Cuenca Updates

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Thursday May 31, 2011 Update

Our sincere apologies to all the readers of GringoTree! Please, the blog you should be directed to is
cuencaresidency.blogspot.com

Thursday May 31/12 update

GringoTree subscribers PLEASE go to cuencaresidency.blogspot.com instead.

This particular blog is only meant for family and friends who know and understand us.

To friends and family:

I screwed up and I am terribly sorry. I submitted this blog address by mistake for inclusion in a list on GringoTree which has more than 3,000 subscribers. We really don’t want 3,000 people reading this particular blog, so we hope the GringoTree people will be understanding. I was going to delay submitting today’s blog but I figured the worst is probably over already so here we go.

Bella went to a book sale at the Carolina Bookstore, and to collect her money from the alpaca store lady. Then she bought a small freezer at Coral for the house which will make our grocery storage much easier.

I went downtown to get a refund for a piece of Corel photo software that I had bought yesterday but which was corrupted. He gave me a different version instead so I brought it home but this one would not accept the serial number. These cloned programs are very frustrating.

On arrival downtown I heard sirens and ahead of me was a pumper firetruck lazily spilling out hose toward an underground parking garage, but they didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry. Almost next door they were also treating a woman on her back. It was all very strange indeed. Maybe she had smoke inhalation from a fire that was extinguished before the fire truck's arrival??

I did get a few shots and a video from the second floor of the city building south of Parque Calderon to give you a better idea of the size and scope of this central square which is always a treat to visit.

http://youtu.be/wvDNvpzRPmI EL CENTRO VIDEO

The flower market (not in view on the video) also brightens a person’s day, even if we aren’t buying, as do the musicians alongside the main cathedral.

There were several tents set up along the south side of PC and they were taking group photos of the staff from this psychiatric hospital so I got a shot too. Where do I sign myself in??

I stopped by the Jewelry Mercado on the way to catching a bus and bought 3 cheap magnetic hematite bracelets for $2 each. I swear I could feel the difference as soon as I wore them even though I know the magnetism is weak.

When I got home I set up my small camera on my shelf unit and managed to get 2 pretty decent videos of myself feeding Tom Thumb while talking to him. WATCH THESE

http://youtu.be/hQEkObLN9Ag TOM THUMB 1

http://youtu.be/K3zwZQ10p_w TOM THUMB 2

He is getting to be such a Greedy Gus that he may need a new name.

Then I called Bella up to witness this phenomenon as she had never seen him up close and personal before. She certainly hears him chattering at my window when I am not home though, really giving us the gears. I usually just have to leave my window open slightly so I can hear when he arrives on the wire and chatters to get fed. He really is quite the little character, coming for several feedings per day.

Enjoy the pics and videos. That was today’s excitement. Hugs to all.

120531 Crowd watching fire pumper truck in action

120531 News people on the scene

120531 Pulling out hose for what??

120531 This was happening 2 doors down!

120531 Trimming flowers at the market

120531 No Harleys for these cops!

120531 Panorama shot of New cathedral (l) and Old cathedral (r) with Parque Calderon in between

120531 Immaculate Conception 1

120531 Immaculate Conception 2

120531 Old Cathedral

120531 Parque Calderon and Old Cathedral

120531 Parque Calderon with booth tents

120531 Booth for psychiatric hospital. I applied right away!

120531 Painters at a Catholic school

120531 Parque Calderon Palm

Thursday May 31, 2012

Our sincere apologies to all the readers of GringoTree! This is embarrassing!

Please, the blog you should be looking at is

cuencaresidency.blogspot.com

Our apologies to all our friendly readers of this daily blog which will take a short sabbatical until this sorts itself out. This blog was not meant for the general populace and would be most boring to those folks that don't know us personally.
Cheers.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Wednesday May 30, 2012

Wednesday May 30/12 update

I spent all morning uploading photos to 3 different sites and then almost completing my photo wall. There is still room for more but that will have to wait until I have some money again

Bella got word that the alpaca store lady will pay her for our shipment of Eleggant Hooks on Thursday.

