Otavalo

Since my plans to go to CRACYP´s brand new project by rather fancy looking Hacienda Zuleta were cruelly thwarted, I´ve spent longer mooching around Otavalo than I had originally planned. So much for the better! This is firstly because I´ve had more internet access than in the past two months to actually write here, and secondly because day-trippers to Otavalo are missing out on the charm of the town that grows on you after a few days spent wandering around and finding your bearings rather than getting lost in a colourful, dizzy mess of mid-Saturday market goers.  Coming off the Panamerican Highway, Otavalo has the same misleadingly dusty and crumbling suburbs as any Latin American town without fail, that I´ve seen. The town also has its fair share of half-finished concrete buildings in the centre, so it´s not quite as hidden a gem as somewhere like Puebla, but the market here does the same job as Puebla´s colourful tiled buildings and cathedral (I´ll dig out a picture) that kick a bit of life into a town off a main road. Except the market is far more changeable than the tiled walls. 

Otavalo is the most widely attended indigenous market in Ecuador and people trade here every day of the week. On Saturdays the show is even more impressive as the market sprawls out of the main square up the surrounding streets on all sides.

Saturday is the day for ´la entrega’ when artisan traders come from outlying indigenous villages to sell what they´ve made, filling up little stalls around Plaza de Ponchos (as it´s called, of course)with woven fabric made for table cloths or into bags, alpaca woven shawls and blankets and woolly jumpers, tapestries, little trinkets  like and jewelry and leather. It´s like a festival, always busy with the occasional sound of music and people buying food to snack on. And people seem of a lively disposition running to their neighbour’s/aunt's stall to get change or chatting with passers by.

On my first day I went out just before seven as they were setting up and had a look round in peace before the hordes arrived and there was already food cooking and ladies setting up piles of corn and people stringing up their canopies to funny white blocks that are there especially to hold the market. I´ve been through the market every day now, and my favorite time is early evening when the sun is starting to go down and the stalls are packing up because the tourists have gone home. Now there are mostly only Otavaleños left at the market chatting to each other as they pile their stalls into an unbelievably small package to haul on their backs home. Every day!

A lot of knitting to keep out the cold at high altitude, this is one of my favourites so far:

Also available are Spongebob, the aliens from Toy Story, Bender from Futurama, Hello Kitty and generally cute animals. And indigenous children actually wear them, I´ve seen it! I was eating in a very nice place upstairs called Cafe Imbabura run by a young indigenous couple. There were no other people there when I went to eat a very delicious burrito with a view over the market. Anyway their two little children had on knitted hats. Indigenous women in the Otavalo always wear long skirts and these white blouses. In Quilotoa they wore fine alpaca cardigans and long velvet skirts with interesting designs on - more to come in another blog when I find the time. As well as the very cute hats there were also a lot of these around:

They look a bit like a knitted gimp mask or a monster of some kind, disturbing.

I bought a piece of fabric for a table cloth from this lady below and her really colourful stall. You might be able to see that she has a cross of white fabric going across her - that´s her baby on her back. He´s called Samuel (in the picture below) with his aunt, Mery, who I met as she was part of a group of students from Tulcan looking for gringos to practice their English on. I was just sitting down people-watching with a coffee by the park to escape tourist clogged stalls and spoke to them all for a while. I ended up taking them round the market and they then took me up to Peguche falls where they were going. Mery is from Otavalo originally and we became good friends over the course of the day - it was only in the afternoon I found out I´d bought fabric from her sister that morning! We then went round the market for the last time and I bought some very long strings of beads indigenous ladies wrap round as bracelets - always in pairs -which have to bedone up very specifically. It´s a challenge to do yourself. These photos wont stay put in the right place so I´ll sort them later! 

This is probably all you´ll get until I´m back as I´m too impatient to wait for photos to load in an internet cafe and have things to see now. Tomorrow I´m finally going on a horse trek all day out to Lagos de Mojanda and then staying with an indigenous family to try and pick up some Kichwa! I´ve also been invited to Tulcan right in the north to stay with Mery and her student friends and teacher. Will see Tulcan´s famous cemetery (about all it has I think) and maybe give them an English lesson! Then to Tiputini, Puerto Lopez and then home.

I wish I had more time to explain what I was doing for the previous two months, but it definitely merits proper treatment and ability to edit photos, so here´s a little idea of what to expect!

Making friends with the kids in Jilimbi, teaching them how to make clay faces and paper flowers, four kids on one horse, bugs with big jaws, worrying that we haven´t connected the gas properly, kittens being born and growing up, swimming in the river with the kids, old ladies climbing up oranges, drinking sugar cane juice and learning how to make 62% sugar cane alcohol, making cookies with a Montuvio, climbing Chimborazo volcano, making home made corn tortillas for tacos and a million and one other tasty things, moth watching while brushing teeth, water coming through a hose, compost heaps, issues with too many papayas, now a horrible aversion to papayas, gettin itchy hands from peeling papa china, making juice by hand, carrying back food from the market in the ranchera, taking camioneta trucks for 50 cents a go, sharing these with pigs or chickens, traveling in a banana truck, getting bananas for free, renting a very slow mule and much more!

