Hogar Cuenca                

    Getting our lives set up here has been a funny play between feeling like we’re moving quickly and doing a lot and feeling like we are stuck in mud or running in place. The past two months have been about establishing a routine and getting to know our new home. We have accomplished some big goals: we got our temporary residency visas and the kids are in school. And there are many things we are still working on. Poco a poco. 

We were lucky to land in a spot where we would like to stay. Our half-way educated guess about which airBNB would be a good fit based on kids school location, price, and proximity to river trails turned out to be a win! We negotiated a longer-term contract with the owners and plan to stay put. The house is part of an “urbanización,” a small gated development of 14 homes connected by common drive and mini soccer field. All homes are gated: streets are lined by 8 to 10 foot high cement or brick walls topped with electrified fences or barbed wire. It’s nice to have a small community with several families living behind the same gate as we do. Within our urbanización, we let the kids roam freely. The neighboring kids are friendly. José, a 8 year old who lives directly across from us, has knocked on our door every day with the same question: “¿Pueden salir a jugar?” (“Can they come out to play?”)

Our urbanización 

Our house

Our mini soccer field

The third floor

First floor

Art/yoga room

Kitchen

Robin’s after school art crew

Outside our gate, Cuenca is beautiful. Our street runs along the banks of the Rio Yanuncay. Four rivers run through the city of Cuenca: the Milchigchig, Tomebomba, Yanuncay, and Tarqui. Each river creates a vein of green space through the city with trails, parks, soccer fields, and eucalyptus groves. Cuencanos are active and the river trails are full of runners, bikers, and dog walkers in the mornings and evenings. There are ciclovías (bike paths) along streets that link the rivers together, creating a web of bike-friendly routes through the city. Our landlord, neighbor, and now friend, Juan Pablo, invites us to join him and his biker gang on his long bike rides in and around the city every Sunday. Cuenca is a densely packed, old city with cobblestone streets and carved wooden doors. Wandering through old town, with colonial architecture and wrought iron balconies, you might even think you were in Paris. This is the first time my kids have ever lived in a city, and they delight at the simple luxury of walking to the corner store with coins to get ice cream, sometimes several times per day. 

Our urbanización from the outside, taken from the river trail

The trail along the river

The Yanuncay

Avenida Loja

Biking along the ciclovía 

Joining Juan Pablo on one of his Sunday rides

Colonial Cuenca

Inside of the cathedral

Cuenca lies within the central Andes at 8,500ft and is surrounded by 11-12,000ft mountains that are green and tree covered all the way to the top. In contrast with Alaska’s 1,500ft tree line, Ecuador’s is almost 13,000ft. As you migrate away from Cuenca’s relatively flat city center along the rivers, you quickly start climbing, and the city gives way to small family farms. Even on the walk from our house to Robin’s school (a 20 minute slog up the hill), we go from our relatively dense neighborhood past several houses with small fields, multiple cows grazing in side yards, goats, turkeys and so many chickens. As you climb further away from the centro, the hills are steep, grassy, fairly muddy, and covered with cultivated fields all the way to the peaks. The soil is dark and rich and seems to grow just about everything all year long. Ecuadorians of all ages work the fields from dawn until dusk. It is common to see older Ecuadorians dressed in their beautiful, traditional clothing tilling and hoeing on an impossibly steep field. Most often, when we pass, we are greeted with a smile and a friendly, “buenas tardes.”   

The Chiquitad valley, one of several that surround Cuenca 

Just up the hill from our house

Hiking in the hills above Cuenca

Looking down on the city

There is a strong community feel here. Arriving during the second Covid year has given us an interesting lens through which we are learning about cultural norms and community attitudes. Ecuador has taken the pandemic very seriously. Perhaps their approach was heavily influenced by the early surge of Covid deaths and resource exhaustion in Guayaquil in April 2020. There is a mask mandate country wide for all public spaces, indoor and outdoor. Although we have seen it’s adherence begin to wane as the vaccinated numbers approach herd-immunity status, it is still largely the norm. Cuencanos have adjusted to running, biking, walking their dogs, greeting neighbors, not to mention riding the bus, working, and shopping masked. Most of them wear KN95s and many double mask. 

For Ecuadorians, not only is it the law right now, but it also doesn’t seem like a big deal. I haven’t heard anyone complain about it. I spent the first month here looking for the discontent, sure that there must be a vocal objector. I bought the paper every day and scoured the editorials and letters to the editor, sure that I would find the voice of objection. I started many conversations with Cuencanos and asked their opinions about Covid and universal masking. What I found were many echoes of the same heartfelt sentiments about unity, community support, and protecting the vulnerable.  I started noticing public health campaigns on billboards and at bus stations with messages such as: “JUNTOS, LO LOGRAMOS” (together we will achieve it) and “SOMOS TODOS UNIDOS CONTRA COVID” (we are all united against Covid). The cultural norm prioritizes community wellness above personal freedom. 

“Empower yourself, let’s wake up!”

“For everything you put first; first, give your shoulder.”

While it’s been a bit of a pain to adjust to full time masking, it is refreshing to be in a place that has used Covid policies to foster unity and community wellness rather than increasing divisions, anxieties, and political posturing. I have spent so much of the past 18 Covid months wading through data and news, trying to separate out the scientific from the sensational, and trying not to let the the daily dose of anxiety take over. The lack of clear leadership and widespread mistrust of science that was the norm in Alaska put the onus on each individual to navigate her own way through the Covid unknowns. It left me feeling stressed, exhausted and eventually a little numb. I talked to many friends in the US who experienced similar feelings. But, it’s different here. 

