Hey — I’ve already been here three weeks! After one more week of Spanish lessons, I’ll be starting work as a volunteer at FUNDAFIQ, an organization spreading information about Cystic Fibrosis. I’m excited to let you all know how that goes — in the meantime, here’s a few takeaways from the past two weeks:

– I’m not sure what I expected from a cuencano hiking group organized through Facebook, but it definitely wasn’t a 4-hour discussion about punctuality.

When I showed up at 8 am on a Sunday morning to a small church, I found a group of about 40 locals excited to hike a nearby mountain. As the trail wound higher and higher, I soon came to realize that the conversation about “being on time” was much more fundamental to the organization of the group than I had originally thought — for anyone who hasn’t heard of “South American time,” getting places on time here isn’t as important as it is in the US. By the time we had returned to the base, there were a few drawn-out lectures from the leaders and a photoshoot with signs… about getting to places on time.

Nonetheless, it was a beautiful hike, and I made friends with a family that drove me 45 minutes home (thanks Carmen family!), talking with me in Spanish about arriving on time the whole way — I’m excited to go hiking again with them soon!

(View from the top of the mountain, Cuenca in the background, leafy trees all the way up)

– When a wooden church burns down twice, the obvious solution is to build a third wooden church on top of it (painted in grease, of course).

On Wednesday, I toured Museo de Todos Santos. This church is one of the oldest of 52 churchs in Cuenca, and has been rebuilt after 2 fires (and is still built entirely out of wood). We climbed up into the rickity bell tower with a wonderful view, passing (thankfully) unlit candles the whole way.

– When people say to do “one thing a day that scares you,” I’m not sure they mean taking a shower.

After recieving a heafty volt of electricity into my arm after brushing against a broken shower, I investigated the safety of the cheap electric showers commonly used in Cuenca. Turns out there’s a highly dangerous current running just 3 inches above my head. Just another fun cultural difference! (Please do not worry — I’ve been taking precautions and am safe now).

(At the top of Museo de Todos Santos)

In addition to all of this, I’ve been taking a weekly cooking class!

Rice is a staple food in Ecuador, as is yuka. While my family only eats rice with lunch and dinner, many of my friends have rice with every meal of the day, usually with some sort of soup or stew. Yuka is similar to potato, and I’ve learned to make “tortillas” and “balons” out of it — fried balls of mashed yuka, often with some sort of fresh cheese in the middle (these are very unlike the American idea of a tortilla, and is a good example of how some Spanish words can have different meanings from country to country).

Dulce de Zapallo is a favorite recipe of mine! “Zapallo” means pumpkin (pictured in the cover of this post), so this roughly translates to “Pumpkin Dessert”, and is remeniscent of pumpkin pie filling.

To make: boil pumpkin in a large pot. In a separate pot, bring panela (unprocessed brown sugar — normal brown sugar works fine) and water to a boil. Mix the two, add cinnamon sticks, and let simmer for half-hour to an hour. Serve in bowls with slices of queso fresco.