The City and Cooking!

So this will be a really brief update, since I just wrote earlier this week. There is so much happening everyday that is unique and different. I just love it!
I didn’t tell you much about the sisters last time, which was very rude. They are very kind and hospitable; we are well taken care of and definitely well-fed. We eat some type of bread for almost every meal! We all work at La Guardaría (the school/ daycare) together with a few other teachers. Angeles and Alexandra are teachers, I believe Carmita is the principal (she’s always working in the office) and Rosario (my favorite) does a little of everything. She is like the cute little grandma of the group and always working really hard behind the scenes. She was telling us the other day a few of the kids were actually calling her “abuelita” little grandma, which she just found really funny.
The sun is really strong here, did I mention that? The altitude is so high; we are in one of the highest neighborhoods of Quito, called Oriente Quiteno. Out our windows we can look down upon much of the city. It’s so beautiful! I also didn’t tell you Nicole and I have our own rooms with our own bathrooms! It is so nice and really comfortable here.
Some of our most recent experiences include:
- Trying to make banana bread with oritos (similar to bananas but much smaller) and having the dough overflow into the oven and of course having the sisters all notice before we could clean it. What a mess! The oven is sort of like the one we had in Spain, it takes forever to cook anything. We spent 2 ½ hrs. waiting for the bread to cook, finally took it out and this morning it was still a bit doughy.
- We made fried potatoes and scrambled eggs for our first cooking duty, the potatoes were very crunchy and the eggs a little well done … a bit of a fiasco!
- A trip into the city, getting on the wrong bus and riding in a circle back to the bus station to get on ours. We visited about 6 of the many churches (it seemed there was about two per block for awhile).
- Everything is really cheap here, they use American money but have different coins. I bought an icecream cone, in the city so it was more expensive but it was 50 cents. Toilet paper is like 25 ... oh we did have to pay 10 cents to use the bathroom though in Quito. That was crazy!
- The sisters leave sometimes without telling us, we’ve decided its better to ask multiple times to make sure we know what’s going on, which still doesn’t always guarantee anything. Last night the neighborhood alarm sounded and they all went out to see what was going on, we just kept doing dishes! haha. We have a shared alarm to sound when there are thieves. We’re not quite sure how it works, but a little nervous that its already gone off twice.
- I’m noticing my English is getting worse; I’m forgetting certain words and can’t always explain myself when Nicole and I are talking. My Spanish is improving, but it’s still hard to understand the kids all the time (we are learning together!).
- Cleaning everyday, it’s a little crazy but we are getting the hang of it. We finally know the schedule – sweep everyday, mop twice a week, water flowers twice a week, and dust once a week.
I’m adding a few photos so you can see, the house, the school and a little of the city. It’s so gorgeous! We have to stop almost everyday on our way to school to just look and enjoy the scenery. Here is the link http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2065657&id=62902453&l=c8698b8d09

Praying for you all,Mucho amor,
April

P.S. I love updates from you, send me an email and tell me about your life. I know what´s going on with me ... haha It´s fun to hear from everyone!