I have enrolled in a new five-week Spanish class on Mondays and Wednesdays at 10:30 called Communicating in Cuenca with teacher Christine Magee, with assistance from Martha Mays. I ran to the Carolina Bookstore to obtain the textbook (Margarita) Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish $10. I took one of their only 2 copies but they expect to have more on Friday. This class is supposed to prepare students for the advanced Street Spanish class in August. The Madrigal method emphasizes use of cognates to build vocabulary rapidly and is an excellent choice for mature learners. Christine is a fluent Spanish speaker and language teacher and has lived in South America for many years.

I called Chris to see if he or Bettye was taking the class, in case he needed the other textbook. He said no, they were sticking with the class put on by the Carolina Bookstore. He did however see my switchblade in the blog so I went to get him one at Almacenes Ochoa. I will deliver it to him on Friday when we go to Coral.

Bella hung around as Rosa was here housecleaning today.

Tom Thumb continues to be brave with me as he zooms up to the window when he hears it opening, then he hovers impatiently until I extend my arms with the feeder. I’ll have to video this for you all soon. He has done this five times in a row today.

We have been watching the Season One of the Good Wife. I knew nothing about it previously but I am now totally addicted. There are 6 DVD’s of 4 one-hour episodes each and we have watched 4 of them already. I guess we’ll have to keep our eyes open for subsequent seasons.

Enjoy the pics. That was today’s excitement. Hugs to all.

120530 Immaculate Conception south side

120530 Mariano Cueva Jewelry Mercado

120530 Map of locations in El Centro

120530 Who was that masked man? Is he gay?

120530 My photo wall almost done.

120530 Tropical foliage in a chicken joint

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Tuesday May 29, 2012

Tuesday May 29/12 update

Happy 96^th Birthday MOM !!! You are an inspiration.

I am up very early this morning, doing laundry and watching a little excitement across the street. At first I thought the lady said something about a child and various neighbors stopped to help but nobody went anywhere. Finally an ambulance from the hospital 2 blocks away showed up and they eventually hauled off a person, followed by the woman and a couple of friends. That older couple is usually up early and they drive the grandchildren to school. I strongly suspect the husband has had a stroke or something. We all need to count our blessings every day.

I was up very late watching a video on the inhabitants of this hemisphere before Columbus. It was extremely enlightening, whether you live in Canada or Ecuador. It is 1 hour and 40 minutes long but it is extremely well done and touches on subject matter we would never have dreamed of. Bookmark it and look at it when you have time. http://www.forbiddenknowledgetv.com/videos/indigenousnative-americanfirst-nations/america-before-columbus.html

I called Chris to see if he wanted to meet me at a children’s concert at 10am at the Museum Of Modern Art in San Sebastian Square. He was downtown, so yes, he would meet me, but he had to leave early for a Spanish class at 11am then a raw cooking class. We both showed up at the same time and the concert started a hair late so Chris only got to see about 3 songs out of about 16. The concert ran until 12:30. There was this cute little girl next to me with her grandma who was playing shy, but once she saw her picture she was always watching to see if I would point the camera at her again. Naturally the lady standing next to me had a daughter in one of the eleven groups so I got a shot of the two of them as well.

The concert was in recognition of International Children’s Day. There were no major surprises, just typical kids, but there were some nice moments of solos, motions and actions. The special needs kids were touching.

http://youtu.be/3hJGR2G3Z9c

http://youtu.be/MvjdDgZA_WY This is the Special needs group with teachers and staff.

http://youtu.be/7jpX9cG7hOQ

http://youtu.be/7eHDEvm0AIE

http://youtu.be/vgeLZJMHdrg

http://youtu.be/qEm_KGgbptY

http://youtu.be/lCj8w0nQwP4

http://youtu.be/3SGigB-5NSw

Then I checked out San Sebastian Square and a few shops on the way to El Centro. Beside Immaculate Conception there was a singer who appeared blind and had an amazing vocal talent. He was mesmerizing.

http://youtu.be/ZfLzAKNh_wo WATCH THIS GUY!

I found nice hardware/appliance shop called Almacenes Ochoa and I poked around for a bit. I spotted some nice switchblades so I got myself a dandy for only $5.

