A week in Quito

I spent the last week in Quito for the 2nd Annual Conference for Childhood Nutrition and Healthy Living. The conference itself had its highs and lows. One cool thing was that there were speakers from all over Latin America. The coolest was a physician from Brazil who spoke about milk banks. There were also speakers from Guatemala, Chile and Canada talking about different themes in childhood nutrition. The bad thing is that it was 4 days of a lot of the same information. There were about 4 different lectures on breast feeding, 3 on what foods were appropriate for different ages, and several more on how severe malnutrition is in rural areas of Latin America—all of which are very interesting topics the first time around, but by the third time it was a little hard to pay attention.

I stayed with Zuñiga family (the dad is the brother of my host mom in Alausi). They have a son who is my age named Erick who is going to graduate from college this year with a degree in tourism and a daughter who is a senior in High School named Maria Cristina (She goes by Criss, which was a little confusing because in Alausi I’m also Kris). They also have an adopted son named Browley. He moved in with them when he was 12 but is now 29. They have a huge, beautiful house in a safe part of Quito with an entire floor dedicated to a hot tub, sauna and brick oven for making fresh bread. From the roof, you can see all of Quito—the view is incredible! I can’t even express how well the treated me. They welcomed me into their home like I was a longtime family friend even though I had only just met them. They showed me all around Quito and helped me figure out the transportation system—which is very confusing. Erick accompanied me to and from my conference the first day to make sure I got there and home safely. Because he works in tourism, he gave me a really cool history of the city and pointed out all the interesting sites on the way. The next day, I made it to the conference just fine on my own, but afterwards I had to go to the PC office to drop some things off and decided to manage the bus system on my own. I made it to the PC office just fine (which I was very proud of myself for), however on my way home someone gave me some very bad directions and I ended up in somewhere-I-don’t-know-but-definitely-shouldn’t-be-here Quito. By this time it was dark so I decided to resort to taking a taxi home—which was fine but I was a little disappointed that I’d gotten so lost. I feel bad because Mrs. Zuñiga was super worried about me.

My conference finished Saturday afternoon around 1. When I got home, the whole family was eating lunch and getting ready to go to Erick’s soccer game. We watched the game then Mr. and Mrs. Zuñiga, Criss and I went off to see La Rona, the central/historic part of Quito (Erick went off to hang out with his friends). This was super cool. There were all kinds of little shops and exhibits. Then we went to this tiny little whole-in-the-wall restaurant (which is supposedly famous in Quito) for dinner—it was delicious (and sadly I don’t remember the name of the dish). When we got back to the house, Criss and I decided to have a movie night. We crawled in bed and watched movies until 1 am.

The next morning I had to head back to Alausi. I really had a great time in Quito. Not only was the conference interesting (for the most part)—I got a lot of helpful information for my nutrition charlas with the madres de familias—but it was just really nice to be with the Zuñigas and spend some time with people my own age. One night Criss, Erick and I stayed up late talking about traveling, movies, music and books (who’d have thought that Harry Potter could be the vehicle of cultural exchange)—basically talking about things I would talk to my friends at home about. In Alausi I’m either at work where I am the youngest by at least 10 years or with my host family. My host family here is absolutely wonderful and I couldn’t ask for a better living situation, but there really isn’t anyone my age. Even though my host sister Alexandra is technically my age, she has an 18 month old daughter that she is constantly chasing around. And Brayan is such a sweet kid, but there is only so much I can talk to a 12-year-old boy about.

Overall, I’m still having a blast. Work is going super well and I’m actually getting to travel a lot for my work, which is awesome! Sorry I don’t have pictures to post. I forgot to bring my camera with me to Quito. Oh well. Hope all is well back home.