Ecuadorian Futbol Team!!!

For those who don't know, futbol is serious business down here in South America. Instead of little kids having the choice of little league, football, tennis, or futbol like in the US, pretty much the only choice here is futbol. Kids are born and bred to play soccer, and they don't lose that passion as adults! There is no Sunday tennis with your girlfriends or adult slow pitch softball leagues, there is futbol leagues for little kids, adult men, and yes adult women; and I think I fear the women futbol players more than the men down here! Haley, Jackie, Sarah, Bibi, and I had the opportunity to join one of these Ecuadorian Women's Futbol teams; the team representing our part of town, Rumiñahui. We committed to playing with the assurance from Bibi that there would be no practices (because we really don't have too much spare time outside of work), that it was not too competitive and we were promised sweet jerseys including our names on that back! How could we pass that opportunity up! Well come to find out our team and the league are anything but laid back and 'friendly'. Our 'coach' (more of just the organizer of the team) is super hard core and LOVES to yell at Jackie for unknown reasons, and we have practices once a week. Though I did amazingly get my lucky/favorite number, 4, my jersey is 4 sizes too big and with one sprint down the field I may be completely shed of my top....yikes! Oh and no names on the back! But, such is the Ecuadorian/South American lifestyle...vague/unpredictable.

We had our first game today against a neighboring barrio. I did not play because I had been in bed the past 2 days sick and thus, this morning just walking to the field made me light-headed, soooo, I was a side line cheerer. Though we unfortunately lost 2 to 3, the game was great! The other team was pretty cheap and mouthy and just really uncool. But Jackie scored an awesome goal and I am quite sad I did not catch it on video. It was a proud moment for all of us gringas since the coach loves to pick on her; perhaps now she will be more easy on poor Jackie?

Anyway, it was definitely hard sitting on the sidelines not playing but I am feeling better and will definitely be out there next weekend! Can't wait!

This is panning out to be a rough but great experience for us. It really gets us more infiltrated into the community and first hand experiencing what everyday Ecuadorian life is like, bruises and all! The season goes until December and so we will see what happens! I will keep you updated on our record! Going for the gold baby!

Quick team huddle before kick off! Sarah #7, Bibi #8, 

and Jackie #2 (to the left of Bibi)

Me being sad I missed out on playing

in our first game :(

Bibi dominating the field!

Hope the weekend treated everyone well!

besitos!
Krysta

Somos Ecuatorianos?!

Hey all,
So now that we are about 5 weeks into our programs that started on September 14th, I have lots of updates about the ones that I am personally running/involved in!


Adult English- We have 9 people registered now for the class! Woohoo! And on a regular basis, we have about 6 people show up each day. Which for starting out with no one showing up is pretty good!  We ended up teaching an intermediate class because all our students were far more advanced than we had planned for and so we did a quick change of lesson plans to cater the course to intermediate students. Each day we teach some grammar, vocab, and my personal favorite (my favorite lesson I did everyday when I was teaching in Austin) the Song-of-the-Day!  We give the students the lyrics to an English song with about a word per line missing and so they listen to the song and have to fill in the blanks with the words they hear. It's pretty awesome when we go over all the words and then listen one final time and we all sing along :) So this 6 week course is about to end but we are more than likely just going to advertise some more and continue the course as is since we finally have regular attendance and eager students. But man is English grammar getting hard to teach! Thank goodness one of my English partners is Chet and he was an English major!


Kids English- I am now helping out with Kid's English on Wednesdays because the class got too big, and so they had to split it into 2 groups and thus needed extra help to wrangle all the kids! It's a much more relaxed class in which we teach them colors, animals, and numbers and don't have to worry about teaching them the pluperfect or any awesome grammar like that!  I really enjoy helping out with this class and it gives me a great chance to work on my class room management skills, a skill we all should have in this crazy world!


