Greetings lovely friends!

oh how i miss all of you and it's only been a little over a month!Well i figured i would post now that my abroad adventures have officially started. so i left the states a week ago, but I just got to Cuenca, Ecuador today. My host family consists of two parents, Maria and Giovanni, and three sisters, Belen (28 years old), Paz (25), and Cati (17). They are very sweet people and the girls are really funny. I think the youngest one is quite rebellious and probably the main cause for her dad's gray hair.

So for the past week my Dickinson abroad group and i have been traveling across Ecuador from Quito to Cuenca which are both on the spine of the Andes but on opposite sides of the country. My week has consisted of going to the middle of the world (aka the equator line) where you can see all the stars because you can see the stars on both hemispheres it's beautiful! eating pollo y arroz, visiting small indigenous villages and learning about music, weaving, agriculture, and of course eating some more!

i think the best part of the week so far has been the amazon jungle trip. We stayed there for about three days and we didn't rough it at all lol. yes, we didn't have electricity but we had these amazing three course meals. oh, Dickinson. it was absolutely amazing though; we did a lot of hiking. we we're basically climbing up the side of a mountain, well in my case crawling, and then it started to pour on our hike. It was quite a beautiful moment! we also found some ayahuasca and our guide (Macro) was telling us all about how they use it in his tribe and the one and only time he has ever tried it. Personally, it sounds terrifying but he also described it in a way that made the experience strangely beautiful, especially compared to tourists who try it and don't understand it's use and such. We visited Marco's community, called Tiyu Yaku, and learned all about making this caffeinated drink, how to make chocolate from the cocoas, and how to shot these blowgun darts that paralyze animals (it's safe to say that i suck at it and no one should trust me with paralyzing darts). the kids in the village learn how to aim them at like age 6, which is crazy because the blowgun that you put the dart in was really heavy for my little noodle arms. Tiyu yaku was a beautiful community with amazing people who had such passion for their culture and keeping their lives very connected to the land. i swear sometimes i wonder why we live in a world that abuses and destroys so much of what we are given on this earth.

Well i should go to bed since i have class tomorrow at 8 am and a 45 minute walk to class! it's also super cold down here (alpaca socks are becoming my best friend). I hope you guys are all doing well and Mika i was laughing so hard at your description "wannabe beyonce", i'm sure your hair looks good! Miss all of you and you are all so near and dear to my heart! take care and post!!!!

Dyed My Hurr

Sup yo? So I dyed my hair yesterday. I wanted a brownish color, so my mom was like "buy light blonde, since your hair is really dark and all, it'll come out brown." Makes sense, right? So I did that, and maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but it came out too light. I look like a wannabe Beyonce or something. I'm gonna leave it for a few days, maybe I'll get used to it. But anyway, you guys haven't been posting! :( I miss you all a ton. Please let me know how your summer's are going! I'm looking forward to reading your posts. LOVE, Mika xoxoxo.