Oh, and a cursory mention about tea: in Jilimbi we thankfully had many teabags and even made iced peach tea. Verveine importantly exists here (and even grows in the wild, but bitterly) but I think in the cinema building the upstairs cafe (with a view of Imbabura volcano I am going to sketch again) has loose leaf, exciting. Have also had first experience of mate coca tea for high altitude and like it lots.

Paris Pet Shops

I've meant to add these for a while, with thoughtful comments perhaps. Mostly I took these photos because I am confused by the way the rest of the world sells large domestic animals like they're selling hamsters. On the banks of the Seine, Quai de Louvre is a road on which almost every other shop is an 'Animalerie'. Some are more salubrious than others, but in many there were still metre long cases of about 20 rabbits, for example. Many of the smaller darker shops had signs stating 'no photographs' and I was fairly sure this wasn't so as not to disturb the animals. One such shop whose name I didn't write down had weaned Alsatian puppies and a fully grown something living in a 'bigger' cage, looking like they'd probably like a walk somewhere that wasn't the busy road outside. One shop was (slightly) commendable with it's larger, clean cages and slightly interested staff. They even allowed photographs, which is were the dog photos below were taken. Even so, the system confuses me and it's disappointing that it's so popular. Having animals sold via a third party will hardly habituate them to a home environment. They are taken away from their mothers, when they are weaned and allowed to be sold, but they are not immediately put into a training environment. Left with other puppies for company instead, what interaction do they have? People ogling through the glass? I wonder how many people are satisfied with the pets they get from these shops.

Birds

Heading down to the gulf again I was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of ducks. I wasn't expecting ducks as there were none at all this morning. There were more people too, even though the sun had almost disappeared. A lot were running and had brought a child along for support. These children are plonked on bikes and either race ahead, for the parent to keep up with, or flag behind enough that the parent has to push them for exercise. Still, this was not enough to scare the birds away and it was a really nice evening walk. The people had disappeared by the end and the photos perhaps show how tranquil it is down there. Except for the mallards. They are endlessly complaining or having arguments with neighbours. 

Click for full view and you can scroll through them. 

I am absolutely definitely not going bird watching.

That sounds like the title of a Charlie and Lola book - I think I should write it. 

Despite living in a flat in a town, I am grateful for having been dropped here for two reasons: there are people who live nearby who have chimneys and make the road smell of wood smoke, and I am a 12 minute cycle from the Gulf of Morbihan. 

I know it was twelve minutes because I didn't manage to cycle fast enough to get 3.something kilometers down to ten minutes. 

Anyway, it was another unusually sunny November day today so having my bike with me after tutoring this morning I decided to investigate the track that leads down from their road right to the gulf. This is the view from their road: 

I've explored the other end of this track before, a few miles away. But that end attaches to Conleau, a little touristy island with lots of people and a handful of boats as it's within walking distance of the port. This end is a lot nicer. There were still people walking and running, because it's a Saturday, but it was very peaceful. I nearly dosed off on a bench in the slightly warm sun surrounded by chirping birds. Wading birds often sound very relaxed in their noise making, like there is no hurry to get anywhere or do anything. It reminded me of the lagoon on Brownsea Island a bit, with all the pines and oaks and marshy water full of waders. I was given a clue to how bird-full this places was by the jays as I came down the path. 

(Here's a convenient picture of a jay that I did a few months ago: )

Anyway, if this place is full of birds at midday, what's it like at dusk when they all come down to roost? I'm going to go down in half an hour or so with the telephoto lens to find out. So I'm not going just to look at the birds. It's very photogenic down there. 

Falafels on Rue des Rosiers and Sacha Finkelsztajn

Rue de Rosiers is a narrow street in Marais, Paris' traditionally Jewish quarter. It's best known for it's falafel vendors, the most popular of which 'L'As de Falafel' can easily have a queue fifteen people long taken care of by a frantic Israeli man giving out reservation tickets. It's not always this busy, but their falafel was the better falafel out of the two that I tried.

The other was a shop further down the street that I decided to visit when the queue at L'As was typically very long and I had been wondering around trying to fulfill a falafel craving for about 40 minutes. It's not the easiest road to find when you have forgotten the name and have only been to Marais once. But I did orient myself eventually without much help of the map and can say I now know Marais a lot better. Anyway, the other place was called Chez Hanna, and it was very nearly as good. It just had a little too much tahini sauce and there was less aubergine - plonked on top instead of stuffed in. It was very melty aubergine nonetheless and that's how it should be. Indeed there was very little in it between the two places and I would happily eat at either of them again, or recommend them to others, because you get the whole of this for 5€ (7.50€ if you eat in).

