Yungilla!

One of the days we went to an elementary in a little village called Yungilla. There were only like 11 kids there but they were all so excited to see the americans. They were super sweet and cute. We cleaned all of the children and teachers' teeth and Washington filled a couple of cavities. They were all so appreciative and all of the ninos wanted to help. After finishing, most of the children had left the dental room and we were just cleaning up all of the supplies and listening to the radio. A classical ballet song came on and washington yelled for me to dance. The two of us were dancing around just messing off and he told me to do the splits. A little boy saw me and started yelling in shock. He yelled to all the other kids who came running and they all chanted "Otra, Otra!" meaning an other, an other. I did the splits and a needle and the kids were so amazed. They all tried to do the splits and laughed and laughed; even the teachers came in and were trying to do it, they wanted me to teach them how. It was crazy to me that such a simple thing could be so entertaining to them. I felt like a celebrity for a second. haha Two of the little girls loved ash and I and stuck by our sides the whole time. They were the cutest little sisters, Amily and Emily (yes crazy mother). They kept on taping on my my sholder wanting me to watch all of their little dance moves which consisted mostly of twirling in circles while singing songs. When We were about to leave the girls kept hugging us, telling us something in spanish. Their mother, who is also the school teacher, told us that they didn't want us to leave and asked if we would come back. The mom (pamela) proceeded to tell us that she loved us so much and that her home is our home. She begged us to come back and told us she would even be willing to come pick us up in Quito. She was so sweet!

YUNGILLA

 Kassara with all of the school kids

 Us, cleaning teeth! 

 The girls begged us to paint their nails after! 

 Dancing pictures! 

 Us with Amylee and Emylee

After working at the school washington took us to see the villages' community center. The people in Yungilla share everything! They have a community garden, cheese factory, jam factory and more. And when I saw "factory" I mean a tiny little house used for cooking. It was so interesting to see how the village people help eachother to be self sufficent.

This is the garden

This is the cheese factory! 

 And the Jam factory

 A fun swing we found! 

 Us with Washington

 This is what Ashley's feet looked like at the end!

 Later in the evening we had some fun! We were dancing like crazy and in such fun moods! As you can see...

The Zambranos

We love all of the Zambranos and we want to remember them all, so we have decided to describe each of them individually and write down a few funny quotes that each of them have said!

Washington (The Dentist):  Washington is hilarious. We always tease him and call him “The Clean Freak” because that is exactly what he is! It is so funny. He is always walking around the house with a rag or a broom and tidying up!  His favorite pastime is cleaning his cars! One time we went to an orphanage that was way out on a dirt road and we knew we were going to come back the next day to finish our work, but he couldn’t fathom the thought of having a dirty car for 12 hours, so we went to the carwash on the way home, and again the very next day.

                He is so generous. He dedicates his life to charity work and makes it a big part of his family’s life. He works Monday through Thursday doing charity work, and does dental implants and surgeries on the weekends. He is always making sure that we are comfortable and that we have enough food, and that we are having a good time.

                We walked outside one evening while Washington was cleaning his car (again) and the car radio was playing the weirdest song. We had never heard it before but we instantly fell in love. It was a techno song that kept saying “I lost my underwear.”  So naturally we started dancing and singing along; Washington just laughed at us because he is used to this behavior by now.  A little bit later we asked Him if he would like to have a dance party with us and he said “no, I don’t want to lost my underwear!” haha. He is a fun person to be around.

Maru (the wife): Maru is the sweetest person ever. She is so loving and makes us feel right at home. She calls us her “babies” and is always worried about us walking alone or talking anything valuable because she know that we are a hot commodity, (and she loves us).  She reminds us a lot of our own moms. She is really spiritual and friendly to everyone but is really spunky and cheeky at the same time.

SHE IS THE CRAZIEST DRIVER!!! (but you have to be to live here). One day she was driving on a one way street and saw a motorcycle coming the opposite direction. She stuck her hand out the window, making a gesture that we had never seen before, and gave him a stank face. We asked her what “this” means and she said “Please. Oh no. Don’t repeat after me.” Apparently it was the Ecuadorian way to flip someone off, and tell them that they have no brain. We had never seen this side of her, but we loved it!