Natural Science class- I had a vision of starting a science class here teaching kids about elementary science topics and doing those awesome experiments we all did as children (baking soda volcano anyone?!). Jackie is really involved in environmental projects down here and wanted to teach kids about environmental issues and raising their awareness about conservation. So we decided to join forces and start a Natural Science class for kids where we do science experiments while at the same time incorporating environmental topics; i.e. projects that show how oil and water don’t mix and incorporate negative impacts of oil spills on the environment. It has been very successful thus far and we are really excited about the progress and future of this class. These kids have already passed our expectations on their science and environmental knowledge so we can't wait to build on it!

Aliñambi Nutrition Program- A few weeks ago we took measurements (weight, height, and arm and trunk circumference) on all about 130 students that attend the Aliñambi school. We did this because we are in the works of developing a Nutrition Program at this school where, while all are not malnourished, most have nutritional issues whether they be undernourishment, obesity (very few but it is present), or lack of iron issues. We have yet to develop the specific program, as I am still doing research to find what time of Nutrition Programs have already been implemented in Ecuador and their success and failures. So all in all we are looking for a type of program to base ours on, as our partner foundation HealtheChildren, with whom we are working on this Nutrition Program with, will support a program that has shown previous success. So I am crazily working on Nutrition Program research as well as working with Dra. Julia at Aliñambi to get other information about these kids are far as economical status, and other info that will help us correlate what makes these kids malnourished (what the strongest factor is) and how we can change that variable. Also, while taking these measurements we took the opportunity to ask these kids first hand what they ate for breakfast, lunch, and what their favorite food is (I think we only got 1 pizza and 0 mac-n-cheese response...poor kids, I feel I need to enlighten them on the amazingness that is mac-n-cheese!). But we are going to use these responses to also help us find identifying factors of malnutrition. So it is all really exciting and once we get all this data charted and entered into SPSS, we will hopefully have a well enough trend and identified variables where we can create a great Nutrition Program. Upon the hopeful success of this soon-to-be Nutrition Program, we want to implement it in other schools in the Valle de los Chillos region to improve nutrition over a greater area. 

Ecuador Ministry of Health- This past week Shawn and I met with Dr. Escobar, a contact with the Sangolqui Hospital and Ministry of Health, to talk to him about the 5 medicine-interested girls in Manna to start shadowing some doctors. The Sangolqui Hospital is the only public hospital (all public hospitals in Ecuador are free) in the Valle. There are 10 or 11 other subcentral sites (small local clinics that serve small rural communities) that are run through this Sangolqui Hospital as well. This past Thursday we met all the heads of these Subcentral sites at their monthly meeting. It was pretty awesome to see how these areas come together and hear their numbers for the hospital. So in the end, all 5 of us have been assigned Drs. to shadow starting off with once a week and then if we feel we have more time, we can add another day. This is an absolute AMAZING opportunity for us as pre-health students as well as for Manna, and also we are offering up our time to the hospitals here that are in absolute DIRE need of extra hands. Shadowing will allow us, as Manna volunteers, to see how health care here in Ecuador is run so we get a better idea of how to open a successful Preventative Health Center. Also, this experience will show us and allow us to do/see what we couldn't even imagine seeing our entire lives in the US or doing until our later years of professional school. I am starting off working with Dr. Escobar himself who is an Internal Medicine doc who also works with diabetes and TB. I am soooooo stoked, words cannot express. Maybe even happier than a little kid on Christmas morning! I'm such a nerd. Even though I have loads of work already, I am hoping to try these next 2 weeks and see how they go and then hopefully add another day of shadowing per week. Since I am already working with Dr. Escobar in the actual hospital, I am hoping to add another day in a rural subcentral site where the cases are more rare and my opportunities to perform "procedures" would be greater. I will definitely keep you updated on this and I'll try and keep out the gory details (especially for you Mackie! ) (but don't worry mom you'll hear them all even though I know you don't want to but you're my mom and well that's how it goes :) )

