Goodbye, Ciao, Hasta Pronto?

I am currently sitting in the Quito airport. My flight leaves at 6:10 and I left the house at 3:45. My travel through the airport was amazingly quick and now I have time to sit here and think about how much I'm going to miss my kids, Colegio Americano and my Ecuadorian family! (Ps I highly recommend the pre-check in online. The line was 4 times longer if you didn't check in beforehand.) My baggage ended up weighing 53 lbs. I had to stuff things in my carry on but I got to keep everything I brought to the airport! :)

I am going to miss so many things about Ecuador. I am going to miss all of the great food and people. I am going to miss my host mom, Vero and her help with my Spanish. I will miss Maggie, Meghan, Kyle, Peter, Tere and all of the teachers that helped me along the way! Colegio Americano is such a beautiful school and I was blessed to work there. I will miss being spoiled and taking taxis everywhere. I don't think I remember how to drive now ;) I will miss all of the amazing shopping and Maggie and my's second home (La Mariscal).

Yo quiero decir muchas gracias a Tere y mis estudiantes. Yo estaba preocupada cuando me daba cuenta que iba a enseñar a 4to y 5to grado. Esto es un grado muy diferente que Kinder! Pero del primer momento en la escuela yo estaba cómoda. Esto es debido a mis estudiantes y Tere. Gracias que ustedes me ayudaban mucho. Ojala que aprendieron ustedes y yo se que yo aprendí muchísimo!

Both of my amazing 5th grade classes during my surprise goodbye party.

Making their own pizzas during our party. We have amazing parents!

Mary, Me, Tere, Lauren, David. 5th grade teachers and amazing people. Mary open your eyes!!!

Some great kids!

My 5th graders giving me the book they made me.

Hasta luego Ecuador.
Les extrañaré todos!
Con amor, Katy

Museo de Guayasamin and Christmas cookies!

Today Maggie and I went to El Museo de Guayasamin. Guayasamin is a famous Ecuadorian artist 1919-1999. A lot of his paintings represented the anguish and suffering of Indigenous, mestizos and poor in Ecuador and throughout the world. We took a guided tour. It was very interesting but very sad. We couldn't take pictures inside the museum but everyone should check out his paintings! We got to take a few pictures outside of billboards that represented Guayasamin.



He had some beautiful quotes hanging around the museum. One of my favorites was the following...

"Una vez lloré porque no tenía zapatos hasta que vi a otro nino sin pies" Translation: I cried because I did not have shoes until I saw a child without feet - Guayasamin

Also when talking about the faces he painted he said you don't paint a face you paint the soul... He was apparently a very wise man.

I bought some reprints that are just beautiful! I couldn't buy the sad faces because I thought they would give me nightmares...

After the Guayasamin we went home and made Christmas sugar cookies. The kids had a lot of fun and I ate too much dough.

Con amor!
Katy

El Museo de la Ciudad y La Iglesia de la Compañia de Jesus

All of my friends went to the jungle this weekend. I was just getting over a cold so I couldn't join. I'm very very sad! Instead, today I took myself to Quito Colonial (old Quito). I visited El Museo de la Ciudad. It use to be a hospital and now it is a museum about the indigenous people of Quito past to future. They also had plaques about the old hospital. It only cost me 3 dollars to go in. It was a bit more than normal because I'm not Ecuadorian.

Painting of the 7 sins being punished in the inferno.

How would you like to sleep on this bed?

The view of La Virgen de Panacilla from El Museo









Afterward, I went to La Iglesia de la Compañia de Jesus . Sadly I was not able to take pictures inside the church. However it was built by the Jesuits. The whole inside of the church is gold plated. The whole place shined and it was amazingly gorgeous!

Con amor,
Katy

“The worst thing about being a tourist is having other tourists recognize you as a tourist.” – Russell Baker

We had a great Christmas party! We ate lots of great food including turkey and chicken. We exchanged Secret Santa presents (in Ecuador they call it secret friends)and then we had delicious Ecuadorian style Eggnog called Rompope. It was delicious! It has huevo, vainilla, canela, almendra molida, leche, azúcar y licor (eggs, vanilla, cinnamon, almonds, milk, sugar, and liquor.

Tere (my teacher) and I

The student teachers... Meghan, Maggie, Peter, Kyle and myself

A short week of school and Christmas parties

Well I am working on getting over my cold! Yesterday I got sent home early from school. Today my teacher told me to lay on the floor and take a nap and tomorrow I plan on actually surviving the day! Haha It was a hard three day school week :)

On the positive side, I really got in the Christmas mood today. Tomorrow is our school Christmas party with the teachers. I made fudge and a delicious cream cheese dip.

Also, my students are featured on the FCAQ website doing their Thanksgiving craft that I taught! I'm in the photos too but they aren't so pretty :)Look under the Thanksgiving link.

http://www.fcaq.k12.ec/espanol/noticias/noticias.htm

I miss you all!
With love!
Katy

Getting nostalgic for Christmas!

I had the day off today due to Quito days. I got to sleep in and then Maggie and I watched movies. I decided to bake ginger banana bread. It feels more like Christmas with all of the baking I've been doing. I listened to Christmas music but the lack of snow makes it difficult!

Tomorrow we will hopefully be going out to celebrate the founding of Quito. However, Maggie and I are both sick so we will see what happens. Hope everyone is enjoying the snow back home!


Ginger Banana Bread
Adding ginger to this recipe for banana bread gives it a real kick. You can add more or less ginger according to your taste. I also like to add orange or lemon zest to this recipe to give it even more flavor!

PREP TIME: 20 Min
COOK TIME: 1 Hr
READY IN: 1 Hr 20 Min
SERVINGS: 12

INGREDIENTS

* 2 1/4 cups of plain flour
* 1 cup brown sugar
* 1/2 cup melted butter
* 2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 cup plain yogurt
* 3 ripe mashed bananas
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon allspice
* 1-2 tablespoons of freshly grated ginger

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease and flour a small loaf pan.

2. Mix the butter and brown sugar together and add the yogurt and mashed up bananas.

3. Sieve the flour into a separate mixing bowl and add baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, allspice and grated ginger.

4. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well.

5. Bake in the oven at 350F for about 1 hour and test by putting a toothpick in the middle to check if it is cooked all the way through. The toothpick should come out clean.

6. Allow to cool in the loaf pan for 10-15 minutes then place on a cooling rack to cook fully.

I'll tell you how it turns out :)

At Christmas, all roads lead home. ~Marjorie Holmes

Con amor,
Katy

Cheering for the bulls...

Sooooooo...... we went to the bull fights. We are officially celebrating Fiesta de Quito right now. It is a celebration of the founding of Quito. They celebrate with parties and dancing and parades and bull fights. Turns out I do not like bull fights. The arena was beautiful and so were the horses and the costumes. However, when they started stabbing the bull, I was done! We watched 3 bulls and then left at the middle with 4 more bulls to go. It was upsetting and we kept discussing how this would NOT fly in the states. PETA anyone?


Video of the Bull fight when the bull attacked the horse!