December 7 to 22-'Good Deeds Done' in Salinas

On December 7^th at 9AM we had the graduation ceremonies for our English learner students. For the past five weeks, volunteers of both gringos and Ecuadorians had been teaching basic conversation English to beach vendors, jet ski operators, fishermen and local restaurant and shop staff- everyone who wanted free lessons was welcomed. They had been organized by one of our gringas, Mary, plus the capitan of the local coast guard. Everyone, teachers and students, received a certificate.

http://www.armada.mil.ec/culmino-curso-de-ingles-en-salinas/

                                              My student Jose receiving his certificate

                                                                      Many more

And the teachers also got their certificates

This was definitely worthwhile for both students and teachers- I learned more Spanish than my student learned English-LOL- and new classes for other students will be carried out next year.

That week we also had a Christmas gift wrapping party. Many of our Women’s Coffee Klatch came to Bab’s house to wrap the presents we had bought for the 86 children of Buene Fuerte school- one of the people of Salinas’ Christmas projects. We were very well organized- some correctly assigning name to present, some wrapping, and others placing the beautiful names tags done in Calligraphy by Lorraine on each gift. And others stuffing the 86 Christmas stockings.

                                                                  Most of the group

                                                              Much fun for all involved.

                           The organizer of both the wrapping party and entire gift/lunch giving event, my amiga Babs

The actual Christmas party, lunch and gift giving was held on December 12^th. Two buses supplied by the Guardia de La Costa loaded with these presents, cooked turkeys, and condiments plus many of my friends and Papa Noel left for the school to arrive in time to serve lunch.
Another Blog written about the same wonderful day- http://jtm5503.blogspot.com/2013/12/papa-noel-and-elves.html

                                      You can see that the children were delighted.

                                          And the adults who made and helped serve the delicious lunch

                                                       Isn’t this what Christmas is all about!

Many of my friends and I went to see the students from Fundacion Gabriel in Salinas will perform "La Cenicienta" (Cinderella) at the Salinas Yacht Club on Saturday 12/14 at 11am. 
The performers spend months rehearsing for their shows and it does so much for their confidence and sense of self worth when so many people attend and support their efforts.
Due to the personal attention and efforts of Fundacion Gabriel many of these young adults have the confidence to go out and find part time employment and contribute to their families and interact with the general public. What a huge difference this makes in the quality of their lives.

Here are some pictures of the wonderful performance!

The audience eagerly awaits

Beautiful costumes!

So well done and much enjoyed at the full house audience!

And last but not least we also adopted a family of 49 people- 23 of them children- for Christmas. All 23 children had been adopted by my friends and donations had been received from the kind people of Salinas as well as friends and family from the USA and Canada. We had stuffed Christmas bags with gifts for all the children along with a toothbrush, writing or coloring book, pencils and crayons. Along with the children’s presents, many items of food and personal hygiene had been purchased for the entire family- turkeys, chickens, bags of rice and beans, flour, sugar, milk, juice, shampoo, soap etc etc. As well, fifty cupcakes were baked that morning by ‘Smokin’ restaurant , one for each family member plus 1 extra.

I had invited Papa Noel to join us plus two of my amigas. We loaded all the food & supplies into one truck supplied by Jose Luis and his wife and the presents went into Randy’s car along with Papa Noel and Lauri.

                                         Here are some pics of the fun occasion

                                                             Papa Noel giving out presents

                                                                        Posing with Santa

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                                           Most of the children and some of the adults

                                  And a Merry Christmas to all!

November 22 to 25- A weekend in Cuenca

Even though we love our life here at the beach, every now and again we love to visit the mountains. In our case, we love visiting Cuenca. When we first arrived in Ecuador in the fall of 2011, we spent three months living in this wonderful town. It is a beautiful world heritage city, clean, full of great restaurants, parks, museums, concerts, artisans’ and farmers’ markets. You will never get bored there.

So for a four day weekend in November, we made arrangements to visit our friends there. We met Cody and Michael originally from Denver during the fall of 2011 and quickly became good friends. As well, Donna and Larry originally from Texas became our friends when we spent February of 2013 in Cuenca on a home exchange. They lived down the hall from us at that time. Both couples had visited us in Salinas so now it was our turn to visit them.

