From the Coast to the Mountains

I left Guayaquil, which is on the coast of Ecuador, on Saturday and flew to Quito, which is about 10,000 feet up in the Andes mountains. It is a huge change from Guayaquil. It is much cooler and less humid here. I am loving it. And it is so beautiful! More pictures of the gorgeous mountains to come.

New Friends from Ecuador

Our new friends, Jonathan and Steven, who we met at church, gave us a tour of the Malecon last Sunday. It was really fun to walk around the city with people our age who are from here. Yay for new friends!

My Fun Activities in the Community

We spent the last 2 1/2 weeks in elementary schools in the poor communities measuring kids. My job is basically to make small children cry. I'm pretty good at it. This is Beth, Shea, Natalie, and I getting set up to poke fingers and test the kids for anemia.
After we took all the measurements, we had to spend FOREVER putting together all of the data so that Cassidy could present it this week. We were all very glad to have this project done.
I didn't make any kids cry on this day. That was kind of refreshing. I checked heights, weights, teeth and hair. I got to see my first real live lice nits! I was a little bit itchy afterwards.
Say Ah! You wouldn't believe the state of these kids' teeth. Some of them are literally rotted down to the gums. I am definitely not tough enough to be a poor Ecuadorian child.

Cuenca!

Yesterday, we drove about 10,000 feet up into the mountains to a city called Cuenca. It is a city with a lot of European influence, so it is very different from Guayaquil. The scenery was some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. Definitely a day I will never forget.

Yes, those are guinea pigs. Here they call it Qui, and we walked all over Cuenca trying to find some. It wasn't so much the idea of eating guinea pig that grossed me out as the very unsanitary conditions it was cooked in. I didn't actually eat any, but I did watch how they get these things onto the spits so they can cook them over the fire. Seriously disgusting.

The flower market was amazing! They have gorgeous flowers in Ecuador, which is one of the biggest flower exporters in the world. I was pretty much in heaven. Look at the adorable Ecuadorian lady!

This photo is of Incapirga, the ruins of one of the main centers of the Incan empire. The ruins are a couple of hours from Cuenca.

We did a service project on Friday and helped build a house for this family. We, along with the help of some skilled Ecuadorian workers, built this whole house in just a few hours. I helped haul materials through the sharp, scratchy, scorpion-infested grass. After that was done, my most important functions were handing people things and playing with the adorable little boys who were going to live in the house.

This is my friend, Kaila, who is a third grader at one of the schools I visited to do health screenings this week. She took it on herself to be my nurse's assistant. She would bring the kids in, sit them down, and explain to them in Spanish what they needed to do. Then she would make them turn their head away while I poked their finger. At the end, she gave them a piece of candy. She was so cute!

A little Sunday afternoon stroll...

View from the top! Sorry this story is backwards, but I can't seem to get the pictures in the right order. Sometimes I am technologically challenged.

At the end of the Malecon, there are 444 individually numbered stairs that lead to a lighthouse at the top. For some silly reason, we chose to make the climb during the hottest part of the afternoon. This is us at the halfway point.