Very Ecuadorian

We have had a wonderful week here already, but we can´t believe how fast the time has flown! We are learning a lot about the culture and we´re even picking up more Spanish, per no mucho. We wanted to share some of the interesting cultural differences that we have found.


1. They use spoons for every meal. Forks are only used on special occasions, like Sundays, as we discovered today.

2. Every girl in Cuenca gets her ears pierced when she is 2 days old. Jessica doesn´t have her ears pierced, and they all think it´s strange.


3. When it gets cooler in the evenings, everyone bundles up in sweaters. They fear that they will get sick if they are cold. No one EVER eats anything cold when they are sick, even yogurt is warmed up.


4. As is custom with most developing countries, toilet paper goes in the garbage, not in the toilet. This has been fairly easy to remember...hopefully we´ll be able to reverse this when we get back to the States. :-)


5. The water faucets are opposite from the U.S. in that the hot water is on the right and the cold water is on the left. We still mix this one up.


6. They eat popcorn with their soup. At first this sounds weird, but it´s actually very good! You should try it! Especially with spinich soup...yum!!!

Now for some pictures...okay, many pictures.

Our first outing without our translators!

The door to our apartment will never open for us...

so we call it...

la puerta del diablo!! :)

The toilet paper outside of the stall, better not forget it!

Lucho y Ruth, pray for him


this is for you Ben!

Jessica wanted to save it, it didn´t want to go in the bottle

we ate lunch on top of the mountain

the beautiful view

it hardly looks real!

the road we were driving on!

our food!

Ruth´s Bienvenida

eating popcorn soup

at the market

Ruth´s cousins Jonathan and Priscilla, so cute!

Kari´s group at the mall

Lauras new favorite fruit!