Nutrition gets underway full force at Aliñambi

Our first guest blog of 2011 comes from Zoë, with news on our Nutrition program.  Aliñambi, the school in which we work, does not allow us to take pictures of their students, so please forgive the lack of photos for this week’s blog!

Hello blog-readers! Thank you for coming back to us after our break for the holidays. Most of us traveled back to the U.S. to visit our respective hometowns for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. While the three-week break was much enjoyed by all, we are excited to be back to work.

One of the most thrilling parts of being back in the community is that the Nutrition program is now being fully implemented. Becky, Noel, Brock, Luke and I are all part of the Nutrition team, and we are all excited to bring the nutrition charlas and cooking class to the Nutrition program starting this month.  Charlas are essentially informational talks or lectures.  Up until December, the Nutrition program was just made up of the garden, which Becky blogged about a few months back. Now the garden has made excellent progress and the whole program is growing along with it!

Every week, Noel, Becky and I present a charla to the 6^th graders at Aliñambi school. We will be covering topics such as why nutrition is important, the food pyramid, micro- and macronutrients, and different types of Ecuadorian products. Using these concepts as well as some of the crops from the garden, Becky and I teach the students how to prepare a healthy dish using economical and accessible Ecuadorian ingredients. All of the recipes have been provided to us by María Luisa, the wife of the Principal of Aliñambi—so she could be sure to include culturally appropriate ingredients.

Today was our first cooking class. We prepared a mixture of rice and quinoa with a topping of swiss chard. We also prepared steamed vegetables with garlic and Naranjilla juice. It ran smoothly, but I do have to admit that the children are going to have to acquire a taste for certain ingredients- such as the Swiss chard María Luisa included in the recipe for today. When I asked one student if he wanted more, he shook his head in an absolute panic! Juan Carlos, their teacher, was threatening extra homework to the last one to finish their food.

Despite the somewhat unfamiliar tastes, all in all, the students really enjoyed being in the kitchen. Many of them help their mothers cook at home, and were teaching Becky and I new kitchen tricks. For example, one girl told me to soak the onion before I started cutting it so it wouldn’t hurt my eyes as much.

We have been preparing and planning the curriculum for Nutrition since about September, and so we are all eager to get it off the ground. Thanks for tuning in!

2010 ends in adventure; 2011 begins with change

… and we’re back!

Yesterday saw the beginning of 2011 for MPI, complete with a morning meeting to debrief each other on our holidays as well as to prepare for the opening days of our new quarter. 

At the start of break, five of us flew to Peru to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, a trip Zoë (thank you!!) began planning in August.  Zoë, Becky, Jack, Ashley and I, joined by Zoë’s brother Zach and Hudson from MPI Guatemala, spent what we agreed were some of the most physically challenging days of our lives hiking 45 kilometers up and down 2000 meters through the Peruvian Andes to arrive at Machu Picchu. 

The MPI Machu Picchu team: Jack, Zoë, Ashley, Becky, me, and Hudson from Guatemala!

After Peru, everyone (including Bibi) traveled home to the States.  Except me.  Although I was sad to miss out on the Taco Bell and Chipotle everyone got to partake in over break, it was cool to spend the holidays here in Ecuador.  My family came and spent Christmas with me and saw our house in Sangolquí and our centro in Rumiloma.  We also spent several days in the jungle, which was fantastic.  After coming back to Quito, they left for the airport with somewhat unfortunate timing around 8pm on New Year’s Eve, but not too soon to see a bit of the Año Viejo in Ecuador.  Avenida Amazonas in la Mariscal was as early as the morning of New Year’s Eve blocked off from traffic and lined with monigotes, or “años viejos”: effigies of people in the Ecuadorian public eye, often political.  At midnight, the creators of the años viejos burn their monigotes, symbolizing the death of all that was undesirable about the year that’s ending and the beginning of a new year, one that will hopefully bring good to replace the bad that has now left.  It was quite a sight.

Two Años Viejos in La Mariscal on New Year's Eve

To return to the present day and MPI Ecuador’s work initiating 2011, the major change we are undertaking in the new year is one in our schedule.  In an effort to respond to requests within our community in the past, we are shifting our work week from a traditional Monday-Friday to Tuesday-Saturday.  People frequently ask us if our library is open on Saturdays or if we offer English classes Saturdays rather than during the week, and we have always had to say no.  But now we begin a grand experiment in which we can say YES to such questions!

Our first Thursday, Friday and Saturday back to work, we are doing a great deal of promoting in Rumiloma and its surrounding communities of San Francisco, Tena, Chaupitena, Santa Isabela, and Fajardo to advertise the new schedule for the library and our classes.  The revised weekly schedule will look like this:

Library hours: Tuesday-Friday 2:30-7pm; Saturday 9am-1pm

Teen Center hours: Tuesday-Friday 4-7pm; Saturday 10am-1pm

Adult English: Wednesday 6-7pm; Saturday 9am-12pm

Children’s English: Tuesday/Thursday 4-5pm

Children’s Art: Friday 4-5pm

Women’s Exercise: Tuesday/Thursday 6-7pm; Wednesday 8-9am; Friday/Saturday 9-10am

Cooking: Saturday 10:30am-12pm

Guitar lessons (individual): Tuesday 2:30-5pm

We start taking inscriptions for this quarter’s classes Tuesday.  We hope that the inclusion of Saturdays in our schedule will allow us to reach an entirely new segment of the community that has been unable to participate in Manna activities before now.  Here’s hoping for positive change in the new year!