As I was passing Parque Calderon I was hailed by a couple of ladies who turned out to be from Kelowna. I gave them a few pointers on the best places to eat and made certain they would be sure to see Turi. I gave them my new business card so they would be sure to check out my other blog for information too.

Oh, and Bella still has not collected from the alapaca lady for the crochet hooks we got her. We are still batting 0 on extending credit to Ecuadorians.

And to all our faithful readers, we want to sincerely thank you for the encouragement to continue with this daily blog. Your little notes of appreciation make all the work worthwhile.

Enjoy the pics and videos. That was today’s excitement. Hugs to all.

120529 Workers watching ambulance

120529 Neighbour on the way to hospital

120529 Little cute spectator

120529 Cutie with her Grandma

120529 Performer with her Mom

120529 This roof needs major repairs

120529 Center of Immaculate Conception

120529 Left of Immaculate Conception

120529 Left of Immaculate Conception 2

120529 Right of Immaculate Conception

120529 Some of the concert crowd

120529 Young musician

120529 I would bet the kid at top left just farted

120529 The Special Needs group

120529 Old Cathedral

120529 Old cathedral

120529 $5 Switchblade

120529 San Sebastian Park Lovers

120529 San Sebastian Park

120529 San Sebastian Dome

Monday, May 28, 2012

Monday May 28, 2012

Monday May 28/12 update

I was up at 5:30am again and got a lot of things done before heading downtown early. I wanted to get to the Papeleria Monsalves stationery store near the stadium well before Spanish class at 10am. I was there well before 9 but the only thing happening was a dozen men ripping up a section of cobblestone in the street with crowbars and picks. It is amazing how much work they do by hand. I am sure that we would have had a Bobcat do this work inside of an hour. They would rather put men to work. The store looked like it had been closed down.

Today was our last Spanish class, and even though this tired old brain absorbs very little, I am going to miss the routine of it all. There is supposed to be a different kind of Madrigal Spanish class starting next week but we don’t have any details yet.

Our teacher, Martha Mays, is headed back to the US, she has places in Sedona, Arizona and near Boston. She is another expat caught in the visa trap and she has no idea when she will be allowed to return, likely not before November. This stuff gets very complicated.

After class I headed to a different Papeleria Monsalves past Parque Calderon and found two nice permanent markers for marking my DVD’s. However they did not have the double-faced sticky tabs for putting my photos on the wall, but I managed to find those at a different Papeleria south of the San Francisco market.

As I was walking downtown this woman with a heavy accent stopped me and asked if I spoke English. She said she was South African, had arrived on her own yesterday, and had been robbed of everything, including her passport, by a cab driver. She showed me a piece of paper supposedly showing 3 buses she needed to catch, costing $85, to get to the nearest South African embassy in Lima, Peru. She claimed she hadn’t eaten and had only a quarter to her name. I gave her all the change I had and discussed other options, like calling home (she is single and supports her mother who is 86), talk to the clergy in the many churches (she said they wouldn’t help, no Christian charity?), and a few other things. When I got home I fretted that I could have done more, brought her home, etc but something wasn’t right. I mentioned it to Bella and they discussed the incident at the afternoon Spanish class. The consensus was that this was a scam and I am now inclined to agree. Many things didn’t fit in her story, including how she survived from yesterday until past noon today and only had a quarter to show for her begging. How she can enter Peru without a passport is another question….

Arriving on my street I saw the lady down the block that owes me $20 talking to another woman. She smiled and indicated for me to wait a moment, so I did. When the other woman was gone she explained that her operation was for uterine cancer, she had to leave her job, and is due now for a second operation. She apologized profusely and I told her not worry about it any more. We think we have troubles….

Across the street I saw this big truck being unloaded of bricks, and again this was all done by hand so I had to take a short video of the Ecuadorian Conveyor Belt. Later I got a shot of all the bricks stacked on the second floor. Gotta love the Ecuadorian work ethic.

http://youtu.be/HbYJePpVb7I

Tom Thumb came chattering to my window, waited for me to open it and extend my arms to hold the feeder and he zoomed right to it. He sure is a demanding little character now but I love him.

