Backtracking

I'd like to backtrack a few weeks to our arrival in Cuenca. We were met at the airport by Mayra, the director of our Spanish school. She was warm and welcoming and the drive into town went quickly (the airport is very near the center of town). We were on a busy thoroughfare when suddenly the car pulled over and Mayra said, in Spanish, here we are. I had a sinking feeling, almost shock, as cars whizzed by and buses lurched past, wheezing black fumes.
The owner of the apartment building greeted us and helped us carry our luggage up the stairs to our apartment. The apartment itself wasn't bad, very small, two bedrooms, one bathroom, a mini kitchen, but it was incredibly noisy with the bedrooms overlooking the street.
Before Mayra left she gave us a map of the city with the school and the apartment marked on it. The school was in old town on the other side of the river. I asked her the best way to get there. She started to explain that there were two bridges and that the first one, the closer one to our apartment we should avoid after dark but that she thought it was okay during the day. She asked for confirmation from the landlady and they spoke very rapidly for a couple of minutes, concluding that yes, during the day the first bridge was okay but that the second one was better.
She handed us a welcome packet and said her good-byes. Besides a card with her contact information the welcome packet contained only one sheet of paper. It was a warning letter about how in Cuenca, like every other city in the world, there was crime. It contained advice about how to carry your bag, where to keep your valuables, where not to go at night. Welcome.

The apartment builing is U-shaped, one side on the street, one side overlooking the river, with a grassy play area in the middle. That last part was nice but not enough to make up for the traffic.
Mark and I knew that we wouldn't last here long and didn't bother to unpack anything more than the essentials.

The point of all this is the reaction the kids had. They immediately unpacked and began the process of claiming the bedroom as their new home, arranging their few treasured possessions, making some drawings to tape to the walls.
Over the next couple of days whenever Mark and I talked about finding a new apartment they quickly protested, "No we don't want to move. We like it here."
From that apartment our walk into old town was not pleasant. Most of it was straight down what turns out to be one of the busiest streets in Cuenca. That first day we left the apartment and began the journey to the historic part of town. We hadn't gone more than fifteen feet when a huge dog lunged at us from behind a fence and began ferociously barking.

And yet, like the kids, Mark and I never really considered leaving Cuenca. As it's turned out we've found a nice spacious home in a quiet part of the city and each day appreciate more this town full of rivers surrounded by mountains. And yet we had every reason to at least think about bolting.

We all hunger for a home and after the extended period of dismantling our lives in San Francisco we were all ready to settle down. And so here we are.

Sheilah
PS Sorry, no pictures this time but we will post some soon. We have been spending some of our computer energy dealing with lingering business matters from our days in the States.

third week a little late

We're a little late in posting this entry as we just moved to a new apartment and haven't had internet at home for the last few days. We're now living in the lap of luxury in the newer part of town. We have a three bedroom, 2.5 bathroom flat right across the street from the Yanuncay River. (In case you're curious we're paying $455 per month utilities and internet included. You can find places a lot cheaper if they're not furnished.) There are twelve families living in our compound and our house is set back furthest from the street so it is very quiet. It's a kind of gated community in that you need a key to get in and out. Rather than feeling exclusive, it just feels safe. We live above our landlord, an expat who has lived here for 12 years. Our landlord is a story in and of himself. He's a libertarian Vietnam vet, USofA brass beltbuckle wearing, good ol'boy, and a generous and engaging person. His wife is a sweet and lovely Ecuadorean 25 years his junior.
Of the twelve houses on this street ours is the only one with gringoes. We are slowly getting to know our neighbors in this upper middle class setting. They all seem happy to welcome a new family into the compound, even slouchy looking gringoes. Either that or they're extremely gracious.

In 1996 Jefferson Perez, a shoeshine boy from Cuenca, speedwalked to an Olympic gold medal . This is Ecuador's only Olympic medal ever. Here he is a hometown hero. The reason we mention this is that it is striking how one person can transform a culture. Cuenca is fitness crazed. When we leave for school every morning we see hundreds of people along the banks of the river, walking, running, lifting weights, doing Tai Chi. Maybe as many people exercise in San Francisco as do in Cuenca but you don't see them. They're off in their private gyms. Here it is all low tech and very public. Even old ladies speed walk and do jazzercise to blaring music in a park downtown. Men in their fifties can be seen sprinting up the hundreds of stairs that lead into old town. Sometimes the joggers seem in odd contrast to the cows grazing along the river or the chickens that occassionally find their way to the sidewalk.

