Cloud Forest and Homestays!

Hey Everyone!

We returned to Quito at about 4 this afternoon, and we're spending the night in a hostel tonight before going off with our homestay families tomorrow morning. The cloud forest was absolutely amazing, and definitely one of, if not the, most beautiful places that I've ever been. We stayed at the La Florida Cloud Forest Reserve, which is run by a man named Carlos Zorrilla and his wife Sandy. The reserve has a completely sustainable farm where they grow everything from coffee to lemongrass to pineapples. They also have chickens for eggs and a cow for milk, but they don't consume any meat at the reserve.

We got to La Florida around 3 on Saturday afternoon, and Carlos took us on a tour of the farm after we got settled in. We were staying in pretty rustic cabins with absolutely breathtaking views. After our tour of the farm we had dinner, which (like all of the meals we had at La Florida) was delicious, with the majority of the ingredients either grown on the farm or nearby.

On Sunday a few of us woke up early to go birdwatching in the forest around the reserve. We got to see the cock-of-the-rock, which is a really big, red, funny looking bird that uses communal mating grounds called leks. There's a lek not too far from the reserve, so we hiked up there and got to see and hear all of the cocks-of-the-rock displaying and calling, which was really cool. After that we had breakfast, two lectures, and a guided walk through the forest so that we could learn the names of some of the native plants. After our walk we had lunch, and then some of the women from the artisania group came to sell us their goods. They make all sorts of bags, hats, rugs, toys, and even water bottle holders! After everyone had bought their share half of the group (including me) were introduced to their homestay mothers, and then we set off for our homestays.

My homestay mother was named Elizabeth, was 19, and had a 23 year-old husband named Rodolfo and a 1 year, 4 month old baby girl named Jennifer. It was a little weird at first because she was younger than me, but once I actually got settled in I totally forgot about our age difference. It took us an hour of almost all uphill climbing to reach Plaza Gutierrez, the town where Elizabeth lived. There were about 7 other students from the group living with families in Plaza Gutierrez, so we all walked together until we reached the town and split up to go to our new houses. It was definitely a big adjustment getting used to living in a place so different from what I'm used to, but it was a really great experience at the same time. On the first day we had breakfast at 7 am and then walked to Rodolfo's mother's house to milk the cow. My friend Samantha's homestay mother was Elizabeth's twin sister, so they came with us to milk the cow. Once we were done with that we went to collect leaves for the guinea pigs to eat (they eat guinea pigs in the Intag and my family had a rabbit hutch out back with 16 in it, thank goodness they decided not to eat one while I was there) and also harvested a few beans. It was really cool to see all of the crops that they grow, but it was a really long walk getting to and from the fields.

When we got back from doing all of that Elizabeth taught me how to do the stitches to make things out of cabuya, which is the natural plant fiber that the women make all of their crafts from. The first one she taught me was really hard, but the second one was a lot easier and I was able to do it a lot faster. She made part of a water bottle holder for my nalgene for me, and I made the entire strap myself!

We did a lot of other things while I was there like going to a farm to pick out a chicken to have for lunch the next day, selling the cow's milk, going to the store, and playing soccer. At around 5:30 every night a bunch of the townspeople (and any students being hosted) would gather at a soccer field to play until 7. We were definitely a motley crew, but it was a ton of fun playing with everyone.

On Wednesday morning we headed back to La Florida where we spent the next two days learning about botany and ornithology. We walked in the woods and played a game to learn plant families, and also did mist netting. The mist netting was pretty unsuccessful though, we did it on three separate occasions and only caught one bird each time. On Friday the other half of the group came back from their homestays and we all walked to another reserve called Flor de Mayo to do a minga. A minga is basically when a bunch of people get together and work together to do something, like a barn raising. In our case we were moving rocks to make a bridge, which was very hard and very tiring work. It was really fun to work with people from the community, though, and to know that we were all helping and working towards a common goal. When we got back to La Florida we all showered and then talked in a group about our homestay experiences and about possible ISP projects in the cloud forest. We also got letters from our Quito homestay families, which got everyone excited and nervous at the same time. My family is really big, with a dad, mom, their 18 year old son and 12 year old daughter, a grandmother, and a "comadre" with her 7 and 9 year old daughters. The comadre is the godmother of the children in my family, and she lives in the house. They also have 3 dogs and a cat, so it's going to be a little crazy! I'm really exited to meet them tomorrow though, they seem like really nice people.

I PROMISE that I'll add pictures once I get a faster internet connection, even with nobody else on the internet here it takes forever to upload pictures. I hope everybody is doing well and I'll let you know how it is meeting my homestay family for the first time!

Hasta luego,
Caroline