Guinea Pig: Pet or PrimeRib?

So, I'm starting to run out of cool pictures to put up and I don't really have anything all that interesting to say, but here's something that I figure would be interesting to all of you: Life with the indigenous people of Ecuador. So, to the right is a picture of the general people I'm working with on a day to day basis (not taken by me).

Generally, the indigenous people are reserved but respectful, so it's taking me a while to build up my group of contacts and friends in my town, but little by little I'm beginning to get to know more and more people. The Kichwa learning has been slow because the town I'm in is sort of mixed, so people speak Spanish a lot (although people still speak to me at times in Kichwa either because 1) they don't know Spanish at all or 2) they just think I won't undersand and it will be a good way to make fun of me).

In one of the communities I work in, about half of the population doesn't speak Spanish so I get to sit through a number of meetings understanding next to nothing for about 40 minutes at the time.

The last time I was out in the community, I sat and watched kids play strange games I had never seen, some I had (3-legged races, potato sack races, etc), and then was served a meal fit for a king (in their terms). They take me inside and sit me down at a table and bring me a meal of tons of mote (a relative of corn) and an entire cuy (aka, Guinea Pig). Then they left me by myself to eat the food. I just found it culturally interesting that they would only serve me and leave me by myself in the room to eat in silence while everyone else was outside playing games and such. I ate about half of the cuy and some mote and asked for a bag to take the rest home (also a very typical custom in Ecuador, especially among the indigenous). For me, this served as a great way to conserve some food for the dog for later and get out of eating all of that cuy (don't worry, I didn't give the dog cuy since the bones are bad for them).

Anyways, that's the interesting stuff from this week of work. Tonight I'm going out and visiting a friend's site who lives in a REALLY indigenous site (read: 'hardcore Peace Corps'). Thanks for being patient with this boring phase in my blog, hopefully I find some way to spice it up in the future. Take care and I'll look forward to hearing from you all soon.