Tuesday, December 21, 2010

La Novena

In a few days I´ll celebrate my first Christmas fuera de (outside of) the States. This past week I´ve enjoyed Ecuadorian and American Christmas traditions around Loja Province.

Beginning December15th, Ecuadorian families gather nightly for nine days to celebrate la Novena (the ninth night) with oraciones (readings/prayers), songs and food. I joined my extended host family of the first night of the Novena. After reading, prayers, and songs, we ate cake with a slice of cheese in place of frosting - a delicacy I´m rapidly warming to - then admired my host aunt´s Christmas decorations. In the courtyard, a mechanical snowman sweeps the walk while a creche, complete with multi-colored twinkle lights, adorns the living room. The creche is joined by an artificial Christmas tree, and even a shake-your-hips Santa Claus. Such US-import Christmas decorations are everywhere, right down to the icicle lights at my friend Peggy´s site... who lives in the jungle and will be enjoying a 90 degree with high humidity Christmas.

A few days after my first Novena, I joined fellow Lojana, Liz, to travel out to Santi and Kayla´s exceptionally isolated site. Santi and Kayla are a married couple from my omnibus, and PC stuck them at the end of a dirt road nearly six hours from Loja, but only one mountain pass from Peru. Our journey came with a purpose - gingerbread houses! We constructed a small gingerbread town, including a post office, church, house, pond, and train. Some very moist frosting and over-loaded roofs led to structural difficulties. As a civil engineer, I´m a bit embarrassed by this, but in my defense, I did not have access to a building code for recommended coconut snow or frosting loads. Kaylas´s English students thought the gingerbread village a smashing success, however, as its imperfections meant they were welcomed to eat it this morning, which, according to Kayla, they did with relish.

Tonight I´m off to Guayaquil, Ecuador´s biggest city, to pick-up my parents and siblings. I so look forward to sharing Ecuador iwth them and hope that they´ll lend their pens to my next post, sharing their impressions with all of you.

Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año Nuevo!

1 comment:

  1. Merry Christmas, Alli to you and the rest of the O'Leary clan. I hope you all have a great visit.

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