 To contrast that story, we will tell you something spiritual about her that really impressed us. We had just made a 4 hour drive back from Tena (the jungle) and before we got out of the car she asked if we could say a prayer to thank Heavenly Father for keeping us safe. We thought that was really awesome because we have never heard someone say a prayer at the end of the trip thanking the lord for safety. She is a great example for us.

Juan (aka Juanito, Juanny, obnoxious pants, Mr. Knowitall, oldest son, 30 something):  I bet you couldn’t figure out anything about Juan’s personality from the nicknames we gave him, so we will tell you. I guess we could first start out by telling you that Juan is super nice to us and is always willing to show us all around the city and take us to cool places.

 He USUALLY makes us feel really welcome and at home, HOWEVER, when he takes us on these fun little adventures, he makes sure to tell us ALL about his homeland, the government, history, structures, how they were built, where every single relative in his family went to school, and every other piece of seemingly useful information to us! Usually in this situation we would just go nod and act interested and happily go about our day, but NO, we get quizzes and when we don’t answer correctly he says, “Remember? I told you that!” We have tried to kindly inform him that history isn’t really our thing, even in our own country, but to no avail. No matter where we go, what we do, or how much we try to ignore, there is ALWAYS a history lesson to be given.

Another thing about Juanny pants, no matter how much you try to correct him on your own language, he will always argue back. Courtageous=Courteous and Paraphernalia=Apparel.

Mary (Juan’s Wife, AKA saint): Maybe we should just let Juan describe his wife the way he described her to us. If you never met Mary, you would think she is a bit of a freak. It has become quite ridiculous and we have enjoyed making this list of what kind of a freak Mary really is. Here is the list.

1. Soccer Freak

2. Card game Freak

3. Scary movie freak

4. Pasta Freak

5. Cookie Freak

6. Horse Freak

7. Ice cream Freak

8. People Freak

Sounds freaky, right?  She is really the nicest person! We love her so much. She is very quiet and doesn’t speak any English at all so communication can be tricky. She just laughs at us and teaches us naughty words in Spanish.  Most of our time spent together consists of us being idiots and making her laugh! They have a precious little 2 month old baby named Emanuel and we love helping with him! We have become the baby whisperers. Whenever he starts crying, we take him into our room and turn on meditation music and rock him to sleep. It seems to really work! They are probably thinking that we are some pretty strange Americans, but hey, if it puts the baby to sleep, who is complaining?

Anita (Oldest daughter. 24 years old): Anita is so cute and sweet and there is NOTHING bad to say about her. We can’t see how anyone couldn’t like her, but we haven’t really had the chance to get to know her. She is in medical school and works over 80 hours a week in the hospital.

Josue (14 years old): Josue really got under our skin at first, but he is really growing on us and it’s going to be hard to leave him! He definitely does not act his age, but we have learned not to compare the younger boys to people we know that are their age. He is kind of nerdy, hence the water museum, but really smart and funny. He always has the funniest comments!

“I don’t want to say this, but I have to. I really need to poop!”

“God is not happy with your opinion.”

“Um guys, Code red. Code red. Prairie dog!”

“I don’t like this food. I would DIE for it!”

                Josue always makes us feel really good about ourselves. He tells us that our food is a perfect 10 and that we aren’t nearly as annoying at the other 4 girl volunteers that were here earlier. He tells us that he loves us and that he is going to miss us and calls Kassara his teddy bear (once again, stop comparing him to a regular 14 year old). 

Mathias (12 years old): Mati is really cute and sweet, but spoiled to DEATH! He is always so helpful and loves to be around us. He was so excited and so happy to greet us at the airport. It made us feel really welcome and happy to be here. He loves American music, especially ghostbusters, and dances like a spaz whenever it comes on. That kind of behavior is definitely right up our alley! We taught him the Michelle dance and he LOVES it! Now all of the cousins know it as well and we do it at dinner time! 