Our big family news is that Liam and Ailish will be enrolled in a local, highly regarded school starting March 30th. We had a terrific tour with the school director last Monday. They have a child centered approach to teaching which we hope will make the transition from homeschooling easier. As some of you may remember, when our kids last attended school 4 years ago, they were in a Spanish immersion public school. At that time many of their classmates lived at or below poverty level. Once again their classmates will be native Spanish speakers. This time, however, their classmates come from a fairly elite sector of local society. We're thrilled that the kids are willing to take on the challenge of a new school in a new country in a foreign language. It helped that Ailish thinks the uniforms are really cute. Liam has been a little more reluctant but he does look forward to playing at least an hour of soccer everyday.

The mountain photo above is from our hike in Cajas that Ailish wrote about. We've joined a hiking club that goes on hikes every other week. We feel extremely lucky to have found it as it is mostly Ecuadorians and not well publicized in the gringo world. It's also much more affordable to go with this group than it would be to go on our own or with tour guides. We're going on another hike tomorrow and will post photos. The other photo that may need identification is one of us with our Spanish teachers in the Spanish school.

Mark and Sheilah

What should I say? So far I have been enjoying Ecuador more than I thought I would. I could actually imagine living here. Where we are there are not many birds. Well for Euador standards at least! We still see sparkling violet ear hummingbirds everyday And swarms of swallows circle above our river. Tomorrow we will take an epic hike through a rainforest. There will be many birds, I hope. And maybe I'll get pictures of them!?

One thing I really like is the play structures. By the river outside our house there are big swing sets and zip lines. Every 50 yards or so there is another play set that is awesome, too. Many people run and do dorky excersises near these parks as well.

Peace,

Liam

I don't really know what to say about Cuenca. The air is fresh and there are birds out our window. When we walk around town it's like we never even left home. At first when we arrived in Quito it was scary because it was all new. But now nothing much has really changed. But everything is different like there is a lot more poverty living beside me but I'm not in it.

Spanish class is fun. Our teacher is really smart and she is telling Liam and me about Ecuador. It's really different from San Francisco. It's more conservative and mostly Catholic. One of the people who is taking spanish class is named Dean. He's really funny and is always talking about being "cortez". When he's in the room everyone laughs. Dean is 78.

On Sunday we went on a really long hike with a hiking group called Sanguay. It was fun but I got so tired on the hills I felt like giving up. In my head I was being melodramatic and thinking that this was true pain. But when we got to the top it was a huge relief. There were a lot of beautiful butterflies and nice flowers. On the way back down a woman fell and probably broke her ankle. It must have been really embarrassing. She was wearing little pink socks with cows on them.


Ailish
photos by Liam

First Week

Before we begin we want to reassure our loved ones that the title of this blog is meant to be tongue in cheek and that we have no intention of placing ourselves in dangerous situations nor have we experienced any unintentionally.

We're composing this first entry together but we expect that in future entries you will hear our individual voices.

We arrived in Quito last Tuesday night. We were lucky not to experience any delays as we later learned that they are common due to the thin air and the fact that Quito is surrounded by mountains. Pilots actually need to be especially trained to land there given the challenges.

We had to take a van into the city from the airport as we are travelling the opposite of light. We have a year's worth of schoolwork for Ailish and Liam, numerous heavy bird reference books, Mark's bike, among other detritus. Our ride to the our hotel was uneventful except for two men who ran past our van, one with a shirt covered in blood. We asked the cab driver if they were criminals and he said, "Oh no, solo borachos."

Our hotel was located in the new part of Quito but the building looked to be very old and was quite charming. It felt like a sanctuary. Liam and Ailish were thrilled to discover that there was a room with several computers and free internet access.

We took a short cabride into the old part of town the next morning. We were pleased to discover that Quito was architecturally charming, had an international cosmopolitan feel, and was navigable on foot. We visited one museum and learned about the recent political history of Ecuador (and its leftist leanings) and later came upon an exhibit of award winning photojournalism from around the world.

Thursday we flew to Cuenca and were met at the airport by the director of our Spanish school. She took us to our first apartment situated on an island between the busy and noisy Avenida 12 de Abril and the Rio Tomebamba. We cannot begin to describe how much our lives improved when we were able to move to the river side of the complex and away from the noise and polution belching buses and trucks on the street side. Our space is nonetheless small and we will continue to look around for other housing options in town.

Our Spanish school is everything we hoped it would be. It is in a beautiful building (a converted house from another era) in the old town. Mark and Sheilah are much enamored of their teacher who is enthusiastic, prepared, engaging and fun. She is also very helpful. Tomorrow we will go with her to the local immigration office to try to make sense of the changing laws affecting our visa status. (We hope to find a way to extend our stay past the initial 3 months without too much hassle or expense.) Liam and Ailish spent the morning on a field trip shopping for ingredients for a cooking project. We all shared their chocolate pudding at the end of our school day at 12:30. At least the older generation in our household think it is a real blast to all be classmates learning a subject of such enormous and immediate utility.

We are happy to report that things are great here and we are enjoying the challenges presented by living in a foreign country and the excitement of shaping, and being shaped by, all that we experience.