Presidential Inauguration- Manna Ecuador has been here for the past 2 years, and with this current group makes 3. They opened the Library last March and thus since then Manna has been a constant figure in the community with the Library acting as a community center for kids and teens. Just being constant in the community doesn't necessarily mean we are 'part' of the community. Though culturally, Ecuadorians are very welcoming, it takes more than just us being here and offering classes to be accepted into the community. We are reminded constantly that the communities are thankful that we are here but we do all we can to be accepted and considered one of them. We go into the community whenever we can, we have attended a fundraiser for the church in Rumiloma, which they tore down last year but didn't have the funds to rebuild (ya sounds weird but thats how they do things down here ha). Rumiloma is the particular community where our Library is located but is it very small and the other communities that are just streets away are San Francisco, Tena, Fajardo, Chaupitena, and Santa Isabel. Rumiloma elected a new President a couple weeks ago and we went to introduce ourselves to him. He had obviously already heard of our presence in the community and so we just wanted to extend our presence to have him as a major contact in the community and his insight. Upon our meeting with him, he formally invited us to his inauguration into office. We were blown away by this invite and were so honored to be formally invited to such a big event. This invite showed us we are one step closer to being accepted and considered part of the community here. The inauguration was great. It was a small meeting where representatives from the other barrios (neighborhoods) and heads of major bus companies and camioneta companies were present. The prez honored us and thanked us for coming and for doing all that we have done for Rumiloma. It was a great honor to be recognized by so many people at this meeting and thanked. We know we are making a difference slowly here in these communities, though sometimes we feel that isn't always the case. It was great to see how much our organization and presence meant to a lot of people and how they are thankful for each day that we are here. One man spoke and said he had been living in his barrio for the greater part of 10 years but has greatly considered moving to Rumiloma because of the opportunities that exist there, with Manna's Library being one of them. That alone was an amazing praise to our organization and fuel for us to strive to achieve more here. 
*Check the MPI Ecuador Blog (link to the right on my page) for some pics from the Prez Inaug! or just click here :)  http://openhandsdirtyfeet.blogspot.com

Other- Last Saturday we did a minga (aka. more or less a community project--sometimes I wish Spanish and English would just translate perfectly..anyway) where we cleaned the streets of Rumiloma with kids and families from the library. We collected over 400lbs of trash along with 2 tires!  It was awesome to see. We took the opportunity to teach kids about litter and trash and the environment. Litter here is sadly horrible and most think that the streets are a trash can. 
We also had a Health Focus Group where we got the chance to talk to a few women in the community about health and preventative health and what type of center or way of obtaining information would be the most successful and used by the community members here. It went great and we received a lot of good information about what Ecuadorians think about Preventative Health. Steps to the center are looking better!


Finally, Ecuador's national soccer team played Uruguay last night and 5 of us had the opportunity of going!  We got to the stadium at 11:45am, more than 5 hours before game time, which was 5pm, and the stadium was already FULL!!  It was insane!  We unfortunately lost, which means our road to the World Cup just got harder, but all in all it was an amazing experience and not many people can say they have been to an Ecuador World Cup Qualifying game!  So it was great and I'm so happy to have gotten to experience the awesomeness that is South American soccer during such a big game!  But on happier news, the first love of my life, Chile, played last night against Colombia and won and thus qualified for the World Cup!  Yay!  I was super excited they won for 2 reasons, 1. They qualified, obvious happiness!  and 2. Ecuador plays Chile this Wednesday as their final opportunity to qualify and so I was really distraught over who I was going to cheer for but now that Chile has qualified, I am comfortabe cheering for Ecuador without feel too* guilty! 

That is all my news for now. Sorry there was so much of it. So much goes on around here each day and I have a severe case of over-wordy-writing. But thank you again for your support on this project and I am so thankful that I am here being able to make this difference for the people down here. Muchos muchos gracias!

Chet and I sporting our newest piece of Ecuador fan 

gear....awesome hats that I want to wear like everyday! 

Ecuador vs. Uruguay!

View of the fans and police from our seats (3rd row baby!)

"Vamos, Ecuatorianos.

Esta noche, tenemos que ganar"

"Let's go, Ecuadorians.

Tonight, we have to win!"

Viva Ecuador!

Krysta

Culture, programs, and nutrition oh my!