In Ecuador, from the beginning there has been a heavy-handed state led approach to the pandemic. The initial lockdowns were intense, only allowing one household member outside for a couple of hours a day. There are obvious negatives to this approach; however, there seem to be some positives too.  The state made it very clear to everyone what was allowed and what was not, erring on the cautious side. They also launched a widespread public health campaign like the one I mentioned above. The result seems to be that most people accepted the restrictions and have been spared the burden of continual personal/family risk assessment, leaving that to their leadership. And similarly, as restrictions have begun to slowly lift, people seem to trust the decisions and embrace them happily. 

When the kids started school on September 13, it was the first day that ANY classrooms in Ecuador had in person classes in 18 months!! My kids were nervous, the teachers were nervous, everyone seemed to have to relearn the routine of how to go to school. But it’s happening. And bit by bit, classrooms are normalizing. My kid’s school initially went back to 3 days of in person classes and two virtual, but they have transitioned back to 5 days a week in person. There is a country-wide plan requiring that all schools return to 100% in person instruction by the new year. Government officials hope that this is also when the country will have reached 85% fully vaccinated. 

School has been both awesome and awful. The kids are amazing, but what they are up against right now is really hard. It’s no small challenge to pack up life as you know it, relocate to a place where you don’t really speak the language and plop down into a local school. Each one is experiencing the challenge differently. Sam is studying hard, carrying around a verb conjugation book in his pocket, and keeping vocabulary lists. He is learning fast, but would like to be learning three times faster. He has made friends, but misses the ease of good friends. Locke is doing his best. He is really struggling with the language but there are clear signs that he is understanding more, and he has gotten very good at ordering ice cream in Spanish. He’s discovered that he loves playing goalie and has made some recess soccer buddies at school.  He looks forward to retreating into his world of books and can spend hours on end lost in his kindle. Robin, in her usual fashion, has made friends quickly and has no fear of speaking Spanish. Tucking her in at night, she tells me, “my head is so full of Spanish.” She got upset one day when her teacher gave her an easier writing assignment than she gave the other students, and she asked me to WhatsApp the teacher to ask her to hold Robin to the same standard as everyone else. However, Robin is homesick. She misses her friends and Mowgli and our house. All of the kids are pretty exhausted in the way that living in a different language exhausts you to the core.

First day of school. Note the track suit uniform!

Walking to the bus stop for the boys and to school for Robin.

Sam and Locke ride the city bus #27 to school

Robin’s school at pick up time.

Entrance of the boys’ school.

Nick and I have both spent extended periods of time abroad and we both experienced a three month lull. Three months is enough time away that the initial excitement and newness has worn off but not enough time to feel quite at home. It’s enough time to miss home but not quite enough time to have a new community. It’s enough time to expect significant language progress, but not quite enough time to really get there. While our family togetherness is helping buffer the usual isolation and rawness of the three month lulls of previous adventures, we have been wading through this tricky time over the past month. There are some signs that we are coming out of the 3 month lull and settling into the more spacious and comfortable middle months, but I don’t want to say we are for sure through it. Years ago, Nick and I were visiting old friends and we were remembering times that we had all lived abroad. One said, in her usual no-nonsense style, something to the effect of, “Anybody that says abroad experiences are fun is lying. They are uncomfortable and hard. Worthwhile, but not fun.” 

Learning new things is hard. It’s important and fulfilling, but not comfortable or easy. A quote from my college alumni magazine sticks with me: “True learning is the antithesis of comfort and the height of responsibility.” (Christina Paxton) In Alaska, my kid’s elementary school has based their educational philosophy on developing and practicing “the growth mindset”: approaching challenges and failures as opportunities rather than obstacles. Focusing on process and resilience rather than outcome or success. I think Nick and I have learned just as much as the kids have from this educational focus, and the challenges that we are facing in Cuenca are giving us many opportunities to practice! 

While living in Spanish is probably the hardest part of our lives for most of my family, my challenge is different.  My Spanish is far from perfect, but I am comfortable with Spanish in ways that the rest of the family is not. However, I too am struggling with a learning endeavor. I am taking guitar lessons, and it’s sort of awful! It’s really by chance that I ended up in this situation. We happened to visit a meandering mountain town, San Bartolomé, known for crafting beautiful hand-made guitars, and Nick wanted to buy one. Then Robin wanted to start taking piano lessons at a music school, and I was going to be there waiting for her anyway.  So, I signed up. Now, twice a week, I go into my lesson, and I sweat and feel like my fingers are sausages, and I can’t make them go where they need to. Not to mention trying to read the treble clef! I feel like I can’t learn, and my teacher puts the metronome on and counts me out in Spanish. It’s anxiety provoking. I sort of want to quit, but then I have a moment when I realize that I’m learning and it feels good. Overall, it’s sort of painful, but I appreciate that it is giving me a parallel experience to my family’s Spanish learning experience. 

The guitar maker

So, here we are. We have landed in a wonderful city, in a comfortable house with nice neighbors and a great school. We are safe and are getting used to the rhythms of our new Cuenca lives. We have figured out how to shop in the markets and get to where we need to go. We have been to some fun and some really awkward social events. We have started to play music again, and we are getting out in the mountains and breathing fresh (albeit thin) air. We are doing mood check ins and trying as best as we know how to support each other and give each other space to be just exactly who we are. We are all (at times) a little miserable, but we are growing and learning, and I’d say we are mostly enjoying the ride. 

Our first hike in Cajas national park, which is our new backyard playground.
(We miss the Chugach backyard, but for now Cajas will keep us exploring)

Hiking in the Ecuadorian páramo (high alpine Andean ecosystem)

Exploring with my people

Heart full, Mind open. Trying to stay present for the ride.