At la Escuela Simón Bolívar in Cuenca, we each have 4 hours of individual Spanish tutoring every morning. I confess to feeling some butterflies in my stomach yesterday as we set off down the hill to school. It was a huge relief to meet Fausto, the director, who greeted us each by name and set us up with tutors, who whisked us off to a morning of learning.
A big sigh of relief -- we all really like our tutors. The kids' tutors have built a nice rapport with them. I've had some interesting conversations with my tutor about Ecuador -- its history, politics, and culture -- and about family life here. She is an experienced teacher who seamlessly builds mini grammar and vocabulary lessons into our conversations.
Cuenca is a prosperous city of 600,000 in the southern Sierra. Cuencanos are traditional, courteous, cultured, and they walk much more slowly than New Yorkers!
We each go on little field trips with our tutors, which is a great way to see Cuenca -- and it breaks up those 4 hours! Yesterday, my tutor showed me the cathedral, the flower market, and we drank a medicinal, herbal syrup made by nuns. I'm feeling very healthy.
Today, we went to the market, where I tasted a shake made with vena de toro (good for virility and fertility), some seriously delicious pork (see below), and local sugar. Cuencanos are fastidiously clean; not only are the streets the cleanest in Ecuador, but the market is thoroughly sanitized too -- even the butchers and fishmongers.
This pig = good eating.
Medicinal flowers and herbs for sale in the market.
1 comment:
So yummy!
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