Indigenous Village and Family

We spent the last week of our Ecuador experience in an indigenous community in northern Ecuador, close to the Columbian border. We came to spend time with  Keenan's host family who she stayed with in 2009 during her teaching internship.

Keenan, Loreen and the family

Piguche is a true indigenous village, most of the residents dress in traditional clothing and there are few vehicles. The hostal where Loreen and I stayed had llamas in the courtyard and pigs and chickens in the yard.

Yard Pig

While having breakfast in the cafe we would watch the villagers leading their cows down the street to pasture.

Doing the laundry and bathing Peguche style

Keenan's host family are great people, and have a large extended family that welcomed us as their own. Grandma and Gramps are both 78 and still perform their daily chores, in fact Gramps slaughters a pig once a week and butchers it for sale. 

Grampa and Grandma

We joined in with the family for the indigenous custom of honoring the dead on Good Friday. The tradition consists of the families visiting the departed members of their family at the cemetery, where they eat and share lunch with family and friends at the gravesite. They believe that this custom not only honors the family that have passed but eases the mourning process for those left behind. It seemed like there were thousands of people there having lunch.

At the cemetary

Keenan and Loreen committed to cooking a traditional turkey dinner on Easter Sunday, so Saturday was spent hunting through three different grocery stores in an adjacent town looking for ingredients. We found a turkey, so that was quite a relief. The menu included turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, gravy, mixed salad, carrots, string beans, apple crisp, apple/pear pan dowdy and ice cream. The only things on the menu that they commonly eat were the beans, carrots and salad, everything else was new.

As they had never eaten this type of meal before they asked us to serve them - then they managed to get their own seconds. We served eighteen for dinner and it was completely enjoyed. It was the first time that Grandma and Gramps had ever had a special meal cooked for them.

Easter Dinner

We also managed to find some foil wrapped chocolate, Kinder Eggs and other treats and Keenan led the younger ones in an Easter Egg hunt, again a first for all.  The adults were more enthused than the kids!

We spent our last day in Peguche driving through the country side and seeing some of the expat communities. First, an American development that looks like suburban blue grass country with big homes, big lawns and horses in the back. Then across the valley a British retirement community, where the British government supposedly invested eight million US in infrastructure to allow British retirees to move to Ecuador and still have British type comforts. All very interesting, when both communities are bordered by indigenous corn fields.

Saying goodbye was hard, Grandma cried, Loreen cried, but it was time to move on and spend the last day and a half in Quito.