¡Feliz Navidad y Año Nuevo de Ecuador!

While the days are short and nippy for you, our Norteamericano readers, and perhaps you're even heading into a snowy winter, our December days here at the Manna site are... exactly the same as they were in July when we arrived.  Except rainier.  The sun, announced by our rooster's cries, rises between 6:00 and 6:30, followed by a usually bright and warm morning.  Mid-afternoon the temperature rapidly drops, and a torrential downpour makes getting to the library something of a difficult task for PDs heading to the teen center or children's English at 4:00 and adult English at 5:00.  The sun sets again between 6:00 and 6:30, darkening our upstairs space just in time for the meditation period at the end of women's exercise classes.  By the time we're heading home from the Centro just after 7:00, the rain has stopped and our trek on the Capelo bus is simply damp and cool.  Although it's often nice to have such predictability of daily weather patterns, it's a little disconcerting for us to be entering the holiday season here when we're used to the short, markedly colder December days characteristic of the world above 30N latitude.

However, that isn't to say we haven't been able to get into the holiday spirit, both at our Centro and at home.

Last Friday, we held our second monthly library celebration, the first being our Día de los Difuntos party.  We made cookies, hot chocolate, and decorations for a Christmas party (seeing as the vast majority of Ecuador, like the rest of Latin America, is Christian), complete with the tree we set up at home!  As with our last party on November 5, we advertised during the week prior to kids who regularly come to the library as well as out in the community, and this time had even higher attendance.  When we arrived at the library to open at 2:30, a crowd of kids was already clustered excitedly at the door shouting "Profe!  Profe!" ready to start the fiesta.  We had a schedule lined up throughout the afternoon to occupy the kids of varying ages and interests.  At 3:00 Zoë and Becky took a group upstairs to play games (musical chairs and the human knot, for instance) in our women's exercise space while I announced a Christmas storytime in the reading corner for those who were feeling more tranquilo.  In addition to reading stories from a lovely Spanish Christmas book Hannah had found at a local toy store to a small group of eager kids, I passed out a coloring book I had made of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (Sucedió Una Nochebuena in Spanish) to children to decorate and take home.  At 3:30 Sam and Brock led multiple games of chess for older kids and teens, some of which took place on our newly painted checker/chess boards on the wooden tables in the game area.  At 4:00, our normal children's art time, so many children wanted to participate in the ornament-making project led by Luke that there was a waiting list 30 names long to go into the children's art corner and use the limited number of scissors and glue available.  By 5:30 our tree was decorated (temporarily, since most children took their creations home) with multiple cotton ball Santa Clauses.  At this time, baked goods in hand, Hannah and Ashley announced the gingerbread cookie decorating hour.  They'd been upstairs churning out gingerbread men, stars, and bells in our kitchen space, and the kids were jumping up and down to decorate them with homemade icing, gum drops, and sprinkles at the end of the day.

The party was a fantastic success.  After the initial surge during which two of our sign-in sheets filled up within 5 minutes of opening, the number of children in our library grew to over 50 by the end of the day.  Throughout the day, while guided activities were going on, PDs were teaching and playing games, talking, and greeting newcomers who'd climbed our stairs for the first time upon seeing our sign outside reading "¡Fiesta de Navidad!"  We left exhausted but exhilarated to close our library for the holiday season on such a note of excitement.

After the party we immediately left for Quito to celebrate further: Brock turns 23 on December 15!  Upon his request, we headed to north Quito, the shopping center Quicentro, to go bowling.  Complete with black lights and air hockey, we celebrated Brock's birthday in classic style at the bowling alley.  Happy final birthday of 2010, Brock!

Monday night, before five of us (Zoë, Becky, Jack, Ashley and I) left for the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu and the rest headed back to the States, we held our own little holiday celebration with Secret Santa around our Christmas Tree.  The evening was a great success, complete with homemade eggnog (thanks Jack and Sam!) and spice cake (thanks to Bibi!), and a lovely way to send us off for the holidays.

¡Feliz Navidad y Año Nuevo de Ecuador!  We'll see you in January!

Finals period: Adult English

As our second quarter draws to a close, Sam brings an update on the end of his first adult English course:


‘You look weird,’ our students exclaimed when Brock and I walked into Intermediate Adult English at the start of November.  I didn’t think we looked weird.  I figured we looked distinguished.  I guess I thought wrong.  ‘Why did you grow hair on your lip?’ they asked through disapproving giggles.  This was a great opportunity to explain to our students what Movember is all about. 

