This picture a rather normal scene in Quito. A man running to avoid a car and people walking.
This is the Northern part of the city. I live somewhere in all of that.
Another normal scene. These are street venders avoiding the strong son and as you can see to your left another person dodging cars.
This is a picture of a street in the south part of Quito. It is generally a bit more dangerous and poor there. This type of store is common everywhere.
This is the beautiful view that I had outside of my window. It is about 2:30 on Friday the 19th of December.
Some of the sculpture artwork they have around.
Another picture. This the valley to the NorthEast of Quito on the other side of the mountains.
As you can see the climate changed a lot within about 30 minutes. This is a little adobe hut which I liked.
More street stores
Another beautiful part of our trip
This is when we first arrived in Otavalo which is a bit larger than Cotacachi. It is also an indigenous town in the region of Imbabura but the main difference between the industry of Otavaleños and those from Cotacachi is that in Otavalo they make artesanias or handicrafts and in Cotacachi they make things out of leather.
This is the view entering Cotacachi
This a view out one of the windows of my friends hostal. I think I took similar pictures with the disposable camera the last time I came, but this one should be better.
This is the street where the hostal is. I took this from above. As you can see Cotacachi is quite peaceful compared to other places.
This is the inside of my friends hotal. It is quite nice, and as I am a friend of the family they let me stay for free. They are very kind and generous to me.
The tradition for this type of funeral is to go to mass after the person has been died for one month. They are already buried this is just the moment when the funeral happens. It is now Saturday at around 8:30 in the morning. This is the church that we went to. It is the most colorful catholic church I have every seen and is clearly newer. You will see more pictures of the inside of this church in future blogs. There is another church in town which is colonial, but this one is not.
After mass we all walked to the cemetery. This is the walk. It is quite nice. I actually love Cotacachi. It is very tranquil, during this time there was always something interesting to do or see and you can walk at whatever time of day or night you want.
This is the cemetery
My friend David is to your right and his cousin is to your left
This is when we arrived at the grave. The people in front were there preparing before. The man to the left with the blue poncho and white pants and shirt explained the funeral to me while we were eating.
Here you can see the huge buckets of food. Everyone brought a large portion of a dish. The food is always the favorite food of the deceased. Then they give each of the groups of people talking a bowl of the food to eat then we all eat out of that bowl. We ate with our fingers.
To the your right is my other friend David's brother Geovanny. I was standing with him and the man in the poncho which is to you left. That's our food. In case your wondering what it is, it is: Mote (a type of corn, pronounced "mo-tay"), beans, potatoes, rice, and vegetables at the bottom with the mote.
Here is where I will explain everything because this is picture and the one below are of the actual moment when they did the ceremony. That they do as you can see is they place food on the grave of the deceased and then there was a prayer and afterwards each person had to eat from that bowl (This was the third time I had eaten and it's like 10 in the morning). You don't have to eat much but you ahve to eat something. The idea is that the deceased is eating with you in heaven. That this is something like a last meal, but they sometimes will do it again. This tradition comes from a long time ago (this part I learned at a museum in Quito). A long time ago they would dig a but hole in the ground and put all of the food that a person might want or need at the bottom and then they would cover it. This was to assure that the person would have food in the afterlife. This is the newer version of that, but they can't put the food in the grave with them, or maybe they can but they don't.
This is a long distance shot of the old colonial church.
This is the truck we all got into to go to David and Geovanny's grandma's house, which as I wrote above she was the one who had died. It is another part of the tradition to eat at the deceased's home.
This is a picture of us while we were in the back of the truck. The head to the right is Geovanny
We got to the bottom of the driveway and the truck let us out. Then we walked to that house you can see at the back.
That's the house.
To the right is Jefferson, David and Geovanny's little brother. His nickname is Chikis
We sat like this for about 45 minutes while the guy who is leaned over said Hail Mary's on his rosary beads. Everyone said the response, but I am not Roman Catholic so I didn't say anything. They know that I'm not but there was never a problem when we talked about that.
Then we ate again (fourth meal) These were two big bowls of soup. I could only finish the first one.
This is a bread oven. I thought it was something old, but as you will see in a later blog it is still quite useful.
The girl in the middle is David and Geovanny's sister. She can't hear and it is very hard for her to read my lips because they are so different so it's hard to talk with her, but by the end of the week she could understand me sometimes.
This and the following pictures are from the path between Geovanny and David's house and their grandma's
This is the house. Last time I was there they hadn't build this covered garage part, but it was very well done. This is a picture taken by Geovann'y to see how level the lanterns were or maybe because it looks neat. They designed and built this whole thing themselves. Their father Jorge (pronounced Hor-Hey) builds houses and condominiums for a living. He is the boss of his own construction company. I will have two pictures of his condos later.
Anotehr picture. In the back you can see the oven which will be turned into a nativity scene in three days. (today is the 20th)
This is Geovanny working to the left and their sister (names are hard for me sometimes and I can't seem to remember hers right now which I feel bad about).
This is Sultán their German shepherd. We had a barking fight and now he is my friend. I guess I won.
This is the garage door wall. I helped them paint the house and I later but a pit of primer on this wall after cleaning it. It was fun to paint again. Anyway, that was day two in Cotacachi. I willl write my next post this Saturday and will let you all know by way of e-mail, myspace, or facebook. I hope it was interesting for you all and would love to hear from you.
Love Spencer
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