So these past 2 weeks have been quite adventurous! With things calming down a little (well actually only very slight) these past few weeks, we have been able to enjoy some of what Ecuador has to offer such as hiking ridiculously high volcanoes, climbing to the top of a beautiful old church in Quito, and experiencing a Quito futball (soccer as we call it is the US) game!

So first off, a few weeks ago 5 of us decided to hike one of the highest mountains in Quito known as Pichincha. We took a gondola-type ride known as the Teleférico up most of the way (to about 12500 ft) and then we took in the amazing view of Quito from there. From the top of the Teleférico, there is a trail one can hike to the summit of Pichincha which is 15,696 feet!! Pretty freakin crazy huh?! The hike allowed for AMAZING views of Quito and it's surrounding valleys. But, due to the elevation and my lack of preparedness for such increase in elevation, Jackie and I didn't quite make it all the way to the top. Though don't you fret, we are training our lungs to get used to the elevation and are planning a Pichincha Volcano hike take 2! But needless to say it was an awesome experience and I could really just sit up there and take in the view all day long (if only it wasn't so cold and windy up that high!)

Jackie and I on Pichincha!

About to take on the volcano! Good thing we know

which direction to go!

Last weekend the girls of the group decided to be tourists for the day and go explore a church in Quito known as the Basilica. It is a beautiful old church found in the Centro Historico part of Quito. People can climb to the top of the towers and once again take in amazing 360 views of Quito and its surrounding areas! But in order to get to the top we had to climb some rather questionable sets of ladders and walk across chicken wire floors.....definitely worth the scariness though! Once at the top, there are "ledges" that one can sit on and dangle your feet over and enjoy the sun and views. But beware these ledges are not for the weak stomach and those scared of heights! If you ask me, the amazingness is soo worth it (though me and heights are friends so)! :)

Hanging on the ledge taking in the view of Quito!

Don't worry mom I'm alive!

Finally this past weekend one of Quito's more popular soccer league teams, Liga Deportiva Universitaria de Quito (aka. Liga), played another local Quito team and we went and got tickets for $6.50 and was able to enjoy a once in a life time experience! (ok so maybe not once in a lifetime, but still a rarity for those in countries were soccer does not rule life) It was awesome! It was just like being back in Texas at a football game with everyone on their feet chanting cheers and songs the entire time. Some of us even managed to understand some of the words being sung and got to join in on the party...."L-I-G-A Liga campeon!" or...."esta noche tenemos que ganar" (tonight we have to win!), etc. It was an awesome experience and just got me excited to go to Ecuador's World Cup Qualifier game against Uruguay in October!

Jackie, me, and Chet...the newest addition to the

Liga Fan Bandwagon!

Jackie, me, Sarah, Haley and Sonia getting rowdy!

LIGA!

Other than the cultural festivities we got to partake in, school here have started which means our programs at the library have also started this past Monday. This year I am teaching Adult English with Chet on Mondays and Jackie and I have started a new Natural Science class this year for the kids that take English classes at the library. So far, Adult English has not been successful with no one showing the first week but we have spoken with some adults and have figured out that our time just wanted congruent with their work schedules so I think we are going to try and change class time and hopefully that will do the trick! Jackie and I's Natural Science class was a great success on Friday! We made lava lamps with the kids and taught them about water and oil and why they don't mix and how oil can be devastating to the environment such as in oil spills. They seemed to really enjoy it and fingers crossed, learned something!

Finally, this past week we took measurements of the students at Aliñambi because we are in the process of developing a pilot Nutrition Program to implement at Aliñambi and then upon its hopeful success spread it out into other schools in the community to get these kids healthy and eating right.

So other than doing analysis on the Aliñambi data, teaching English and Natural Science, and working on finding grants for our Health Program, I am just hanging, enjoying the last we weeks of dry season and trying to learn as much Spanish as I can!

Hope everyone's weekend was fantabulous! (even though the Chargers lost :( sadly)

peace + amor

Krysta

Salud is for everyone!!

