Mascarilla, take 2: SURPRISE!

This past weekend I went back to Mascarilla with Analu to have a little surprise birthday party for Kelsey, a spring MSID student who's doing her 6-week internship there and living with Analu's family.

It was a most excellent couple of days. Ana and I spent Saturday shuttling four of her little nieces/nephews to Mascarilla in a bus from Quito with us, going grocery shopping for party foods and cake (and rum, it was Kelsey's 21st and we wanted to make mojitos) and lugging heavy bags of things to her house.

We went lemon-picking with her mom out back on their land and also picked up a sugar cane along the way...which means that we spent a solid 45 minutes out front of the house, sucking down sugar cane in the sunshine. An excellent afternoon.

Kelsey and Ana's sister Erica had taken a trip out of town for the day, so we asked them to stop and pick up mint (Kelsey asked "Why do you need so much mint?" "Um, it's an experiment" Ana told her). That evening we squeezed all of the lemons ("Why are you squeezing so many lemons?"-Kelsey "Mint lemonade"-Ana) and hung out chatting.

Sunday morning we prepared an absurd amount of food ("Who's going to eat all this food?"-Kelsey "You know my family..."-Ana) and cleaned up house a bit. Hanging out front with Kelsey, Ana's mom, and some of the little ones, Ana's mom nearly blew the surprise...but Kelsey was still clueless and so when her classmates showed up in the house, she was crying from being so surprised!

So we ate, had mojitos , enjoyed the sunshine, and just hung out. Oh and danced a whole bunch. Ana's sister Marilu danced with a big bottle on her head! That was pretty talented. (Click on the photo to see a bigger copy of it). It was a really fun afternoon!

I had a great time getting to know the spring MSID-ers, though it was a strange dynamic since they just started their 6-week internships, something I did 5 months ago...and I really have had no interaction with students from the spring semester program other than that, due to the nature of the program and me being in an internship this entire semester. It was a lot of fun and I'm glad I got the chance to get to know them a bit better.

All of us. We were probably the biggest group of gringos the kids had ever seen in Mascarilla at once!

So all in all a great weekend. This weekend I will actually do the Quilotoa loop with my friend Emily, probably starting Friday to take advantage of the long weekend (thank you, 90% Catholic country!).