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Sunday, June 27, 2010

never never land

Well I ended up spending 8 days at the farm known as never never land. It was in the south of Ecuador, in the mountains. Which is the coffee growing region of ecuador, where all of those fancy "ecuadorian coffee's" that you can find in Starbucks are from. Along with fruit, potatoes, corn, herbs, chickens and cows we also grew coffee, so everyday we would grind it up and drink the best coffee of my life. I had an amazing time. It really was pretty magical like the name suggests. The setting was stunning, the woman who ran it was slightly crazy but in the best way, the other volunteers where so friendly and fun, and the work was hard but gratifying. We got a taste of what it is like to be an ecuadorian housewives because on several of the days when the workers from the town would come in, there was no one to make them lunch, and since they are useless in the kitchen it was left to us to cook and clean for 5 to 15 people! It turned out to be really fun, we all had a sense of humor about it, so it was much better than it could have been.

It was so nice to work hard for a bit. And we didnt work THAT hard, but at the end of the day when everything was cleaned and put away and we would sit around and drink coffee and eat fresh baked cookies it just felt so good. I know all you "working people" out there are laughing right now, but also something about working on a farm and with the land is just the best. There is also no money to be made, especially on an organic farm. But I´m way too young and naive to think about that.

I´m now in Quito. Which is so beautiful! The downtown "centro" area is the most impressive that I have seen so far. And it is set high up in the andes surrounded by beautiful mountains and volcanoes. I have just been exploring, and shopping a bit. I went to what they call "South America´s Largest Market" and it was kind of a let down. the stuff was mostly crap. BUT there were a lot of indigenous women in extravagant dress adorned with gold. So I followed them and bought stuff that they did. It is so fun to see how the dress of the indigenous changes as I move north. For a while it was all these big skirts with petticoats (is that what they call the things that make skirts look really big?), made out of velvet and adorned with silk and embroidery, with leggings or tights, loafers, colorful sweaters, fancy shawls, and the HATS! oh the hats. I want to come back just to document indigenous use of western hats. Every city and little town has their own hat of choice, some are bowler, some top hats, some straw hats, some that look like a towel folded and resting on top of the head. In this area the indigenous dress looks almost indian (dot not feather),  with long black skirts, (wraparounds mom and dad) with fancy fancy frilly shirts, and shawls, with LOTS of gold jewlery and again the top hat of the area. If I had less self respect I would have been taking pictures of these women in each town. But I feel so weird doing that. So I try to do it without them noticing.

Last thing. So upset about the world cup. This is the most intersted in sports I think I have ever been. We should have won. they played dirty. fake injuries and all that. ugh. well speaking of which, England v Germany is on so I got to go. GO ENGLAND!

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