Our good friend Eddie picked us up on Friday morning and away we went. Per usual the drive to Guayaquil was pretty boring, two and a half hours of 4 lane road through mostly scrub desert with some irrigated farmland. It has been a long dry season and this landscape was pretty gray. Closer to Guayaquil, it gets greener with more farms, villages and prettier scenery. And then the drive through Guayaquil itself- not for the faint of heart- LOL

From Guayaquil to Cuenca the scenery gets much more interesting. For the first hour we drove through what I call the bread basket of Ecuador. Farm after farm of mangos, sugar cane, cacao, rice, bananas etc. plus many many roadside stands selling all this and more wonderful fruit.

At the foot of the Cajas ( the Ecuador branch of the Andes mountain range) we stopped for lunch at Pio Pio, a chicken fast food place that also has a variety store and gas station and then onwards up to an elevation of 4100 meters. More on this later during our sunny drive home.

We arrived in Cuenca  midafternoon at Donna and Larry’s condo- our first stop. They live on the 16^th floor and have an incredible view over the city.

 

                                                     Many hummingbirds visit their flowers and feeder.

 

 During the day, the weather in Cuenca is really not any colder than on the beach in June to November. It is mostly sunny during the day and maybe rain or thunder showers in the late afternoon and evening. I wear the same clothes as I do in Salinas but do bring a pair of jeans for evenings.

For dinner that night, Donna cooked ribs and Michael and Cody came over and cooked stir-fried veggies.

 

                                  Plus Larry made us tasty? Margaritas- what a guy!

 

                              Great food and great conversations for these six good friends.

 

 

The next morning, the four of us took one of the many local buses to an Artisans’ market closer to downtown. I love the many markets in Cuenca and had been to this one before. There was so much stuff for sale- wooden kitchen utensils ( rolling pins, spoons, pestle & mortar), decorations, furniture, woven purses, pots & pans, Christmas decorations – you name it, it was available.

 I had bought many plants back in Salinas for my condo- my new indoor garden with the additional 15’ of hallway we had gained after our renovation. However, finding ceramic pots to plant these in at a reasonable price was impossible in Salinas. In this market, there was stall after stall of beautiful pots!  I could hardly make up my mind which to buy, so many pretty (and cheap $3 to $5 for large ceramic pots) to buy. I finally decided on 5 pots and bottoms plus a metal holder for elevation for 2 pots. These hardly all fit into the taxi we took back to the condo but I was delighted with our purchases.

That afternoon, Uwe and I took a walk to what we had read was a new Brew Pub in Cuenca. Those of you who are regular readers of my Blog know how much Uwe loves Brew Pubs and how few we have ever gone to in Ecuador. Most that we had read or heard about were either closed when we got there or had ceased to exist. We set off with high hopes!

We took a short walk down Grand Colombia past the circle at Las Americas and just past the intersection of Calle Unidas to the next street where our friends had told us it was. As we turned up this street, lo and behold, we saw the brew pub sign Aedean Brewery- whoohoo!

As we approached the door we saw the sign listing the hours. Yee gads, not again! Here it was shortly after noon and the brew pub did not open until 4PM. Foiled again! We couldn’t wait until then as the six of us were meeting that evening for dinner. Our luck with brew pubs was holding out per usual. Damm!

Our plan that evening was to meet at a Thai restaurant on Calle Larga. Since there are no Thai restaurants in Salinas, we were really looking forward to this. Larry, Donna, Uwe & I took a taxi         (the afternoon rains had come)  to meet Cody and Michael at the restaurant. Our luck continues because when we got there, the place was closed. Seemingly it was only open Monday to Friday- amazing, closed on a Saturday night. After a short walk down the street, we arrived at Todos Santos, a new restaurant that both couples had read about. This place was owned by the nuns and was located in the Todos Santos monastery  in the basement of the old church. The place was beautiful, stone staircases leading down to a beautiful dining room with large windows overlooking the river. What a find.

We all had an delicious dinner, many of us ordering the chef’s suggestions ( he spoke perfect English) accompanied by some excellent wine.

The next morning, we packed our suitcase and walked a few blocks down the street to change locations and spend that day and night at Cody and Michael’s condo. Their condo was also very beautiful with two lovely terraces and lots of plants.

 

 

For lunch that day, the six of us drove several kilometers south of Cuenca through the beautiful countryside to a Mexican restaurant El Agave at kilometer 18.5. The scenery along the way was awesome- dairy farms, hillsides and happy cows.

 

 

                            Eating our Mexican lunch accompanied, of course, with cervazas.

 

The rest of the day and evening was dedicated to eating, drinking and football back at Cody and Michael’s to the delight of our men with two of their favorite teams winning- yea Cardinals- and one ( poor Michael’s) losing in overtime.

