This Week In Review

It's been a busy week here in Cotacachi.  I'm not going to try to write about everything in this post.  I'll give you the highlights and then do a couple of posts to cover a couple of the highlights.

This past week is Holy Week for the Catholics (it's probably called that in a multitude of Christian churches but it's WAY big for the Catholic church here in Cotacachi).  The procession that was to take place Wednesday night at 9:00 didn't happen until 11:00 because of rain, and even at 11:00 it was still raining but they'd given up waiting for it to stop.  I only hung around until about 9:15.  I wasn't willing to get any wetter to watch a procession.  I'd say I'll catch it next year but according to the owner of my apartment, it rains every year, without fail.

There's been a Cultural Expo going on this past week as well.  There were a variety of activities planned, many for the children, as well as booths with items for sale and lots of food booths.  I had hoped to go to the concert but it was outdoors and it rained that night so I stayed indoors.  The same thing happened tonight with the fireworks display.  It's too bad--I would have liked to go to both of those.  Hopefully they'll do the same thing next year and I can hope for dryer weather then.  I did spend some time wandering around the booths today and had a great time.  I bought a tiny purse I've been wanting to get since I moved here.  It's big enough for my money, keys, bank card, and even my little map of the city with my favorite places marked.  It's leather and cost all of $5 (he was asking $7--he accepted $5 so fast that it made me feel like I should have offered $4 but I'm still happy).

Yesterday I went on a tour of a small Kichwa village west of here.  They're the major indigenous tribe in this area.  They're direct descendants of the Inca and a lot of what they do, how they dress, etc., is the way it was done 100 years ago and more.  It was a great experience and will take at least one post to fill in even part of the details.

I finally got an adapter that lets me get photos from my camera into my computer so I'll be able to start adding them to my blog posts.

Just to get started on the photos, this is just the sweetest couple.  They're not Kichwa but they're pretty closely related.  If you look closely, you'll see the wife doesn't have shoes on.  The poorer Indios frequently wear no shoes.