Señor Presidente

Well, yes, I was indeed 12 feet away from the President of Ecuador today, as he decided to come visit Ibarra in support of the new park that will be built starting next year (not just any park--it will be huge and modern and located on what used to be Ibarra's airport. Yes, that big--24 hectares. Not that I really know how big that is--they just kept repeating "veinticuatro hectares!"). My host mom and the other older ladies here kept on saying, "¡Es muy guapo! ¡Más que Obama!" (Translation: He's really handsome! More than Obama is!) And Rachel (the other intern at our house) and I were like, "Uhh, we'll see..."

So here's a photo for you all ;).

That was obviously the most exciting thing that happened today...yesterday, Rachel and I taught a couple of our co-workers how to use Google Docs and Google Calendar, in hopes that those would come as useful tools in their work. My internship here, to be quite honest, is not as high-tech or as fast-paced as the same kind of thing would be in the United States. There's a lot of arguing and disorganization, so things usually get done at a fraction of the pace as in the U.S. I have definitely learned a lot about policy-making, however, even with the slow tempo, and I value most the things I've learned about working in a country that is not as high-tech, ambitious, rich, or organized as the U.S. It will come in handy one day when I move out of the States =].

As for the city that I'm in--Ibarra--it really is quite a lovely place. It's very tranquil, and not a whole lot of criminal activity happens here. It gets pretty cool in the mornings and evenings, and somewhat hot in the afternoons. Everything is smushed together (from the colonial times), so there will be just this one huge block of a building (with different roof heights, but all one block) in a city block, and everything from hair salons to Chinese restaurants to Ecuadorian restaurants to clothing stores to hotels to internet cafes to malls to ice cream shops to grocery stores to bread shops to apartments and to many more next to/on top of each another. (Side note: I went to a Chinese restaurant, called a Chifa here for some reason, with Rachel the other day, and the lady who owned it and I spoke briefly in Chinese and it was really cool.)

Helado de paila (or pan ice cream) is native to Ibarra. It is delicious--a sorbet made from sugar, pure fruit pulp, and apparently egg whites, mixed together in a copper pan that's placed on top of ice with salt. Here's an article on it: http://voices.yahoo.com/ibarras-sweetest-treasure-helado-de-paila-6521470.html?cat=16. And a photo of how it's made! =]

I also mentioned a meat market and a night market in my previous bullet-point summary post. To me, the two things couldn't be more different. The Ibarra meat market (selling mostly pig parts--skin, meat, intestines, organs, fat--basically everything you can and thought you couldn't use off a pig) is inside a warehouse-type building, still at room temperature, full of a rank, raw smell, and filled with tiny stall after tiny stall. By tiny, I mean a space about 4x5 feet, and 3 feet high. The way people got in and out of their stalls was by crawling under their stall counter (since it did not disconnect at any point), through an opening about 2 feet wide, if even. In the smallest of the stalls, you could fit at most two people, and maybe a child (and there WERE children there helping their parents). Buyers can walk up and down the rows to get meat from a seller, but I wondered how many made their business there because everyone sold almost the same thing, and there were dozens and dozens of tiny stalls. For the first few minutes, it was interesting to me to see how meat was sold here, but then after that, I couldn't wait to get out of the market. Different sections of meat or pig parts hanging from the bigger stalls, whole pale skins laying on the counters, or large metal bowls filled with what I soon realized was blended pig fat or other liquids, and platters full of intestines, livers, spleens, and other organs that I did not know were edible. (SORRY if this is so graphic!) At one point I even noticed a big bucket filled with what could only be the liquid-y insides of a recently slaughtered pig. Blaughaweghhhhhghh....I didn't have the stomach for this, but I respected all those people (and children!) who did.

The night market, on the other hand (waaayyyyyyy on the other hand), is a place I could spend hours in just walking around and seeing the vendors' wares. It's mostly a fruit and vegetable market, called the mayorista, and only happens on Monday and Thursday nights in Ibarra. Dozens upon dozens of trucks arrive (mostly from the coast) starting around 8pm, and vendors set up shop in preparation for the crowds at 9, 10, and even 11 at night. All kinds of tropical (and non-tropical) things come in, including pineapple, papaya (there were some as big as a good-sized baby, no lie), oranges, apples, tomatoes, potatoes, tamarindo, rambutan, granadillas (ahh, I like these a lot--was introduced to them here in Ecuador), bananas, plantains, tree tomatoes (which are not actually tomatoes, but are rather more fruity, also met them first in Ecuador), lemons, limes, onions, etc. The list obviously goes on and on and includes a bunch of fruits/veggies that I saw for the first time in my life. There were even vendors with fish, toiletries, packaged foods, and other things. And the QUANTITY of all these foods! Stall after stall (these were much bigger than the ones in the meat market, and rather more like small rooms) of tomatoes, or potatoes, etc. And of course everything was super fresh and cheap! If we had a place like that in Houston, I would never go to the grocery store.

So anyway, I will stop gushing about the mayorista now, and conclude this post. I'm slowly making up for those silent weeks...but it's hard because there's more I want to write about every day! Haha oh well...until tomorrow then =].