hang rope and 'seat' were recently added so Javier was asked to be the guinea pig test the zipline for safety.

Look how nervous he looks...

The safety check was a complete success! (And I'm hoping the practice run gets him pumped up for the ziplining we'll be doing in Mindo this weekend!)

Here are all the little kiddos lined up on the soccer field after the parade!

 Family Day also includes booths of local restaurants with delicious food!

I heard from a teacher that this booth went through 4 whole pigs over the course of the day!

Each grade was also responsible for a booth or activity to run during the day.  My 9th graders headed up the 'Crazy Hair/Face Painting' booth.  I was a little nervous as my shift at the booth started...we were really slow and my students were restless.  Luckily, the little kiddo parade ended about 20 minutes into my shift and before we knew it, we were SLAMMED!  The little kiddos were knocking down our booth for an orange mohawk or butterfly-painted cheek.  I was super impressed with how much my students got into the event!  In fact, we were so busy that I never even snapped a picture during our shift...(sorry!).  I did however snap this shot of my own face paint in the cab ride home.  2018.  Graduation.  I'm really looking forward to it....Here are a couple examples of other booths...

Pie throwing...

The dish soap, water slide (a popular one!).

While the trip to Cumbaya and required clock-in time shortened our weekend a bit, it really was a fun day!  Also in school news...I was responsible for the Social Studies bulletin board at school this month.  I wanted to simply migrate some artwork created by students from a bulletin board in my own classroom to the one in the hallway, but my husband challenged me to think a bit more outside the box.  The below is what I came up with (we are in the middle of our Age of Exploration unit!)

I included some explorers (Bartholomeu Diaz, Vasco de Gama, Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan) and some ideas about metacognition...

but it's interactive so that students can 'explore' info about each....(when you peek in the envelopes, there are maps, pictures and little write-ups for each explorer and concept)

We'll see how long it lasts (the students and weather may tear it apart...), but I was glad that Javier pushed me to do something more fun than a simple artwork display.  Yay for promoting learning!!

An Anniversary in Quito = Numero Dos

Javier and I have been married two years (and some change)!  If you had told me on our wedding day that we'd be celebrating our second anniversary in Quito, Ecuador, I'm not sure that I would have believed you.  I would have been pumped!...but largely skeptical.  Yet here we are.  This year's celebration was kind of a quiet one.  On the 13th we went to school and spent the evening celebrating Canada's Thanksgiving.  But the following evening we went out to a lovely dinner at Zazu, a Peruvian restaurant in Quito.  (I kicked myself a bit when I went to write this post because I realized we took no pictures of the two of us on either the 13th or the night we went out to dinner.  Fail.)

There is definitely not the same 'going out to dinner' culture that I would say you find in the big cities of the US.  It is not unlikely for a good DC restaurant to be completely packed on a Tuesday night.  When we went out for Javier's birthday (also on a Tuesday) the restaurant we went to never had more than four tables occupied over the course of our dinner.  As we were approaching the restaurant, I voiced my concern that this spot might also be kind of empty (even though it was 7:45pm) and less lively of an atmosphere because of it.  Boy, was I wrong.  We hadn't bothered to make reservations and only barely got a table at the crowded restaurant for our dinner (lucky!).  It must be a popular tourist spot, because I received a menu written in English (my first since we arrived in Quito) and we heard English spoken by many patrons.

Here is a quick run down of our delicious dinner :)

We started with pisco sours, a drink we had often on our honeymoon in Chile! (Interesting fact: Chile and Peru have been arguing for years over pisco and who has the rightful claim on the drink.  Even though Peru seems to have
'won' the fight, we still think of pisco as a Chilean beverage.)

Started with pork taquitos and fried calamari.

I had swordfish with stone crab mashed potatoes and a truffle consume. Deeeeee-licious.

Javier had pistachio-crusted Ahi Tuna with wasabi mashed potatoes.

And we finished dinner with an almond chocolate cake.

I said in my instagram post on the 13th that if the next 73 years are going to be anything like the last two, I'm sticking around.  We're doing a bit more celebrating this weekend with a trip to Mindo.  We have November 1st off of school, so we're looking forward to enjoying the long weekend and our first trip in Ecuador with just the two of us.