Hey everyone,

So I apologize that it has been weeks since my last post. The past few weeks have been absolutely nuts for me. Basically since I moved into the house I have been attending meetings with Julia at Aliñambi to discuss the nutrition program we want to start to implement starting with the children at Aliñambi and then hopefully with the success of that program, expand it on into the communities to improve the over health of children. I had also been meeting with Julia about the clinic we put on on August 28th and 29th, and finally, have had meetings to finalize the contract between us, Aliñambi and HealtheChildren (the US based organization that is funding the Aliñambi clinic expansion and nutrition program). Even though it was a crazy few weeks and lots of work with meetings and poster making and everything, it all really paid off in the end!!

Me in front of my Nutrition posters with some fruit in hand!

Our clinic was a great success. Over the 2 days we had 133 patients total (we had hoped for a little more but it was great to meet and help the amount of community members we did). The clinic consisted of 2 doctors and 1 PA (which was amazing for me to see that PA's can come down here and do amazing health work! Now I really cant wait to become a PA and start doing this kind of work!) and we had a pharmacy with tons of medication that all Manna volunteers have brought down over the past couple years and lastly Manna, us, put on a dental interactive talk where we taught kids the proper way to brush and floss their teeth!  Many people down here don't realize how important brushing and especially flossing are to one's health. So our charla (that is what a little 'talk' is called down here) went amazingly and we gave out a toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss to all the kids that participated. It was so adorable to teach all of them and have all of them so eager to learn. I also made nutrition posters that consisted of specific nutrition facts based on Ecuadorian fruits and made a food pyramid catered to Ecuador and finally we had Health Jeopardy where patients could win t-shirts for right answers while they were waiting to see the doctors. It was truly an amazing experience.

Me and Jens in front of the dental charla posters!

Haley and I with our dental charla audience!

2 girls from my group maintain the Manna Ecuador Blog that is for anyone and everyone who has donated, supports or is just curious in the happens of MPI. I wrote the guest blog this week about the clinic so here is the link so please check it out! (and not only for my blog but also check it regularly because they write bout 5 times a week about all the stuff we do so...they are better than I am ! Sorry :) ) Oh and here is the link: http://openhandsdirtyfeet.blogspot.com/

So anyways, back on track....The clinic was a great experience and being so involved first handedly and being actively involved in it set up and creation made me really see this experience differently than free clinics I have done in the past in Mexico. Being so involved and having so much contact with the patients made me realize how much "power" we have down here solely for being Gringos. It was crazy to see how these people would just walk into our clinic and put their trust and lives in our hands without knowing anything about us, without knowing our credentials, and accepting that we knew more and could take care of them because we are Americans. They assume we have X amount of knowledge about medicine and about health that they don't ask questions along the lines if we are qualified to be giving health advice and care. It really took me aback and made me so happy that we are able to help these people because we do have more basic knowledge to share about health but at the same time it kills me to see how they perceive us and that we have so much 'power' to help and change how these people live and hardly anyone acknowledges it.

Being able to see how a PA can work down here in South America has really given me more passion and excitement that I have chosen the right career path for me. I cannot wait to be able to be in the position to help people on a greater level. YAY!!

Jens and an eager patient!

Haley and I sporting the t-shirts I designed and got made (my first Ecuadorian project and success)!

So now that this clinic is over, I am starting to work with Julia and Aliñambi on getting their nutrition program and hopefully soon will start working on Aliñambi's clinic expansion.  Schools down here started this week and so we are starting programs at our library next Monday the 14th. I am helping out with Adult English as well as starting a new class with Jackie to teach kids about science and natural sciences/environmental science. So my weeks of business are going to continue for awhile and since our kids natural science class is a new proposal, we are just crossing our fingers that kids come and enjoy it so we can continue it throughout the year!

Well, that is about it for now! Sorry for the late and sparse updates!  We will all be getting into more regular routines now so that will be nice. I will let you know how are classes begin next week! 

Hope all is well in your respective parts of the US and that you had an awesome summer! (so sad its coming to an end) And I heard it was Labor Day up there today so I'm super jealous of ya'lls holiday haha!

Salud + amor

Krysta

My new future career path...radio!

