Carnaval!!

Martin bobbing for bananas!

the kids during the egg toss 

In preparation for Lent, all of S. America begins celebration of "Carnaval" which starts the Friday before Fat Tuesday and continues through the weekend. It is well-known for its use of eggs, water, flour, oil and mud and foam. At Casa de Fe we started the celebration out right by spending all day Friday playing games with mentioned above supplies incorporated into every game. Between an egg race, egg toss, bobbing for bananas, an obstacle course and tug-o-war the kids had tons of fun and got plenty dirty! After the game day we ended our celebration with a big barbeque that the tías prepared for us, it was amazing!

The girls on the obstacle course :)

The Carnaval celebration didn't stop there, though. Melissa and I traveled to Quito since we had a long weekend. Saturday night we went to Old Quito to check out some shops we heard were cool, and much to our surprise, the road was blocked off and filled with people spraying foam all over each other. We didn't make it far before we were covered from head to toe in foam and dashing to the nearest street vendor who would sell us foam to defend ourselves! Though we came out soaked, we had tons of fun and lots of laughs!

Melissa and I at the top of the Teleférico!

The rest of our weekend in Quito was spent being "tourists", making a trip up the Teleférico, going on a tram to the top of a mountain to see a beautiful view of the whole city of Quito. We also got to relax a lot and enjoy the things that we don't get in the jungle like cinemas and coffee at a coffee shop.

We returned to the jungle with a new roommate in tow! We picked up Victoria on Monday and have been enjoying more action in our quiet house. We will be getting another roommate on Friday so we will go from a house of 2 to 4 until April. There is also a short-term missions team of 32 people coming on Friday. That will also make for an exciting week.