The Juan Pavo Makeover

You saw Juan Pavo before:

Cold, lonely, and afraid in the bottom of the freezer.

After a few days of thawing out, the Big Day came around, and it was Juan's turn for the oven. I started by pulling out that bag inside of him. You know, the one with all the innards?

Funny thing, there were feet in there along with everything else. I've never cooked a turkey in the States, but I'd bet my holey britches that the feet are not normally included with the bird.

Moving on, let me introduce you to these two turkeys. Whitni and Rip came into town to celebrate the day, and they cooked up some delectable treats. Unfortunately I didn't get pictures to document their culinary prowess; Juan Pavo was feeling needy. And then the stuffing felt left out, so I had to give it a little extra attention. From there it was a chain reaction with the side dishes, and before I knew it, I was simultaneously mediating between the carrots and the capers while attempting to prevent the pumpkin muffins from committing oven suicide.

These are a carry-over from last year's celebration. Welcome back, guys!

Now, Juan Pavo took his sweet time in the oven, but fortunately we had this to tide us through:

And the people were happy, and they saw that it was good. Amen.

By the time Mr. Pavo finally did emerge, everyone was hungry and happy.

*clears throat*

Drumroll, please.

...

...

...

Swimming in a sea of butter and rosemary, surrounded by dozens of adoring fans. Life couldn't get any better, Juan Pavo; your life's work is now fulfilled. And we only ended up eating one hour later than planned!

I didn't get pictures of the food. I was busy being a good hostess, okay? So here's some more turkeys:

"Turkeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey! Turkeyturkeyturkeyturkeyturkey..." If you can name that movie, I will give you a hug. If you can whistle the theme song from that movie, we must be soulmates.

This little turkeyling stole all of our hearts.

The lovely Isa models the latest in haute turkey cuisine.

We missed everyone who wasn't there to share the meal with us, but all in all it was another good Thanksgiving outside the U.S.

This is Turkey, over and out.

Lombricultura (aka, Vermiculture)

Today, we added a bed to the garden--a worm bed.

The worms need their own bed in order to produce humus, an organic fertilizer which we will add to our soil in the future. There are many, many, many different models of worm beds to choose from; we opted for the simplest and cheapest option of using an old tire.

We placed it on top of some rocks to ensure the bed will have proper drainage and oxygen from below as well as from above. Then, we created a floor for the bed by making a latticework of sticks and covering it with sacking.

We poked holes in the sacking for drainage/oxygen purposes; we don't want the little wormies to suffocate.

Next comes newspaper, torn into strips.

At this point, we were ready to people our worm bed. (Worm our worm bed?) We've had our worms on hold for the past few weeks, and they've been hanging out in a plastic sheet. But it was time for them to graduate to the tire. So we dumped them into their new abode, with much pomp and circumstance.

Then we threw in some desperdicios from the kitchen - organic waste such as veggie peels and eggshells.

Then came the really fun part: adding water and mixing it all together with your hands.

Desperdicios, soil, newspaper, and all.

Mike is about ready to wash his hands here. Apparently nobody else wanted to get theirs dirty.

There's worms in there, I promise. They're just not very photogenic (i.e., every time I tried to take their portrait, it came out blurry).

Finally, we covered 'em up so it'll be cool and dark and humid - perfect conditions for making humus. Stay tuned in a few weeks for phase two, when we will add another tire on top of the first one and repeat this whole process in a way that encourages the worms to migrate upwards into the newer tire, allowing us to take and use the humus in the original tire.

And now, because you've been so patient and listened to me talk about tires and worms and stuff, shall we all play a game? Who can correctly guess what plant this is?

And this?

And this little guy?

What about this one?

And this?

And, finally, this?

These are all residents of our garden, in different stages of growth. Answers next time - or maybe the time after next, because tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and that means FOOD.

Maicol Jordan Plays Baseball in Guasmo Sur

No, I didn't misspell "Michael Jordan;" I'm not talking about Michael Jordan; I'm talking about Maicol Jordan, one of the kids at the after school program. Guess who he's named after?

Last week, a friend of a friend who happened to be visiting Ecuador asked to lead a baseball workshop with the kids. Be my guest, sir!

Maicol Jordan, who's the sharpest kid on the block, already knew the rules of baseball and was a big help. Most everybody else learned as we went along.

Ángel was the fastest runner. Can't you tell by the gleam in his eye?

For me, the most exciting part of the workshop was seeing the girls step up to bat. In a part of the world where certain sports are identified as being gender specific, baseball invited both boys and girls to participate together because it is not normally played here at all. And the girls totally rose to the occasion.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Guasmo Sur Baseball Team of Awesomeness. Our coach left us with some whiffle balls and bats, so there's nowhere to go from here but to practice!

Today in List Form

1. Laundry. Here is one example of why I love living in the big city with pretty much any amenity at my disposal - what we call "Posh Corps." I have the option of dropping my laundry off to be washed and/or dried versus having to expend the time and energy on washing my clothes by hand. Today I got my sheets, towels, some T-shirts and other sundries done for a little over $3. Yippee-kai-ay!