So here are falafels, roast aubergine, two types of salad (one of them beetroot) and lots of tahini sauce. And really nice warm pitta. Mmm. It makes a good meal in itself, no need for anything else.

I got drawn into this because of the funny name but also because there were rows of pastries I had never heard of. There was a type of cheesecake, lots of savory pasty type things, very chocolately sachertorte and two types of strudel: Romanian and Austrian. And many more that I've forgotten. I was served a piece by a rather brusque Polish lady and then given a handwritten ticket to take to a man at a desk and till at the back. There were lots of other things I would have like to try but my strudel cost me three euros a piece so I decided to limit myself. The place was equally full of bread and other deli items sold ready-cooked in trays. I went for the traditional strudel, tasty but lacked the conventional filo type pastry, but I would still go back here and try many other things. I approve of roads like this that somehow pack in more food shops than their size would give away.

Getting a phone unlocked

I didn't really think that this would be possible in Vannes - it doesn't have enough seedy looking shops or back alleys. So I made it my business to get this done in Paris. London has the sort of shop that will unlock your mobile on every other corner, Southampton is equally full of these, so I was a bit bemused by this lack but then again Vannes is not very big and I imagine no one ever wants to switch phone provider. I was wondering around St Germain where, especially near the bank of the Seine, there are a lot of tourist tat shops many looking like they'd do it. Couldn't really find any signs, and as St Germain is pretty fancy I didn't think this would be the place to get a cheap deal. I asked a woman selling I love Paris generalia and she said that Barbès is the best place. Barbès is a big boulevard slap bang in the middle meeting point of the 8th, 9th and 18th - and is heaving with people. It's a very multicultural place, which was refreshing after marching around the tourist areas and Rue de Rivoli/St Germain and such. Anyway, the first shop didn't manage although they offered me a good deal of 10€. Second place succeeded for 15€, although threatened (perhaps jokingly) to make me pay 35€ as I couldn't wait for it to be done in the morning and left for most of the day to collect it later.

So that was a rather roundabout way of saying that if you need to get a phone unlocked (débloqué or désimlocké) then go to Paris and to Boulevard Barbès.

Medecin

After turning up an hour before I was meant too, I managed to organise an extensive course of vaccinations at the French doctor's. The turning up early was not too much of a problem because I can see the roof of the doctor's from my balcony. This will be great for if I have to crawl there having contracted dysentery or something in Mexico, that'd be just my luck.

Despite making an ever so slight loss on appointments (we pay 23€ and are reimbursed the majority through Social Security) I do not mind at all. It's like going to private healthcare, not that I ever have: mine is a small surgery with a special children's waiting room and nice wooden floors and cosy Doctors offices. Helps that it was built in a house and not a custom-made clinic. It was so homely and small that I didn't really understand the receptionist situation. In fact, going through the main door, you are then faced with two doors and two doorbells. It's like something out of Alice and Wonderland. You have to 'Sonnez et Entrez', and then go through the door to find out that both doors lead into the same corridor. Strange. But I think they had different sounding doorbells depending on which doctor you had an appointment with. This also seemed to act as a way of making your arrival known to the staff, as there was no obvious secretary or germ embedded NHS touchscreen. Another girl waiting there did not know any better than me, so I sat with National Geographic (and it's seemingly incessant inca articles, no problem!) until Lovely-Doctor come to get me. Hand shaking is common in this sort of situation in France, but it must be so often that they are reluctant to shake the hand of some tuberculosed patient.

I don't remember if GPs in England all look like they work in TV hospitals because I always get palmed off to some nurse or other, but Dr Savet was so well turned out in her chic office that I felt like I'd gone in to visit the head of some fancy place in Paris. Or Cuddy's office. It was so nice and homely that I couldn't see any sterile gloves or fold out hospital bed so that must've been hidden away in another room or I had ended up at a pretend Doctor's surgery. We know a French GP, and so far all seem to have been ridiculously lovely people I want to grow up and be. She was really helpful in figuring out how to get a 6 month course of vaccinations in the five months I will have here, and looked in detail about whether rabies can be given at the same time with Hep B. For this I do not mind paying a little! Although it is a system where you immediately pay upfront and are given a reimbursment form, a bit like some NHS dentistry, it works alright and the paperwork substantially decreases once you have health insurance sorted. Although I cannot emphasise how good it is that you can just turn up at an NHS hospital regardless of where you are from and have access to healthcare, even more so for me because I don't pay taxes yet and it's free. It's also quite funny that I will have to physically purchase the vaccinations from the pharmacy and carry them across the road to lovely-Doctor to jab me with.

