Feliz Navidad y Año Nuevo!

Alright, so I realise it's been a while but in my defence I did try to do this twice right after Christmas and my computer died on me both times. December was my busiest month yet, fnishing up school, practicing everyday for my dance presentation and of course preparing for Christmas. The dance presentation went really well. We had both a hip hop and a zamba choreography. I never expected to be dancing either of those styles EVER... but hey, that's what exchange is for.                                                                                 Sonja, Usman, Maddie and I did a secret santa gift exchange aswell as having one in each of our classes. The one in my class was really fun. We started about 2 weeks before the last day of school (exchange date) and gave our secret santa something small leading up to it. My secret santa was Patricio who is actually our student council president, I gave him mapple syrup and other Canada type things. I got a really cool bag that says "yo corazon Ecuador" (I heart Ecuador) on it from Andreas. All the exchange students gave a presentation on Christmas in our countries and finished it off with our own version of Feliz Navidad. Another fun event we got to participate in was our grade's

Cena de Navidad (or Christmas supper). It was at Danilo's house (he's in the physics class). There was food, picture taking and of course dancing... it wouldn't be Ecuador if there wasn't dancing.It was a really fun evening with all our school friends. A Christmas tradition that is different here would be "La Novena". Now before I decribe it I would like to remind everyone that the majority of people here are Catholic or have that background.What happens is, nine days before Christmas and all the days leading up to it people get together to pray the Lord's prayer as well as recite a prayer from a little pamphlet everyone has. There is also usually food involved and it's a nice time with family and friends. Since our Cena de Navidad was 8 days before Christmas,

my whole grade got together before we ate and prayed "La Novena". It was pretty cool. Now, my family didn't do this everyday, I think we went to two but some people pray it every single night. You don't have to have a big group of people to do it either, some people do it by themselves or with one other person. 

We got out of school on December 23rd. Everyone recieved a scarf, gloves and candies from the school, which I thought was really neat. On the 24th, Mami, Andrea, Sebas, my two aunts Ceci, Lili and I all drove down to my abuelito's (grandparent's) house in Ambato. A city about 2 hours from where I live. Since my host father treats all his employees to Christmas dinner down in Coca (the Amazon) he wasn't there with us.

.  We all had a nice supper at my granparent's house. The food wasn't really that different. We ate turkey, yummmm! Along with rice and a bunch of different salads. I must say, I did miss the usual mashed potatoes, although I got those the next day for lunch so really everything was quite normal. In Ecuador they celebrate Christmas like they do in Quebec, the night of the 24th. Although it isn't quite as big. My aunt Ceci and Andrea dressed up as Mr. and Mrs. Clause and passed out all the presents that were under the little, fake Christmas tree in the living room. That's one thing I should mention, all the trees here are fake. Doesn't quite have the same Christmas smell as I'm used to. I managed to give everyone a present on my exchange student budget with the help of some of the Canada themed things I had brought with me. My family gave me a pair of black boots, and I got scarfs and a shirt from my aunts and grandparents. It was just enough to make me feel like part of the family. Oh! Special thanks to Jeff who sent me a David Phelps C.D., which I may have opened early due to excitement.. love, love LOVE! Haha..Christmas day we had lunch at our cousin's house then drove back to the

valley to unpack and re-pack... we were headed to the beach! On the coast it is summer time, winter where I live in the mountains, I know! SO COOL!  Once again, we drove five hours down that twisty, turny road. I'm not sure my stomac and I will ever get used to it. We spent the whole week leading up to New Year's at our beach house in Pedernales with mami's cousin, her husband and their daughter . Once again, I was the youngest (not used to that either). Since there was a lot of eating, sleeping and relaxing going on I needed to entertain myself. Papa has kind of raised me withthe mind set that napping is for old people and sitting around doing nothing is a waste of time, made the week a little restless for me.. merci Papa :-p. Let's just say I REALLY missed Patrick, Selina, Daniel and even the early wake-up call from the younger cousins at the cottage. Now, running on the beach is BEAUTIFUL, and I really loved doing it but the hot sand kind of ripped up my toes. Also... (and you can't tell in the last picture due to my newly found editing talents hahah) but I got the worst sunburn of my life! It was actually one of the few I've gotten here in Ecuador but.. * tear...ouch!

Okay, so now I've made it sound like we did absolutely nothing all week, which isn't true. One of my familie's own traditions is to buy tons and tons and tons of candies, then deliver them to the children living in the poor comunities very close to our beach house. It was a really neat experience and if only you could have seen them running up to the truck, they were so excited! We stopped at a few schools (there were a lot of candies). One of the schools had two rooms for all the grades (k to 12).

   

 I've already told this to a few people, but next year we all need to get together and copy some of Ecuador's New Years traditions. They are SO fun and there are a lot of them. My family didn't even do them all. We DID make a life sized doll called el año viejo to represent the old year. We made him with a paper mache head, and old clothes filled with wood chips, fire crackers and other stuffing. Once we were finished we took a lot of pictures and set him in a dry place (it was raining) to wait until 12. In the mean time, we drove out to the main beach community to see the festivities going on there. We got to see a lot    

 of unique año viejos, which can be made in any form you want. There was a ninja, the smurfs, the president, anything really. Of course there was dancing, along with fire works and fire crackers. Andrea had to save me from a fly away fire work.. kind of and entertaining moment. We didn't stay in the village very long. Back at the beach house we had a really late supper of chicken, rice, mashed potatoes and salad. Oh and wine that was mixed with pop (for me A LOT of pop) and different fruits all chopped up into the cup. At 11:45 we brought el año viejo outside to get him ready to be burned! It's supposed to represent the passing of the old year. We burnt him at 12, said happy new year and hugged and kissed (the usual). When the fire died down a bit we all took turns jumping over him for good luck. Very fun. Other traditions include:

1- Wearing white clothing and yellow underwear                              2- Running around the outside of the house three times carrying a suitcase 3- The boys dress up as girls, then go out onto the street asking for money. You go walking and take change with you to give them. They are supposed to represent the widows of the old years that are being burned. It's quite amusing.                                            I'm sure there are more, there's one that has something to do with eating 12 avas at midnight I think..... but I'm not exactly sure what that one is for. Obviously all the traditions can't be done all at once.. otherwise you'd be running around the house with a flaming dummy and a suitcase while choking on avas. I feel like that would only lead to injury which is not exactly the best way to bring in the new year.

Well, I do believe that's all for now. I apoligize for writing a short novel instead of a blog entry, hahah. I suppose that's what I get for not writing earlier. I'm doing fine and everything here is great, I haven't found out if I get to stay with my family for the whole year yet so I'm just praying I'll be able to! Thank you for all the love, support and prayers. I do miss home, although I am having the time of my life here.

So... to explain this picture, Sebas had sun in his eyes and was warming his

hands with the heat coming off of my back due to my crazy burn.