thursday - just not feeling very clever

Sorry, not feeling super witty at the moment. am just starting to feel back to normal after an afternoon and evening (and, frankly, most of the day) of pretty much feeling like garbage (an expression I taught Frankie (the one on the left in the pic below) this morning. he told me I wasn't garbage (sweet, huh). anyway, not sure if the "vegetarian" soup I ate, only to discover a piece of pork halfway through, or maybe just the altitude threw me for a loop, but I was feeling pretty bad for about 24 hours. Franklin (Frankie); Jorge (Chino); y Cesar bagging Kallari organic coffee.
I was also helping, but someone had to take the picture after all.
Aside from the fabulous lunch yesterday, I walked to work for the first time - always an adventure. I have to say, growing up in NYC is a definite advantage for negotiating the streets of most Latin American countries. The idea of a right of way, or anyone even considering a pedestrian, let alone stopping for one, is completely foreign here. If you are lucky and you make it into the street before a car is completely upon you, the driver may just slow down or even stop. Usually that is paired with an excessive amount of honking though, just so you shouldn't think you were actually in the right or anything. Just imagine all these guys in their business suits, and women in suits or skirts and high heels, scrambling across the street the moment there is a break in traffic of more than two car lengths. Oh, and that old joke that only the stop signs without the white borders are mandatory, is pretty much the rule of thumb here. It's pretty insane.
David, the manager of the coffee shop
So, yesterday was a pretty normal day. Helped in the kitchen for a while, then Eva wanted some help with translating a publicity flier to pass out in the streets. She had done the German and French, and the English, but wanted me to double check it. We spent a while working on the translations (actually rewriting most of the text) on her laptop. Then more helping in the kitchen. Much discussion about how we have to make brownies for a big dinner on Friday night and can I help Frankie make them and that we also have to buy ingredients first. Of course there was no actual move at any point yesterday to buy the ingredients, but . . .
Frankie, Eva (from Slovakia - another volunteer), and Chino
after lunch we got another group in ordering food so we were all in the kitchen and Eva left her laptop in the main room, from where it promptly got stolen. Couldn't have been in that room with none of us in there for more than 5 minutes, but gone nonetheless. Ironically she had just been telling me over lunch that she hears stories, but doesn't feel like it is unsafe here. Though I can kind of relate. They say not to really walk anywhere after dark and it gets totally dark by 7. So I make sure to head out by 6:30 at the latest, but it just seems like a city getting dark, not dangerous. I won't test that theory anyway. The laptop pretty much became the rest of the afternoon's fascination (Eva even reported it), but nobody anywhere had seen anything so I doubt highly anything will come of it. It really sucks for Eva in general, and specifically because she was here volunteering working on the marketing and the website, so it kind of gets in the way of her productivity.
Eva, Cesar, and me

Frankie modeling some of Kallari's products for sale at the coffee shop
(he's actually a really good cook too!)

In the meantime, I coordinated with a friend of Betty Adler's (from my synagogue in DC) to go to Sukkot services and "Sushi in the Sukkah." Seemed like a fun way to meet the Jewish community even though by this point I was feeling even worse. So, Tomy (Rosenberg) came to get me and we rushed through the traffic all the way up to the north side of Quito to the synagogue. It's an extremely impressive building, with beautiful grounds, a playground for the kids, and he told me a sauna, pool, etc. I get the sense the synagogue and the community center are all rolled into one. The community has about 500 families and is pretty much conservative, though it is the only synagogue in Quito, so there is a bit of a mix among the families, and the rabbi is orthodox.

We arrived late and I found a space between two guys all the way in the back. Fortunately we were up to prayers I knew (also helps to be coming off of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur - a little extra familiarity never hurts when you have no idea where the prayer books are!) After the service as everyone was wishing each other Chag Sameach, somehow it came up that I was from NY and the guy next to me said he was also a foreigner. And, catch this folks, when I asked where he was from, he said Brazil. Did I mention he was about 6 feet tall, and, wait for it . . . . a vegetarian (unfortunately we got sidetracked before I could find out how any Brazilian, especially a guy, could wind up a vegetarian). I have to say, considering how exhausted I was and how awful I felt, I couldn't have been happier to have someone to speak with in Portuguese - I find I'm functioning much more between Spanish and Portuguese than English, and actually when I am tired my brain reverts to Portuguese. Interesting huh?

So, I spent the rest of the night talking to Rubens and much of it with his friend Robby, whom he had met in Guayaquil at Yom Kippur, but who had also lived in Sao Paolo. The world just keeps shrinking around me. The funny thing is I had just explained to Tomy on the ride over about running into Liz the other night and how strange it was, but not so strange because things like that happen to me all the time. I even said I am totally curious to see who I run into next. hmmmm.

After not eating sushi in the sukkah (could there have been a worse food to be standing around all queasy??), Tomy took me home (I couldn't even pretend to muster the energy to go anywhere with Rubens and Robby), and I just crashed.

Woke up this morning feeling less queasy, but still like I'd been beaten up pretty good yesterday. Choked down a piece of toast and headed in with the intention of baking brownies, seeing Rubens (who said he'd pass by the cafe in the morning) and then probably coming back to go to sleep. I know you all can already tell that wasn't how my day was gonna go right??

Arrived at the cafe to find that David wouldn't be in until noon and, of course, he's the one who has to authorize a purchase, say of brownie ingredients. And, there wasn't much going on so I helped a bit in the kitchen, sat outside with Eva for a while, and then pretty much went in to take a nap on this dugout swing thing they have hanging in the back of the cafe (you can kind of see it, Frankie and I are sitting on it in this picture.)
So, that was most of my day helping out in the kitchen when things were busier, sleeping when they were quiet. David showed up and I mentioned the brownies and needing to buy ingredients and he was all over it, except, not so much. He also told me Carlos would be coming back today instead of tomorrow, somewhere around 5pm. Needless to say, no ingredients were purchased (not to mention the cafe has been out of its featured dessert since Henry and I tried to order it on Monday, but that doesn't seem to concern anyone).

In the afternoon I went off to experience a uniquely Ecuadorian snack (which seemed about the only thing that wasn't unappealing to put in my stomach), pan de yuca. I figured it had to be good since it is so similar to Brazilian pao de queijo, just without the queijo (cheese). And here they eat it with yogurt. So I headed out to a panaderia to buy some yuca bread and a few other things for us to try back at the house. I must say, I'll take pao de queijo over pan de yuca any day, but it was tasty. And the yogurt thing is pretty good, especially since they have guanabana yogurt - yum!! I also had a nice Kichua tea with lime to help my stomach. Not bad, seems to have worked. Totally can't remember its name.

A new volunteer, Aaron, from Indiana University, also showed up today. Sort of out of nowhere, and nobody introduced us, so I did.

Henry came by to see me on his way to class, during which time Chino asked to borrow my camera and apparently things got a little wacky inside - hence the Frankie in the dug-out canoe picture above (and interestingly a ton of pics with Aaron in them also showed up). I may upload some more for you all later. But, at least we can thank Chino for most of what went up today.

After Henry left a group of guys showed up and hung around for a bit. Nobody told me anything about them or introduced me. After they had left with David, I asked who they were and if they were coming back and was told that one of them was Carlos and they were not coming back. Ahhh, should have known right??? I'm told he should be back tomorrow. Vamos ver . . . .