Celebrating Fall in Quito

Let me start by saying that Javier and I are having an amazing time in Quito.  Hopefully you've read about some of the awesome things we've been able to see and do already.  In addition to a beautiful country, the people and our school have been wonderful.  We are really happy here!

All that said....there are some things I am missing about the good ole US of A and particularly our DC home.  Mostly, I miss the people.  We're missing family and friends (let me say that before I tell you the next thing that I miss so that you don't get the wrong impression).  But I also really miss the fall.  Fall is, by far, my favorite season.  I love the color of the leaves, the briskness in the mornings and late afternoons.  I love watching football on Sundays and drinking pumpkin beer.  I love picking out a pumpkin (or two) and decorating with gourds.  I love butternut squash soup, the apples and pomegranates.  I love busting out the sweaters I haven't worn in a while and wrapping up in scarves.  Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and we were married in October (because we both enjoy the fall so much).  I love eating chili and playing cornhole or kubb in Logan Circle.  I love the fall. 

Fall is just not the same in Quito.  There are some elements we've been able to maintain with our move.  For example: we decided to purchase NFL's GamePass which allows us to watch all the NFL games every Sunday.  Between Packers games and our fantasy leagues, we decided it was worth it to have a consistent way to watch football.  This may seem silly to some of you, but it's been a surprisingly comforting consistency from our life in DC.  It is also quite brisk in the morning and crisp in the evenings in Quito (during the day, the sun makes it hot and down in the valley of Cumbaya it is much warmer as well), so I've been able to wear some sweaters and wrap up in the scarves I brought (at least in the mornings and evenings).  I mentioned in my Organic Market post that we've gotten pumpkin a few times.  I made some pumpkin brownies for the beach that turned out really well and a soup that was delicious too!  But there are elements we just haven't been able to duplicate: no changing leaves, no pumpkin beer (no craft beer really), no gourds and no cornhole.  And I miss those things.  But instead of dwelling on the stuff I'm missing,  I thought I'd share with you guys a couple of snapshots from our fall celebration attempts in Quito.

We had some friends throw an Octoberfest party.  We grilled out some AMAZINGLY delicious brats.

And had a pretty unbelievable view while we grilled.  (It never gets old.)

These friends also home brew, so we got to drink some beers (that were not Pilsener or Club).  They were deliciously dark and went perfectly with our brats.  It was a super successful Octoberfest in Ecuador in my opinion.

I also mentioned our pumpkin-chocolate spread from the market.  It is very good and certainly reminds me of a pumpkin butter you might find in the US.

We've also been getting a lot of apples!  They're not fresh from Homestead Farm, but they're very good!

We also have already had the opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving!  I know what you're thinking...'Audrey, it's only October...how have you already had Thanksgiving?'  But it was Canada's T-day that we celebrated.  One of our fellow new teachers is Canadian and asked us to join her to celebrate their day of thanks for the year's harvest.  It actually fell on our wedding anniversary this year, but we decided to postpone our nuptial celebration to join in the Thanksgiving dinner.

Our spread! (That's chicken, not turkey...impossible to find turkey in Ecuador, but we're told that they sell them around Christmas....fingers crossed)

This is Ashley (the Canuck!), our host!

Lots of friends came out on the Monday night to make the evening feel merry.

Ashley said that she was a little nervous about the day.  Much like our Thanksgiving, she said that her family always celebrated the day together, eating and enjoying the company.  Holidays seem like the hardest time for expats, but she gave me great hope for my looming Thanksgiving day (I'm a bit nervous about missing family that day as well!).  While we certainly aren't family, she said it warmed her heart even more than we didn't have to come and celebrate with her, but chose to.  And the full house and good food helped make it feel like a real holiday.

I'm missing my changing leaves and I'm super jealous when I see comfy sweaters, wine tastings and orange leaves in friends' instagram pictures, but we're working to have our own little fall here in Quito.  And I think we'll host a friend-Thanksgiving to try to capture some of the holiday I love next month.  In the meantime, enjoy a pumpkin spiced latte or pumpkin beer or kubb game for the Cabezas.  We're missing you and them here in Ecuador!