So right now, and for the past 2 weeks, Manna has been running a teens camp through our library where we do all sorts of activities from basketball, to video games and hiking. This past Wednesday was my day (because all the PDs switch off between teen camp in the morning and the library in the afternoon) to help out with the teens. So Seth (one of the original Ecuador PDs), who knows a contact at the most popular radio station in the Chillos Valley, took the camp to this radio station for a tour. The Director showed all the kids around and they got to listen while the radio was on the air. It was really cool. Then he said who wants to say hi to all our listeners and of course all the kids were very shy and said no. So he ended up picking 2 randoms kids and they all went into a room and each sat at a respective microphone as the director proceeded to interview the 2. Then he made all the rest say something as well and then finally, since he was talking about Manna Project and the summer camp with the kids, he got Seth on the air to talk a little bit about Manna as well. All while this is happening, a fellow PD Sarah and I are quietly sitting in the corner encouraging the kids on trying to make them not so nervous as well as trying to blend in with the wall so the Director would forget about us and not make us talk on the air haha. Well, our conspicuousness needs some work. He called Sarah up to the microphone and she was so nervous she could barely get a word out. Damn public speaking! So then he calls me up and I actually wasn't that nervous because well, I couldn't actually see the people of the entire Valley listening to me speak my botched Spanish so it was alright. He asked me how I liked Ecuador so far and how I liked working with the summer camp. I responded saying Ecuador was awesome, naturally, and that working with the kids was awesome and that I was also going to work in community health. He also asked me how long we were going to be in Ecuador and past that I think my nervous got the best of me and I forgot everything that happened after haha. But, in the end, I can now say that I have been on the Ecuadorian radio!! My moms reaction was....."I have a celebrity for a daughter!" :)
So just thought I would fill you in on one of the more exciting parts of my week! Otherwise, my week has been full of doing HOURS of research on Positive Deviance (you should google it, its actually an amazing program that can be applied to needed things) in preparation for my meeting with Julia at Aliñambi this morning to talk about the Nutrition Program for the kids there and how we can start to go about improving and sustaining their health (and just to fill you the meeting went really well!...I think I am growing on her)! And for the next two weeks I will be preparing a charla (like a talk) about Nutrition that we will present at the 2 day Open Clinic we are putting on on August 28th and 29th! Super busy but I am really enjoying learning about health down here so it's great!
Until next post!
Hope you all are having a great summer! I am savoring every last "summer"/dry season day here before the wet season starts soon and doesn't stop for...oh about 7 months!

besos!
Krysta

Viva Ecuador!!

Hola a todos!
Soooo we finally moved into our house in Conocoto and have been living here for a week! And thus so begins my year of maybe warm, maybe not showers, cooking for 10+ people, shopping for 10+ people, a house that echos all voices so sleeping past 9 is out of the question, and internet connection that doesn't work if anyone is on Skype or watching videos on YouTube! Woohoo! It has been an absolute crazy week but a fun one. As the old PDs are slowly departing, we started with 16 people living in 9 rooms.....madness! I current have 2 roommates and will share a room until my actual room becomes vacant in a few weeks. So we are living in nice and cozy close quarters! It's been quite an adventure! I am going to go around the house with my camera perhaps tomorrow and take a video of everything so you can see our lovely Manna House!

The view of part of the Chillos Valley from our rooftop! Just imagine
San Diego sunsets over these mountains...BEAUTIFUL!

