Family time...short but sweet

So I wasn’t, like my favorite N*SYNC (no shame) Christmas song, home for Christmas, but I still have had a wonderful couple of weeks with the most important part of home: my family.

I was anxious all day the 15th, pretending like I had errands to run but probably meandering about more aimlessly than anything. My host family and I waited until we heard the plane pass overhead (yes, we live close enough to the airport that I could tell when my family’s plane was landing and hopped in the car to go gather up the Ruscas that I hadn’t seen in 3 months and one week exactly.

As I am my mother’s daughter, I couldn’t help but cry at the sight of her, wearing her “Emily green” sweatshirt and ignoring the customs officials trying to keep her from her daughter by checking luggage tags. I don’t think I was supposed to run past them, either, but to be frank I didn’t care—my family was here!

As I sit here writing, I can’t believe the two weeks, carefully planned with itineraries and all, has already come and gone. I look at pictures and it feels like I’ve made that experience up as a coping mechanism or something. But no, they actually were here. They brought Trader Joe’s goods I’d been craving and, most importantly, the love and the warmth that I have been so fortunate to grow up with my whole life.

And I’d like to say that we had a fantastic time. The poor things had to adjust to the altitude (9,000 feet is a bit tough at first) but, true to form, they stuck it out to make the most of their time here.

We went back to some places I’ve been before, starting with Mindo. My mom came zip-lining with us—and not by force! I’m pretty sure she enjoyed it because everyone survived to tell the tale. I love you and am so proud of you, mom!

We also headed up to Otavalo to see the Saturday market and the waterfall in Peguche, which was a nice stay for a couple of days. After that we headed up to San Clemente so that they could see where I lived during my internship, as well as one of the schools I worked at. We stayed in the ecotourism project further up the mountain from where I lived, with a really nice family. They taught us how to make tortillas and pan de leña (bread baked in a wood-burning oven), which were both really fun. My mom even got an indígena herbal medicine treatment to help with the cold she was fighting off. Our couple of days in San Clemente was really relaxing and nice, and it was great to see my host family from there as well as the kids at the school.

Our last trip was to Cuenca, the third largest city in Ecuador. It does not feel like Ecuador in the least, I must admit. I guess in that way it really was a vacation for me. Cuenca is absolutely gorgeous, with charming colonial architecture that makes you feel like you’re in Europe.

It was sort of lame because most things were closed for the holidays, but we still had a good time and got to see a fair amount of stuff, including how they make Panama hats and the impressive cathedral they have there.

Christmas in Cuenca was out of the ordinary for us, missing Rusca/Caverly and the Gonsalves celebrations on Christmas Eve and Day. Poor Chloe was stuck writing grad school application essays (which she and I then edited, as evidenced by the photo) for a while and as I said, most things were closed but it would have been weird to coop ourselves up in the hotel. We had a nice dinner on Christmas Eve and called the Rusca/Caverly gathering, which was nice but made me sad to not be there with everyone as I got passed from hand to hand on the phone.

Christmas day was fun—we opened gifts in the lobby-thing upstairs in the hotel, much to the entertainment of the people working there. We did a lot more wandering and set our high hopes on a nice dinner at what looks like a very nice hotel with a good restaurant. In the end, our experience at El Jardín eerily reminded us of the dinner in A Christmas Story, just without the Peking duck smiling at us. Bad service and bad food, but a funny memory at least!

We wrapped up in Quito, doing all the touristy things that I haven’t gotten the chance to do quite yet, like see the churches and museums and whatnot. Saturday afternoon we met up with my Quiteña host family to try to see the sunset from El Panecillo, a statue of the Virgin of Quito perched on one of the surrounding hills, commanding some spectacular views of Quito. Their last day we took the teleférico, a gondola that takes you up Pichincha (our local volcano) to around 12,000 feet high. What an incredible view! There may have been too much fog, but when Quito peeked through, it was pretty cool.

My dad and I also enjoyed watching my Bears win the Emerald Bowl in a bar in Quito (random? Yes.), trying to see if we could find friends and family in the crowd and confusing the Ecuadorians at the bar with our frustration and excitement. Roll on, you bears! I’ll be happy when football season rolls around again.

I’m so glad they wanted to come, and obviously that they were able to. They showed so much interest in really trying to understand what I have been living/doing down here in Ecuador for the past nearly four months. They also got to meet both of my host families, which everyone involved enjoyed. My Quiteña family was so so so sweet with everything, wanting to make things easier for us whenever it was possible, and I know it put my real parents at ease knowing that I am with such an incredibly wonderful and loving family.

So I wasn’t exactly excited to put my parents and sister into a cab at 5am the 29th, but such is life. I’m more than halfway through my time here, and while that break was wonderful and I miss them already, I’ve got to go back to doing this thing on my own. Before I know it I’ll be home, probably wondering if I’ve missed opportunities down here.

In any case, I hope you’re all having a happy and safe holiday season, wrapping up 2008 and getting ready to ring in 2009. I hope that you’ve all had quality time with the people you care about most like I’ve been so fortunate to have myself.