I was so pooped I just crashed for the rest of the afternoon with Peso to keep guard for me.

Enjoy the pics. That was today’s excitement. Hugs to all.

120528 Where's them Italians? The bricks are here.

120528 Tom Thumb visits again

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Sunday May 27, 2012

Sunday May 27/12 update

Bella wants to have a lazy day and I need to try to re-paste some photos on my wall.

My friend Chris sent me a surprise this morning. He took a shot of me Friday when we were at the dragon park and I should blow it up (literally too) and post it in a prominent place as impetus to get my fat butt outside a lot more often. Thanks a lot Chris!

On GringoTree there was a posting by a Dylan Howitt about two videos he/she had made, one about the folks painting the walls at Parque De La Madre and one about teenage pregnancy. When I checked further I could see that this person is a very accomplished filmmaker. Since this person apparently lives in Cuenca now, originally from the UK, I have asked to meet with him/her. Check out http://youtu.be/L8o0kFfUddY and http://vimeo.com/42884867 This person has a great talent.

I was just sitting here watching, and I had the feeder on the windowsill of my open window because I hardly communicated with Tom Thumb at all yesterday. He came to briefly feed once and went away. About 15 minutes later he came again, fed a little, then all of a sudden he lifted up and came into the room, not 5 inches from my shoulder and did a pirouette to check out the surroundings for danger. I could feel the wind from his wingbeats even through my long-sleeved shirt. He didn’t feed much so I think it is time to change the nectar. O yeah, he really liked the new nectar and came to have his fill a few times. Once I had the window only partially open and he came up and hovered a foot away and chattered, demanding his supper! I barely had time to nudge the window open and stretch out the feeder in my hand. He zipped right up and had another really good feed, even while I was talking to him. I have no idea if he hears me or not.

I decided that Chris’ picture was enough embarrassment for me to get active and Bella is always giving me the gears about not using my bike, so…. even though it is a little grey today I dug out the bike and headed west like a young man. Every half kilometer initially I had to stop and gather my breath as the whole way west is uphill, not much mind you, but it is uphill. Give an old fat man a break for Pete’s sake!

I saw this lady skinning sugar cane with a machete so they can sell the inside sugar pulp. Man! I would lose a few fingers if I tried that with that big knife. See the video.

http://youtu.be/pRdf7ARsCpM

I stopped to watch some Ecuadorian style volleyball, 3 men per side and a higher net. Then I stopped to watch some Sunday futbol, with my video interrupted a little by the lawn-mowing herd of cows. Videos =

http://youtu.be/Ffw2E4Y9XSk

http://youtu.be/7SDnlVR4i5s

I biked past Parque Paraiso and I could see families were out enjoying the day. As long as it isn’t pouring rain Ecuadorian families will be outdoors on a Sunday. I could hear loudspeaker music and speeches but I didn’t want to stop quite yet. I continued on all the way to Avenida Solano to that lovely new commercial/residential complex close to Tres Puentes (Three Bridges). Then I climbed the hill to the Autopista just below Turi. Now my idea was to coast downhill all the way home. I did stop occasionally to take the odd photo but I continued because I could see I was probably going to get wet soon, judging from the clouds. This family of 5 passed me and the young man stopped and put out his hand. I didn’t catch what he said, it was probably in English, but he had a grin from ear to ear as we shook hands.

When I got above Parque Paraiso I decided to drop down and see what was going on. I could hear the loudspeakers up on the Autopista. This was probably a continuation of the celebrations for the country’s independence as there lots of tents set up beside the main stage where it looked like they were giving away or raffling off some small appliances. There were people everywhere, eating, playing, playing soccer, and they even had a horse-drawn carriage going around the track.

http://youtu.be/1y4J8avXMYY

As I was leaving it started to sprinkle so I beat a hasty retreat home along the river. I hit little pockets of rain but not enough to get soaked. I don’t know what it is about the light rain here but it is refreshing and it dries very quickly.

Bella had brought home a set of DVD’s for a TV series called The Good Wife. I guess we’ll be watching some more of that tonight.

Enjoy the pics and videos. That was today’s excitement. Hugs to all.