Tomebamba Tea Party

Today we left our host families in Guayaquil and hit the road for Cuenca. We traveled for about 4 hours over and through the Andes east of Guayaquil (and a little south) to reach our next city. Marco Claudio Patino, the past President and our host families met us at the Tomebamba Rotary Office. We will be staying in Cuenca for 2 nights and this time none of us are being housed together.

In the early evening, we each went with the wife of our host family to the Wives of the Rotarians’ meeting. Like Guayaquil, not many women are actual Rotarians but they are allowed to participate in their own functions and be associated with the Rotary Club. Once a month, 4 of the women in the club make snacks and sweets to serve at a tea after one of their meetings. Our arrival coincided with this month’s meetings where the 4 American wives in the club were cooking, so we had the pleasure of enjoying afternoon tea.

Tomorrow we are being bused around to three different schools. Two of them are fiscal (public) schools and the last is another Rotary school. We are looking forward to visiting the schools and seeing all that there is to see.