Organic Market - Cheap Fruits and Veggies

I would like to try to keep you folks updated on our day to day (in addition to the awesome trips and sights and such).  I mentioned in an earlier post that fruits and veggies are particularly cheap here (very cool).  Cheap is one thing, but we've also been lucky enough to find a spot with really good fruits and veggies.  Our apartment is near a neighborhood called La Floresta (it has a lot of fun restaurants and was featured in Anthony Bourdain's episode on Ecuador as one of the best spots for street food in the world).  Some teachers at school told us that there was an organic market in the neighborhood that was open every Wednesday so we hopped off our bus one day and decided to check it out.  In addition to having amazing food, the little store is quite cute too...

It sits on the corner and has a large tree painted on the outside of the building.

The inside is painted with bright colors and more trees :) 

The shelves are always full of beautiful and colorful veggies.

In addition to fresh, organic produce, the store also has little marmalades and sauces that you can buy.  We've tried the pumpkin-chocolate spread - it was delicious!  They also have breads and sometimes cakes or pies, but we haven't tried any yet.  The store also includes homemade soap, yogurt, eggs and milk.

Sauces, marmalades, and honey.

Those are empanadas.  We've had some from another bakery, but we'll have to try them here soon.

We learned on our first visit that the market has an email list.  Now we get an email every Sunday and respond with our order.  Now when we walk in on Wednesday there is a 'Cabezas Basket' waiting for us.  Here is another teacher from our bus picking up her basket.

Fun tree and veggie art behind the counter.

Here are some examples of our hauls.  Everything has been delicious, but we have made some happy mistakes (our emails come in Spanish and the translations haven't always been perfect...)

In the top right you see the collard greens we got when we thought we had ordered kale. The greens ended up being delicious though :)

We get the strawberries every week - they're amazing!  And we've gotten pumpkin twice now!

We have been having a lot of fun experimenting with our veggies every week.  We got blue potatoes this week and made blue mashed potatoes :)  We pickled some cucumbers and tried a new fruit we really like called uvillas.  I made a cobbler with our strawberries and blackberries and several soups with whatever ends up being leftover at the end of the week.  Mostly, we love the eggs.  They are so fresh, and their yolks are so bright they're almost orange.

Same - Beach Bound

I know that I am beyond overdue for an update from Quito.  A thousand apologies to my avid readers, but we took a trip, had an anniversary, dealt with some internet troubles, yadda yadda yadda...you know the story. But I'm here now, ready to offer you a photo-filled update of our latest trip to Same (pronounced SAH-may).  Same is a gorgeous beach with a fancy neighborhood called Casablanca (where we and apparently many of our Colegio Menor students stayed).  Javier and I had originally planned a trip to Mindo (stay tuned, we're going there in November) but hopped on this beach trip last minute when some other teachers canceled.  The trip (on a bus) took 8 hours.  I'm learning quickly that going anywhere outside of Quito's mountain range requires some painful hairpin turns and back and forth up and down mountains...there are some trips even dramamine can't handle...

But once we arrived, I was pleasantly surprised with our accommodations.  Take a look at some pictures of the house!

I'll start with the view cause...well why not...it was awesome.  And that's our little lap/soaking pool as well.

Here are some dedicated teachers enjoying the pool later that weekend.

This is the 'indoor' dining area...you'll understand my air quotes in a sec...

lounging option, again in the 'indoor' area

Okay...here is what I mean - the house flows seamlessly from indoor to outdoor (as does the campus at Colegio Menor)
The weather is so ideal in Ecuador that is seems fairly typical for buildings to allow you to exist both inside and outside simultaneously.  I wonder if this is something I will ever get used to...
but here you can also see the duplicate living and dining area that exists 'outside'
(but again...it's all inside and it's all outside...)

Where we sat for our family style meals every day :)

This is Uve (OO-vay) She also came to Black Sheep with us.  She is awesome.

