Familia

As you saw from our last post, we are staying with a family in Cuenca. The family is very large, and the mother/grandmother welcomed us immediately into her home.



We call her ´´Ma-ma´´ and she considers us her 7th and 8th children. Yes, she is mother of 6, with the youngest being 33:


It seems a natural progression that Mark and I be her 7th and 8th children. We greatly appreciate the warm welcome into this temporary home.

In the Ecuadorian family, the weekends are usually spent with family, and this last Sunday was no different for us. We went to ´´El Campo´´ (the country) where the family has a small house.



Five of Ma-ma´s six children were there, some with their spouses, children, and ´´adopted´´ international students like us. Ma-ma´s oldest daughter´s husband took to liking Mark and talked to him for 2 hours about how he built this precious home with his own hands and planted all kinds of trees and plants in the land surrounding the house. The house itself has one small bathroom and two bedrooms, and a large table in the kitchen, perfect for gathering around for the large meal of the day: almuerzo or la comida (lunch).

It also has a patio/front porch with cushioned chairs and benches to gather and have a siesta.
At el campo, we had a large lunch and the food was delicious, as always: mote (hominy) is common to eat by itself or in a soup. We had pork and beef roasted outside, a salad, rice, and potatoes. (Next week, I´ll be blogging about our typically lunches, and will include a picture from each day!) We also celebrated Ma-ma´s sister-in-law´s 80th birthday. You can see the video of us singing ´´Feliz Cumpleanos´´ to her in the video.

After lunch, we then chatted, rested, and read. Towards evening, we helped to clear off some of the old logs from the land and burnt the rest of the pieces. Mark had a blast. Men and fire...not sure I´ll come to understand it completely, but it was fun to watch the guys interact.