We go to museums because we are nerds!!!

These pictures were taken up on the roof of the Zambrano's apartment! It was an awesome view! but it was creepy being 13 stories above the ground! Little side note, these were the scrubs that we wore while we passed out! :)

 Kass and Mati. Does this boy look like he is 12?? He doesn't to us either, but he is! We love him. 

The next morning, we went to this little primary activity at 8 in the morning! we would usually pass on these sort of activities, except I was the pianist, so I kinda had to be there! The activity was really awesome. I don't know why we don't have an activity like this in the states.... School starts on Monday for the ninos here in Ecuador, so they did back to school blessings at the church for all of the kids who didn't have someone who could give them a blessing. It was really awesome! Even though it was all in spanish and we only picked up a few words here and there, it was still so spiritual! Since I was playing the piano, Kass and I were able to sit on the stand and observe the audience. aka: Mati in the front row. Every time a new blessing would start and everyone's eyes were SUPPOSED to be closed, Mati started performing. He thought that since his eyes were closed, and he couldn't see himself, that no one else could either. It started with a mere dance move, then he added some silent opera singing, then apparently he had 5 lbs of boogers in his nose that needed to be picked, so he went to town. He picked and wiped boogers, and licked his fingers for at least 5 minutes. We were trying SOOOO hard to contain our laughter, so hard that it hurt! We let out a few snorty, breathy laughs and tried to be as serious as possible afterwards so we could disguise it as a sneeze or possibly a throat clear. It was hilarious! 

 GIANT diaper! Don't know why we found this so fascinating. 

 After the Primary activity, the Zambrano's wanted to do something fun with us. We suggested that we would like to ride the cable cars that go all around the city! They said that we COULD do that, or we could go to this water museum which is "soooo much more fun!" The boys were so thrilled to go to the museum so we figured it must be a water park, or something awesome. We felt a bit misled when we showed up at what appeared to be a water plant. At least it was on a cool hill and had an awesome view so we could get these pictures!

 As we were about to exit the museum, aka, water plant, we realized that this is a place where the nerds come to have a good time! We put on our best nerd faces!

We shouldn't complain. We DID get some awesome pictures of the city! 

 Our cutest pose ever! This was candid! Bet you couldn't tell! 

 We love eachother.

 Kass dipping mati's head in the water! 

 I tried running under this water tunnel and I thought it was the same height the whole way through! I was wrong. Apparently this bridge of water is only made for Ecuadorians, and midgets. I got DRENCHED!

 This is the saddest face I could make! 

 Awesome picture!!!

Otavalo Dental Clinic!

WOW! So many things to blog about. I guess we should start with the biggest story of them all. Kass and I were helping with a wisdom teeth surgery yesterday. I was on the chair right next to the Dr, giving suction and pulling out pieces of the tooth, and Kass was standing back a little bit handing instruments to Dr. Z. I was sooooo fascinated by the surgery and I was really enjoying being the assistant. Out of nowhere I started feeling light headed and dizzy and my world was going black! I told Kassara that I might need someone to come take my place and the next thing I know I have 3 people holding me up! I had fainted! But I didn't know it at that time because I was like "Kassara I think I am going to pass out." then kassara replied, "You already did!" That has NEVER happened to me before! I wasn't even grossed out, at all!!!!! Why does that happen? I don't know. but it was embarrassing. I was happy that I collapsed on my chair and not on the ground though! After my dramatic episode, Kassara stepped up and took my spot. Anyone who knows Kass knows that anytime she sees blood she gets queasy. She isn't grossed out by it either! It must just be something in her brain. After a few minutes she told them that she wasn't feeling well and was starting to feel like she could pass out too. She started walking up the stairs to go lay down and then SHE collapsed! We probably looked like a couple of hypochondriacs but it was genuine. Who would make themselves pass out?? Anyway, it was an interesting experience. I want to try to help again with a surgery but I am pretty nervous because I don't want round 2 to happen! Maybe I should stick to the simple stuff, cleanings and fillings! 