Eddie picked us up early Monday morning for our long drive home. It was a beautiful sunny day and we were looking forward to a scenic drive through the Cajas.

                                                      The road leaving Cuenca heading home

 

                              Some of the pretty scenery- looks a bit like Switzerland

 

                                                          Going through the mountains

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 1 to 10- Wonderful New Happenings in Salinas

In the last few months, Salinas has had some wonderful new stuff going on.

 Remember back in April I was lamenting having no exercise/yoga classes, well, now we do. A wonderful young woman called Rowan from the US who lives in Salinas now with her husband and young son, is giving  yoga classes every Tuesday and Thursday 8:30AM to 9:30 right across the street from us at the Hotel Amira. The location may change soon- still a walk from our house- but the intense but much needed exercise and stretching will stay the same. Below is her Facebook page regarding the yoga- Yogarobics: Fitness Fusion Fun

https://www.facebook.com/groups/545430385493649/

                                                                     Rowan leading our class

There is also a new Salinas Cultural Society whose members are into photography, painting, quilting, acting, you name it, there will be a place for you. Facebook page below:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Salinas-Cultural-Society/229899337134350

 I joined and attended the second meeting at Chris & Pia’s house. They have a beautiful house in Salinas full of Chris’ amazing paintings- more on this later. At this particular meeting we had a world renowned sculptor and his wife, Paul and Alicia Palacios, join us. He has some amazing works all over Ecuador including this one in front of the Santa Elena church.

 

We look forward to his participation and hope that he will provide some instruction for us all.

During this meeting we achieved a lot. Picked a president – Donna & Terry joint- a new secretary- Raquel -and some of us were assigned parts- not me-LOL- in a play which we will be performing at the end of January.

                                                             A picture of our entire group

 

Last Saturday, those people interested in photography met Mary on the Malecon at 7AM. Yes, you read right, 7AM. Something about the light being better at that time- LOL

We walked along the many back streets in the poorer barrios and we all took some great pictures- eve me with my cheap underwater camera.

                                                                Some of our group

 

 

 

Mary tends to be friendly to everyone and after telling one little older lady what a beautiful garden she had (in Spanish of course) we were all invited in and allowed to take all the photos we wanted.

                                                                  Mary, our group leader

 

                                                                  Our very friendly hostess

 

                                                 Her beautiful flowers all over her tiny yard

 

                                                              And chickens for eggs

 

The people in these back barrios are very poor but so amazingly friendly. This woman knew none of us but invited us into her home to show off what little she owned. Now this is why I love this country!!

On November 1, we had a fund raiser at ‘Smokin’ Restaurant to raise money for Christmas for the 86 kids in Buene Fuente school. We will be buying gifts for each child plus providing a Christmas dinner on December 12th. This was organized by our friend Babs who is an amazing organizer and a wonderful person. Sixty people attended the dinner of which the majority of $$ was donated back into the fund plus many more people came to bid at the silent auction. 

 

 

 

 

 At the auction, Uwe and I bid on a dinner at Smokin plus one of Chris’ amazing paintings. The price of the painting kept going up but I was determined to have it. Uwe went to the ATM machine and after putting down one more bid, WE WON!!!

                                                       My painting and Chris & I

 

                                        My painting in my black/white/gray newly renovated kitchen

 

During the second week in November we also started an English Class for the vendors/restaurant workers-or  anyone who needed some English dealing with visitors. This was organized by our friend Mary and the Capitan of the Salinas Coast Guard. Over 40 people had signed up for the twice weekly lessons – Tuesday and Thursday 5PM to 7-and many of my fellow expats plus Ecuadorian friends had come to teach or help translate.

                                                         Here are a few of our students .  

 

                  And our expat and Ecuadorian friends who are volunteering to teach.

 

I was teaching a young man called Jose who worked at one of the restaurants along the Malecon

I had a wonderful time learning as much Spanish as he was learning English. What a wonderful opportunity for all us retirees.

We are also involved in one more Christmas project. This one involves an extended family of 49 person, 23 of whom are under 16 years of age. On my friend Mike’s advice- they are neighbors of his- we are adopting this family for Christmas and providing needed staple groceries plus fun items ( cakes/ turkeys/ cookies etc.), hygienic products( tooth brushes, paste, shampoo, soap etc.) and toys/clothing for all the children. I am so impressed with the help I am receiving from our Salinas community and from my friends & family back in Canada and the USA.

                                                          This is the home all 49 people live in

 

More news regarding our Christmas projects will be covered in later posts.