As we are starting to divide up programs and duties, I already have all my duties and am off to a very busy start. I was selected for various reasons, one being that my spanish is more advanced, to head the program working with a school called Aliñambi that houses orphaned kids as well as provides schooling for children in the surrounding communities. Last year measurements were taken of these kids because many of them are malnourished and the analysis of those were just done and the results were that just about 63% of these children are malnourished. So, I had my first meeting with Dr. Julia last week, who is the main physician at Aliñambi, to start figuring out why these kids are not getting the nourishment they need form home as well as devising plans to change their habits and get them healthy. We have decided to provide 3 months of vitamins to these kids and do home visits with each of their families to view how meals are being prepared and identify possible areas were changes can be made to improve these childrens' health. It is going to be difficult because we have to be careful not to offend the mothers whose primary job is taking care of the house and children. Should be an amazing experience and a challenging one! My rusty Spanish skills are really being put to the test already!!! Yikes!
Also, I am currently working on putting together a free Clinic that will happen August 28th & 29th at Aliñambi for all the surrounding communities. There will be a Dr. there to assess people and we will be interacting with the communities members and doing "triage" and trying to establish a relationship and trust with them. I am really excited about this clinic and getting a chance so quickly after getting here to really start making a difference!
So other than working on the Health programs, I am also in charge of establishing a new Scholarship Program for kids here in the Valley. We want to start out providing money for 2 students to go to college. It will be about $100 a month and schools here are 5 years and so for 2 students to go to college for 5 years would only be about $2400! Pretty crazy huh?! For just a little pocket fundraising change, we can provide individuals here with lifetime dreams that they never would have thought possible. The hopes for this program in the future is to be able to establish a strong fund where we can provide scholarships for all areas of study to numerous individuals. So I will be working with Manna on getting this money and selecting 2 students to receive these scholarships, as well as drafting up a contract that these students must abide by during their schooling. Pretty exciting!! We already have one potential candidate...she is 27 and really wants to go to school for Nutrition and start here own nutrition clinic. So we really have a chance to do something awesome with this program...we shall see!
So, one last little story and my novel of an entry will end. Today (August 10th) is Quito's Independence and so last night there were HUGE festivities in Quito, so we naturally went into the city to celebrate! We got to see the symphony play, were about 20 feet form Ecuador's President Correa, a few people got their bags/jackets sliced open by robbers, and some of us danced like fools all through the night! It was really awesome to see and experience. We were of course the obnoxious crazy gringo dancers but after a little, the Ecuadorians got jealous of our skills and decided to join in!! Needless to say it ended with a big dance train around the plaza with older ladies jumping in to join! :)
Viva Ecuador!
Oh, and my camera died in the first 5 min so this is about the only pic I got of the festivities!

Plaza Grande...Feliz Cumpleaños Quito!

Oh, and PS...it was my 23rd birthday this past Friday and my awesome Manna family had made me an awesome card and bought bagels for the occasion (bagels are a very special treat here in Ecuador) and put 23 (the #) candles in it as I woke for breakfast!! I love my Manna Family! :) Thanks guys!!

peace + amor

Christina (my Spanish name because Krysta is way too hard for them to pronounce haha)

The 'honeymoon' period is coming to an end....

Soo, as I start my last week of living in Quito with my host family, and taking spanish classes, and not having to think about, well, much of anything, many emotions are starting to flow!  I am extremely anxious to move into the Manna House in Conocoto to finally really get settled in and start to make a life here for the next year.  But at the same time I am nervous because moving into the house means we actually have to start taking over these programs from last years PDs and start working and making connections within the Ecuador communities! Nerves!  For the past week and for the following week, we have been meeting and will meet with each of last years PDs as they give us the run down on everything about the program each have been in charge of and their past successes and failures and where they would like to see the program go.  My main interest, the Health programs, seem absolutely amazing.  I was nervous to begin with because there is 5 of us that are interest in Health mainly and so I was worried about how much I was going to be able to contribute to the Health Programs.  But after the talk it seems awesome that we have 5 people because there is sooo much to do within Health field and so many projects going on at the same time that it will be awesome for each of us to focus on one part and really really advance our respective programs fast and also unitedly open a Prevention and Awareness Clinic in building space that we have above the Manna Library!  There is so much potential that is should be amazing. I am completely stoked!  The Health people are getting more details later this week so it should be really interesting.  

So as for learning spanish, learning the Manna Programs, and a little weekend traveling, my time here so far has been awesome! I can't believe I have already been here for 2 weeks, but at the same time it feels like it has been so long!  2 weeks down, 55 more to go! :)

Hope summer is treating ya'll well!

Peace + amor

Krysta