In our last post we expressed our frustration towards Juan, the oldest son. Wellllll yesterday we were playing phase 10 with the younger boys and Juan comes in and says "My mom said that she is coming back in 30 minutes and she wants to see you guys busy at work translating the papers." Okay, that doesn't sound ANYTHING like Maru, so we told him that we would finish our game with the boys and do it later. We asked the Dr. if he had anything the would like us to do instead of playing a game and he told us to play and have fun! So we knew it couldn't be that big of a deal, because we answer to Dr Z, not JUANITO. Anyways, a little while later she walked in smiling and happy as can be! The game ended shortly after and so we went to work on the translating. We told them about what Juan said to us and they were SOOOO embarrassed! Maru said that she never ever said anything about us translating at all! And that she was outside washing the car. She said that she was so excited to see us happy and feeling better! They proceeded to tell us to never listen to Juan and that he is on some medication that is making him act this way. They said that they too get really frustrated with him and they apologized up and down. Hopefully it's not awkward when we go to his baby's blessing tomorrow! 

Here are some of the pictures from the orphanage, and from the dental clinic in Otavalo! 

WHO YOU GONNA CALL?!?! GHOSTBUSTERS! We were painting this room in the orphanage. We had lots of equipment on to make sure we didn't get paint on our clothes or our body, but that didn't stop the paint fights! I brushed a bit of paint on Kassara's face, and by a little bit, I mean more than a little bit. more like her whole face. Everyone was freaking out and telling her that she wouldn't be able to wash it off for days! One of the nuns took Kass up to the place where they live, and gave her lotion and a rag to try to get it off. The nun watched over her shoulder the whole time and was SOOOO concerned. She kept pointing out tiny little specs remaining on her face and didn't smile once! Everyone thought that the pain would kill her! She kept glaring at me because she knew that I was the cause of it! haha. Kass got me back, don't worry. but it was only on my arm :) And apparently no one cares about arms! 

This nun was pretty hilarious. When we ate bunny the first day, she must have been able to tell that we didn't like it. She said that we didn't have to worry, because we weren't having conejo for lunch today! haha.

 We were pretty fumigated from the paint! We started getting headaches and getting loopy! Not a fun drug to be on! After we painted the wall, we had to paint the ceiling which was a brownish color to begin with. They wanted us to paint it white! We started painting and it looked a million times worse than the brown color. We didn't even have enough paint to finish painting the whole roof, so we left it half finished. The brown paint looked like the completed side, rather than the white! We tried to express our concerns when we first started, but we are obedient little munchkins. It was so frustrating to see it get uglier after so much work! 

 We were THRILLED to be having vegetable soup and pasta for lunch instead of Conejo! Dr Zambrano captured the exciting moment :)

This was in Otavalo at the Clinic! This was the door that they entered into. It was set up in a little kids school. I guess you could call that an elementary school :) The women here make these very creative baby holders! I think they make them out of sheets. I don't know how they do it, but they are somehow able to keep their baby super tight and secure in there! kinda awesome!

Kass assisting the scary dentist with no personality! She was so intimidated by her because she didn't speak any english, and kass doesn't speak much spanish. This was her first time doing anything with dentistry and the dentist would just glare at her. Not the best teacher!

Me, getting ready to put some fluoride in a little girls mouth! When I first started, I was just helping the dentist, then Dr. Zambrano told me to come over and start practicing cleanings. I practiced with him there for  a couple minutes, then he set me free! Kassara left the meanie pants and became my assistant! but she will be doing it all alone soon too! I cleaned at least 5 peoples teeth and put fluoride in all by myself :) it was so much fun! I wish my spanish was better so I could communicate a little more! I am so excited because he said that we are going to be doing the same thing on monday at the orphanage! Maybe I want to be a dental hygienist... if I could get through surgeries without passing out! haha

Kassara and her bff!!!

This was our dental clinic! 

While one of the patients was being worked on, Kass entertained this precious little baby who didn't like white people very much! We tried to give him a little toy car to play with and he screamed louder! luckily, the procedure didn't take long!

We also painted the little girls nails! It was so fun!