Jueves Santo: The Last Supper

Today, jueves santo, is the big day for Ecuadorians. For some reason, however, I am at work. We will be here until later today conducting teachers' meetings, getting ready for the next cycle, which starts on Monday. Of course, it is strange because Easter is so early this year. It's been hard to remember that we are already upon that day. (And I, the lone Easter bunny this side of the equator, have NOTHING to put in the baskets! EEK!)

Today is the day that Jesus and the disciples ate the Last Supper, so Ecuadorians celebrate by gorging themselves with fanesca. This soup is pretty complex, and aside from the dried salt cod (making it the vegetarian choice - imagine us Protestants eating HAM on Easter Sunday! My goodness, haha), it also contains all of the spring harvest items found in this part of the world: pumpkin, squash, peas, corn, fava beans, red and white beans, peanut sauce, even hominy and lentils or rice in some families! After you eat all you can of fanesca (for me that means a half a bowl - that soup is rich!), you eat some more. Then, you follow it down with a dollop of thick mashed potatoes on a leaf of lettuce, and rice pudding for dessert. A lot like Thanksgiving in the U.S. When you think your stomach can handle no more - you have another bowl of fanesca and a jug of Mylanta and call it a day. I don't think we'll be making fanesca this year - it gets quite involved and has a lot of ingredients, but I will contribute something to Sunday's lunch - I'll make deviled eggs with those eggs we colored last week. I hope they'll be good - last year they all went rotten on me and we had to throw the whole lot away.

We have tomorrow off and I plan to just lounge around the house. We are all trying to get over a cold, and the weather has been so rainy that the highways to the coast are pretty treacherous (can you say landslides?). So no beach for us this year. Anyway, the beach for semana santa (Holy Week) is usually so packed it hurts to go. No, we'll stay home watching DiscoveryKids and whatnot and eating deviled eggs.

In other news, last night at about 1 am we were rudely awaken by a quick tremor. It only lasted about 2 seconds, but was the type that, had I been standing, I probably would have been thrown to the ground. The earth totally shifted, it didn't even shake, and while it did that about 2-3 times quickly in a row, we stayed up for another hour wondering when the next ones would come. Luckily, there was nothing else, and the news this morning reports no one hurt and no property damage. After the huge earthquake in Peru, however, I am more nervous than ever. This was only a 4.4 - not much, but the first one I've felt since moving to our new house (over 2 years ago).