Some new things we did …

Since last time, we’ve done a few things for the first time.

We are currently in a new location – previously we were south of the city centre (an area called Turi), now we are east of the city centre (Totoracocha) (the airport is also in the east, but we don’t hear it), house-sitting for an Aussie couple for a few months. We seem to be working our way around the points of the compass!

This part of town is a bit more densely populated than where we were for the first couple of weeks, but just about wherever you go in town, the houses are quite tightly packed in together – wall to wall. (We have a little courtyard out the back with pot plants, and outdoor laundry etc. Its quite handy – you can stand at your washing line and hang up your washing while hardly moving!) There are quite a few little grassy parks, some with swings etc., and asphalted soccer/volleyball etc. fields around, which is good, as there is very little outside space for most houses.

A couple of blocks from us is a concreted soccer ground, which on Fridays becomes the local market. The day before, people come in and erect lots of tarpaulins, and the next day, it’s all happening! A brother took us there to show us around and who to buy what from, etc. I actually felt rather lost and somewhat overwhelmed – in your own environment, you don’t have to think about language, communication, culture etc. But suddenly when you are in an unfamiliar environment, with a completely different culture and ways of doing things, and unable to communicate properly, it becomes a big deal. Plus, there was wall-to-wall people, which is not my favourite way to have people.

Most of the fruits and vegies come as either so many pounds (not kilograms, just to add to the confusion) to the dollar, or so many of each fruit or veg to the dollar. So you need to ask the stall-holder, how much per dollar, and then hope you understand what they say! And all the while there are people pushing past you lugging armfuls of bananas or sackful's of rice, etc.

You can also get fresh meat, fish, eggs, etc. It’s a bit confronting to see the meat just sitting there, unrefrigerated. But the bro we were with says if you get there early in the day (we were there at 7 am), it’s all still cold. The meat is killed the night before, so it is fresh. There are no flies, or other nasties buzzing around at the market (in Cuenca we are about 2,500 metres above sea level, so apparently not many bugs; although the earwigs are on the large size!). The chickens generally come with their feet still attached, but you can ask them to cut the head off for you, if you are squeamish and don’t want to do it yourself!!

I think for now, we will stick with the supermarket, and work our way up to the more adventurous ways of getting our supplies! Having said that, a supermarket where everything is written in Spanish is no picnic, either!

We went for a wander around the neighbourhood today to orient ourselves, and to see what’s around us. We were rather struck by the amount of small stores, etc., scattered throughout the neighbourhood. Back in Aus., you’d get the odd corner store here and there, but mostly the shops are all together, and the houses mostly together. Whereas here, on the main thoroughfares you get mostly shops, but always with a house or apartment either at the back of the shop or above the shop. Some of the shops are quite tiny, and there are often little booths where various foods are cooked – the Ecuadorean version of takeaway?

There are a few (maybe 4 or 5?) large-ish shopping malls in Cuenca, each with its own supermarket, which have probably been built in the last five years or so. Which is handy, if you have a car or can afford to take a taxi home with your shopping. But if you can’t, that’s where all these little local stores come in. Coz you can easily walk to get most things. Within a 5 to 10 minute walk from here are at least 5-6 little bakeries, numerous mini-markets, chemists, hardware stores, numerous internet-use places, Laundromat, etc. etc. And that’s your average suburban neighbourhood! Who needs a car?! A lot of the little shops (milk bars in Aus.) are small (seems to be one every 10 houses or so) and are designed so that you can’t go into them. The front of the shop has steel bars with a small opening in it. You walk up to the bars, ask for what you want and pay for it. The owner then passes the item through the opening to you.

This is the park opposite the court we live in – just in this picture, there are two minimart/ corner stores and a hairdresser!

We took our first buses this weekend (they come every 10-15 minutes) – up to now we have either walked or taken taxis. Our bus stop is a gentle 5-minute stroll down hill. You have to allow extra time if you want to get somewhere at a specific time, as if you miss one bus, it could be 10 minutes before the next one. So, you get all very casual, and stop rushing around, as the bus will come when it comes, and you will get there when you get there.

The first bus we took was Friday night, to get to our meeting. That was a really packed bus, as Friday nights are a busy time. We had earlier got bus passes (a rather pretty little plastic disc with leaves printed on it, and a key-chain to go with it – it saves having to have the correct change), and after you leap hastily onto the bus (the bus drivers are on a mission – they don’t wait around) you scan your bus pass into the machine (or put in 25 cents in coins if you have them) which then says “Gracias”, and then you make for a seat asap before you end up on the floor while the bus lurches merrily up the road. That Friday night, so many people got on, that in the end the bus driver didn’t stop to take any more passengers – there was nowhere to put them, anyway!

We concluded that buses are more interesting than taxis (also lots cheaper, and slower – a 20 minute taxi trip is 30 minutes by bus), as you can see outside better, and the people inside are more interesting than just the back of the taxi driver’s head. Example: on the Saturday, after witnessing, we had caught a bus near the Fiera Libre market (a really big market with all sorts of things for sale and notorious for being a pick-pocketer’s paradise), and a couple got on the bus, who had obviously shopped at the market as they had various bags of fruit and veg etc. which they put on the floor, and at one stage the bus driver stopped really suddenly, and the melons the couple had bought went rolling merrily along the floor toward the front of the bus. You also get various unusual people get on the bus who try to sell things. There’s just more interesting things going on in a bus than in your average taxi.

Witnessing on Saturday was rather different from how we do it in Aus. Because we are in the English congregation, we are looking specifically for native English-speakers (there are apparently about 4,000 in Cuenca), as the Ecuadorean brothers will talk to the Spanish-speaking people. So, if somebody is at home, we ask if there are any English-speaking people living there, and if so, we talk to them, if not, we leave it to the Ecuadorean brothers. We have the whole city to cover. (The population of Cuenca is 500,000 as at the last census a couple of years ago.) All the houses here have high fences and locked gates (they are very security-conscious in Cuenca and most cities in Ecuador, from what I can gather), with some having intercoms at the gate. Some don’t have intercoms which makes it difficult to try to attract the attention of anybody inside. We did manage to find a couple of locals who spoke English, but none from elsewhere. It is also hard to keep track of streets and house numbers, as the street names are not as obviously marked as in Aus., and many houses have no numbers. Whenever anyone gives you a direction to their house or place they will give it as the nearest intersection of two roads (eg. Marsical Sucre and Benigno Malo will bring you to Parque Abdon Calderon (park in centre of town). I guess you have to look out for landmarks and hope for the best!!

Sunday after the meeting, a couple of families were going to a Chinese restaurant for lunch, so we went too. We thought it would be interesting to see what an Ecuadorean version of Chinese food would be like. Ecuadorian food generally is fairly plain, not spicy, and the Chinese lunch lived up to that! It’s interesting how there are different versions of how food should be – I believe that Aussie Chinese food is rather different from how people in China would eat, and the Ecuadorean Chinese food is different from how Aussies would eat it. Having said that, we decided we didn’t need to go there again!

We currently are living in the house at the top end of this little court.

A street nearby to show a general idea of the neighbourhood.