Off to Paris early tomorrow morning for a very extended weekend due to Armistice day!

My Sofa and Floor

Well if that isn't a title to get people reading, I don't know what is.. .

Seriously though, I am VERY pleased with this sofa I managed to get hold of off leboncoin.fr

It's just big enough for two (or me and my laptop) and is damn good quality for the price. The sellers were in a hurry to move, I think, because in comparison to what else I had seen for sale on le bon coin, this one is lacking in stains and rips and need to reupholster. And it's such a nice shape! I don't even mind the cushions at the back, though if I ever found some nice fabric (tartan?) I could recover them. So I may well bring this back home, as I don't think I could find a similar thing for 30€, or even 100€ from the fair-while I spent browsing.

Additionally in this photo you can see our floor. This was described to us by the estate agent as 'very popular' and 'easy to clean'. The first is true, for some reason. I've even seen it in the Nice House where I tutor, and not just in our old-people flat.

Here's a closer look:

I just really have not worked out why it is popular. It is none of those described things. It is like living in a hessian sack. A good thing I'm not allergic. It really is like a floor made of lots and lots of string.  You cannot tell if it is dirty or clean, even when you hoover. The problems continue, because you can't really walk around without slippers or socks because it starts to cause foot pain. Let alone sitting on this floor! It strikes me as very bizarre. I have a rug on the way. Apparently it's not even that cheap, but the strings come undone in places every now and again. I sound like I am complaining a lot, I'm not really. I'm just very, very confused as to why someone thought this was a good idea.

Food dilemma

Today I am overwhelmed by food that needs eating as soon as possible. The cupboard still has apples in we haven't used, there is a half a courgette (edit: MARROW) in the fridge along with a full fillet of mostelle, even though I asked for only two portions. Half a kilo of clementines, they'll keep, but they're addictive. A large bowl full of chickpea and pepper sauce. Frozen pumpkin. And about a kilo of haricots verts that the man at the Agriculture Bio veg stall assured me was an appropriate portion. I asked for enough for two, but was there was easily enough for two by the time he said ' et ça c'est pour une personne'. Does this mean you eat green beans as your main meal?

I'm not complaining because this is the way that I really like to cook. It's a challenge to use things up. The problem is, we've already planned ahead to have pumpkin soup tonight. So I need to use everything else up. The beans I can eat with the left over bit of mostelle, which I will probably fry in spices and make a bit cajun as a way of going against France and their love of adding cream to white stuff. Potatoes, pasta, fish...
I could also use this in a tomatoey fish soup, like the one I made when I came across a bit of mystery bream last year. Or make it into fish and chips, because of all the potatoes we have. That'd be really nice, but failing on the healthy side...

I think I will end up blanching a handful of the beans and putting them in the freezer - I'm not sure how long they last.

But the courgette is a problem mostly because we don't have a steamer...

If I'm having fried fish for lunch, already a massive lunch when I add the beans, and I need to use the chickpea stew before it goes mouldy (probably saving pumpkin soup for lunch another day), where to I eat the courgette, where?

Do I just cook it for an afternoon snack? Make it into some courgette only salad?

That'll teach me for buying a kilo courgette to stuff for two people...

A l'école

Here's just a few thing's I've noticed about the French system, in no particular order or coherence. Just things that strike me as a foreigner.

* In Primary school, children bring all their books and equipment with them every. single. day. To do so they have 'un cartable' rather than 'un sac' because they really do need to cart things back and forth. There are in the form of a big square rucksack, or a wheely suitcase bag. I think that's actually a great idea to save their little backs, but on reflection having 'trays' at school for our things was such a sensible idea. We only had to carry our lunch and pencil case, and it avoided the endless 'j'ai oublié mon livre à la maison/sur la table/mon père l'a utilisé pour allumer le feu' because we only took away what we needed for homework.

* Using cursive script makes writing on a chalk-board a lot easier! It's all in one smooth stroke. If you go at a board trying to jab the chalk at each separate letter, the chalk gets quite broken and messy. 

* French teachers, like most others in this country, do try and relax during their lunch break instead of doing a million and one things. This means everyone sits down at some point to eat lunch together, especially in my small primary school where there are eight of us round the table at most. And everyone has hot lunches that they think ahead and bring from home to heat in the microwave. I've seen curry, pasta, but also the odd bit of steak and potatoes. Then there'll be pudding and tea before the sound of children running outside after their proper sitting-down eating lunch together break too. 

* There is a severe lack of supply teachers, so much that you'd think they weren't invented. In a lycée this isn't as bad because sometimes (hopefully) the students will do set work. But in school today, the headmistress was ill. As one of only eight staff members she is also a class-teacher. a whole class as well, but they did not have a cover teacher and were instead divided between all year groups. There were not even enough chairs!