This was our room.  The entire house had cement floors which made walking around with bare, wet feet feel more appropriate.  It also added to the 'Am I outside or inside?' feeling I had the entire weekend.

Did I also mention we had a lady come help us clean and cook each day?  This was the lovely lunch Dolores made us on Friday.

While the house was AWESOME, I don't know that I would go back, only because of the walk we had to the beach.  There were some beautiful sights along the way, but we had such a great view because we were on top of a very large hill.  This made the walk to the beach very steep and slightly long (20-25 minutes).  If the weather had been better (it was always kind of cloudy and sometimes rainy) we might have made the trek a few more times.  As it was, we only traveled to the beach once over the weekend.  But I was happy to be headed to the sand and the waves and made the most of our day :)

View as we walked down the mountain hill

Walking to the beach.  There were these massive, white complexes everywhere.  I'm sure each contained homes as gorgeous as our spot - this is a nice beach in Ecuador!

The little town...town may be too strong a word.  There was a tienda!

And a fish market that we stopped at briefly :)

There were lots of people on the beach (you can see them huddled under their tents to the left in this picture).  The sand was dark (almost black) but the water was the perfect temperature and nice and calm.

There are lots of folks selling items on the beach (everything from beer to juice and jewelry to hats). 

Javier bought some coconut juice from one of said sellers - I rolled my eyes a bit, but it was SO GOOD.

He also brought his soccer ball in case any local beach-goers were interested in a quick pick-up game.
(Look! some blue sky!)

I spent my time on the beach doing what I do best...reading, napping and swimming.
(And wearing this awesome hat, courtesy of the Nguyens!)

Instead of hiking back up the mountain hill we took a 'cab'
(by which I mean we rode on the makeshift bench behind a motorcycle per usual in Same)

The rainy weather meant less beach time, but it did make for a lot of relaxation.  Javier convinced some of the group to join him in a quest for global domination.  We completed a puzzle one afternoon.  I read for the pleasure for the first time since I started teaching.  We also enjoyed banana coladas and margaritas by the pool.  (So you shouldn't feel too sorry for us about the cloudy weather...)

Global domination...

We were also lucky enough to be traveling with two Spaniards who promised us homemade paella one afternoon.  Their trip to the fish market and all day preparation made for quite a bit of entertainment (in addition to the delicious food!).  I was ambitious enough to descend from my lounge chair to document the making of the paella (in the hopes of sharing it with you!)

Oh yeah...they made us prawn appetizers cause they needed their shells for broth!
Thats a whole lot of garlic.

This is my mid-afternoon appetizer...and cocktail. 

There was much discussion about the purchasing of this pan.  In the end, I think it held its own. 

All the seafood shells and stuff to make a good broth. 

This is Michael attempting to take credit for the paella.  He has no idea what he's doing.

These are our real chefs: Javier and Poppy.

Lots of yummy veggies to start.

Filled to the brim with broth and spices.

Served up for our hungry bellies.  (It fed all 9 of us for two meals!)

Javier and Poppy weren't the only ones itching to get in the kitchen during our vacation.  My hubby was anxious to try a new recipe he had found on our naive adventurous beach crowd.  Canelazo is a popular drink served here in Ecuador.  It's served hot/warm, smells like Christmas, and usually contains the local liquor called aguardiente (made with anise).  It's the perfect drink for a brisk Quito evening.  While it wasn't exactly brisk at the beach (first time I've experienced humidity in Ecuador), Javier had been wanting to try to make some homemade canelazo and this seemed the perfect time.  He had purchased and packed all the needed ingredients and spent some time our list night in the kitchen.  I'm not a canelazo expert by any means, but I thought it was absolutely delicious!  And some of our more veteran expats agreed it was a quality batch (and I think not too difficult).  You can definitely count on a mug/cup when you come to visit us on a brisk Quito evening.

professional at work

my second steamy cup!

It was really nice to get away from the city for a long weekend.  And the relaxation was just what I needed.  Being away (and not working) made for a bit of a hectic week last week (part of why I haven't blogged), but the trip was totally worth it.  More updates to come soon (I promise!).