Otavalo market, I downloaded this picture from the internet because I didn’t take my camera to Otavalo this time. More of my pictures later!
So I landed in Ecuador very late on Tuesday last week and the past few days have been full of new exciting experiences! After landing in Quito at about 1am Mikey and I went home to get about 3 hours of sleep before we left Quito to go to Otavalo. Otavalo is a town about 2 hours by bus from Quito and will be one of my main work locations. It is famous for its market, and rightly so. The market is so big and colourful and I would like to buy everything on sale. Many people wear traditional dress and overall the town is just charming. There we work with two artisan families who produce our jewellery for us. Nancy and Carlos are one family and I went to their house and workshop for an afternoon. Olga and Cezar have a shop in town where they sell jewellery and I have not been to their house yet. Both families are very nice and I am very excited to work with them.
In general I love the work for the Andean Collection so far. A lot of the work will entail logistical tasks related to production and export, as well as mediating the needs of the artisans and the office in New York. I have already witnessed some challenges and difficulties the job involves, but I am convinced that Luz and I will make a really good team. Mikey is still working with us, but I will basically replace him entirely by the end of the month, although he might still give us a helping hand in January if need be.
I feel like I do not know Quito very well yet, but what I can say is that it is HUGE. When we go from one place to another, there seems no end to the taxi ride! We went to a very nice park on a hill which overlooks the city the other day. In general the city is hilly, or rather mountainous considering that it is at almost 3000m sea level. This weekend one of the main festivals of Quito is taking place, which is jeopardising some of our shipments unfortunately. But on the up side we went to a concert with some of Luz and Mikey’s friends last night.
Luz and Mikey’s flat is very nice and I am staying with them at the moment on the couch in their living room. I am already looking around for a studio for myself near them, and they are also helping me with it. Yesterday before going out we went to the roof of their building and saw an amazing sunset sky, see picture.
It has of course been very hard to be here without Sandra and I miss her tremendously, but Luz and Mikey remind me that it is only for a few months and hopefully the work will soon distract me enough to make time pass by quicker!
Hope you are all enjoying advent and looking forward to Christmas. I will be in Austria for Christmas and I can’t wait, although I have not been able to create Christmas feelings yet with the tropical weather in Honduras, and the temperate climate in Ecuador. I might start listening to Christmas songs soon to get in the mood!
Love
Chiara
Hi, Interesting post. What you just wrote here definatly had me interested till the last word and to be honest I rarely read a entire blog post, because most of them never seem to keep my attention often boring and full of nonsense. But your first paragraph was extremely well written and so interesting. So bravo! Keep up the good work!