In case you don’t know, November is a month dedicated to the awareness of and raising money for men’s health issues, specifically prostate and testicular cancer, as well as depression in men (see Movember.com).  It has become a tradition, in November, to grow a mustache to raise awareness, thus the name Movember, or mustache November. Our group of gents down here in Ecuador decided to partake in this year’s Movember and dawn mustaches for the entire month.  It was a great success, as in we made it the whole month without shaving them off (though my English class wasn’t all that excited about it), and I hope we can all do it again next year.

An artistic rendering of the Manna men during Movember.

All mustaches aside (they are all shaved off and long gone by now, as it is December), Intermediate Adult English is still one of my favorite things that I do down here.  I teach Intermediate Adult English with Brock twice a week.  It’s very fulfilling when you can see your students improve over the course of your twelve week class.  Just last week, we were working on pronunciation and I threw in a few ‘V’ words, and my students, who would have struggled in the beginning of the class, all looked at me as if I was silly, before pronouncing the words with great articulation.  One of my favorite things about our students is that they keep a sense of humor about the learning process.  We all laugh together when working on pronunciation, which is nice because the students lose the fear of making mistakes and enjoy the learning process more.


We have had a very tight knit group in our Adult English class.  As was mentioned on the blog before, our class helped us in making the traditional drink for our ‘Dia de Los Difuntos.’   Furthermore, about half our class regularly rode the bus home with us at the end of the day, joking and trading colloquialisms and cultural observations along the way with us. 

Having now completed the course we feel exceedingly proud: our students did well and the course went smoothly overall.  We were really excited to give our students ‘graduation certificates’ and are quite eager to see who returns for the next round of courses.  All in all, it’s been a great experience and I have learned immeasurably, given that this is my first time teaching English.

Hope all is well with our readers out there.  Stay classy!   

Happy belated Thanksgiving!

To fill you in on our festivities, we present you Becky:

On Saturday, the Manna house celebrated the great tradition of Thanksgiving.  We decided to wait until Saturday to have our Thanksgiving feast since we all had to work on Thursday.  (Apparently, the people of Ecuador do not commemorate the joint harvest celebration between the pilgrims and Native Americans.)  I volunteered to be in charge of the dinner since Thanksgiving is hands down my favorite day of the year.  I wanted to make sure that everyone had their favorite traditional foods during this holiday that makes us all miss our families and the time we usually spend with them.  I asked everyone to send me their favorite foods and the recipes that their families make.  Throughout this past week, everyone helped go on the multiple trips to the markets, grocery stores, and mega stores to make sure that we had everything that we needed to make a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.  We looked everywhere for cranberry sauce or cranberries to make the sauce from scratch and were almost ready to admit defeat until Zoë’s last minute trip to a shop in the mall that sells foreign foods culminated in us buying their last two cans of cranberry sauce.

We ended up with a delicious menu of a 20 lb turkey, three types of stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole (well, purple camote dulce casserole, since the orange sweet potatoes we love are not available at all here), roasted corn, salad, and gravy.  We also had the essential surplus of desserts including two pumpkin pies, a pecan pie, two apple pies, two pumpkin loaves, a pumpkin cake, and a mango crumble, since mangos are in season.

The cooking went as smoothly as any Thanksgiving goes.  Bibi and I spent most of Friday baking pies and other desserts.  On Saturday, we began cooking at noon trying to get the Turkey in the oven by 1pm.  Throughout the afternoon, Bibi, Noel, Zoë, and I kept watch over the turkey and prepared our numerous side dishes.  We planned to eat at 7:30pm, but unsurprisingly, the turkey was not ready until 8:30pm.  When dinner was finally ready, we stood around the table and everyone talked about what they were thankful for.  It was nice to hear that everyone was grateful to have such a great group of friends here in Ecuador (and that Noel was thankful for the internet). 

We were all excited to share our holiday dinner with friends that live in and around Quito.  Three of our friends, Lucía, Roniel, and Nolo, had never celebrated Thanksgiving before, and it was fun to introduce them to our tradition.  We also had some American friends, Amy and Scott, whom we were happy to have come celebrate with us.

Bibi, Noel and me tending to the turkey during the long afternoon.

Noel, Zoë and me, proud of our afternoon's labors.

Amid a crowd in our kitchen, Luke has a moment with our friend and guest's son, Gabito.

Nolo, Hannah, and Sam congregating while Luke cuts the turkey.

Nothing like carving into a turkey to ignite those smiles!

The kitchen is absolutely the place to be on Thanksgiving.

THE SPREAD.

It was awesome to see everyone work together to make this Thanksgiving dinner happen.  I know that in my experience I have helped my family in the past with cooking for Thanksgiving, but I have never had that much responsibility for the food.  It’s amazing that everything turned out perfectly, and it was because everyone pitched in to make it happen.  It was great experiencing a little piece of home this past weekend.  It has definitely made me excited to come home in December and see my friends and family.  

The whole day was a bit overwhelming for some of us...

...and we had to head off to bed immediately after the meal...

...but overall it was a great success!

iFeliz Día de la Acción de Gracias!