2. Cleaning. I'm hosting Thanksgiving this year, and suddenly the cleaning bug bit me and I've started rearranging furniture and things. Yikes.

Will it all be ready in time for Thursday? I know you'll wait with bated breath to find out.

3. Mail call. A package arrived with a plastic bag and instructions on how to prepare a Thanksgiving turkey (thanks, Mom & Mrs. Smith!). This will be my first foray into Thanksgiving-Turkey-Land. Wish me luck.

4. Crafts. Yes, I had a sitdown crafts session the likes of which you haven't SEEN since your kindergarten days, I guarantee it. I learned and practiced making various types of recycled art, using mostly magazine pages, chip bags, and plastic bags. We'll use these activities with both the women's jewelry making group (per my previous post) and also in the coming months for a vacation camp with kids.

5. Since I have the necessary tools, I went ahead and bought me a frozen turkey. According to the packaging, his name is Mr. Pavo. In English this means "Mr. Turkey." It's not a very original name, and we're going to ignore the fact that all the other turkeys in the frozen section of the grocery store (ahem, Posh Corps, ahem) were also named Mr. Pavo; my Mr. Pavo and I have a very personal connection. As soon as I saw him sitting there behind the glass door with his $40 price tag, I knew he belonged to me. So I brought him home.

I think he looks like a Juan, don't you agree? Juan Pavo, welcome to my freezer. We'll see you again on Thursday.

6. I ran. I ran so far away--I couldn't get away. Away from my foot cramp. Then I came home and bought six bananas. The End.

7. Marcelo and Andrés told me stories about all the ferocious wild animals - such as armadillos - they saw on their recent family vacation. Then Marcelo tried to make me watch a horror movie with him, and I ran so far away, again.

Tomorrow: more Thanksgiving preparations and a lesson on making tire gardens.

Of C̶a̶b̶b̶a̶g̶e̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶K̶i̶n̶g̶s̶ Turnip Greens and Beads?

Dear Readers, you have been very patient as I left the last post up for nearly a month in an effort to get as much support as possible for our Peace Corps / Kichwa Sustainable House Project. Many of you have donated to the project, for which I thank you from the bottom of my heart. We are over halfway there in terms of raising funds, and hopefully we will be able to begin construction in the new year. Without your support, this project would not be possible!

And now, in the interest of cramming in every little update of what's been happening outside the realm of the house project, here's a recap in photos...

Part of Marcelo's school project that materialized by my front door. Fortunately there were no extraterrestrials inside. Otherwise I woulda had to whip out the lightsaber.

...comes hand in hand with any school project, I suppose.

Fryin' up some verdes to make patacones. If that doesn't sound like English to you, it's because it's not. (Side note: there are so many photos of food that I would love to post here...but that's what this other little site is for. I will get back to updating that right quick.)

I guess "Ecuador" and "Jamaica" look alike...they have the same number of letters...and they both have C's...

The garden: it grew!

Ooh, it must be near Halloween - or, as celebrated here, Day of the Dead - because these are ingredients to make colada morada (aka, gooey purple drink of the gods). Doesn't sound appetizing? Just wait till next time, I'll walk you through it.

...with extra protein, yum!

And speaking of Halloween:

Decorations!

Cookies!

Masks! All in the name of sharing Halloween across cultures.

Colada morada strikes again. I lived on this stuff for about a week.

A trip to the Malecón with las chicas. They had never hiked the 444 stairs to the top of Las Peñas.

So, of course, we went.

At the hottest time of day. Every few steps we had to buy ice cream, and water, and ice cream. It was horrible.

The garden grew and grew! Man, it's really starting to look like a jungle in there.

We realized it was time to harvest some of the veg.

We started with the chives.

Don Braulio the innovator went to work with some fibers from the leaf of a banana tree.

Lovely handiwork, no?

Then we moved on to the more serious issue of the turnip greens.

This nearly turned ugly. In fact, the very next day - which I missed - it did: poor Mike, left all alone to defend the vegetables, became the arbiter of much heated divarication regarding who merited what portion of the harvest. Thank goodness there were no tomatoes involved.

In the end, however, everyone left happy.

New project: jewelry workshops with some of the women from the community. Their excitement was reminiscent of those days back in summer camp when we would gladly spend an entire afternoon making lanyards.

Knotted silk with silver beads and charms. Classy, right?

My Program Manager was kind enough to teach our very first class. It was a big hit. Now the ladies and their daughters are anxious to plan some clases de belleza - as in, beauty school. I told them only if we all wear pink satin jackets and invite Frankie Avalon to be our mascot.

Home decor, and a little piece of Tarjay makes its way to Ecuador (thanks, Aunt Sally!).

Just enough to be cute, not so many that it goes all Alfred Hitchcock on you. I like 'em. (Pay no attention to the cluttered kitchen shelves. If you're nice, I just might post some pics of the apartment soon enough. But there's no way you're getting to look inside my fridge.)

I'd say we're pretty much up to speed, so that's all for now, folks. Hasta pronto!