Friday, February 29, 2008

On the mend...:)

To say that this week has been a long one would be an understatement. What started out as laryngitis on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday morphed into a giant headcold and cough as of Wednesday and has persisted until now. The worst part of it has been that, as a result of first not being able to breath because my lungs were inflamed and then not being able to breath because my nose was sufficiently plugged up has been not sleeping. I would say that, before last night, I had not really slept deeply or for more than 30 minutes at a time in over a week. However, last night, thanks to a brief phone conversation with my mother to ensure that I would not do myself any serious harm, I took two CapsiFlu (the closest equivalent to NyQuil here and does not work NEARLY as well...I would have KILLED for some NyQuil this week!) AND a Benadryl and fell right off to sleep. And, for the first time in over a week, I woke up to the sound of my alarm, rahter than lying awake for hours and then turning it off before it even had a chance to go off. It was heaven. One more such night of blissful slumber and I think I will be good to go, which is a good thing, since we leave bright and early tomorrow morning for four days in the Cloud Forest!

My experience with illness has been educational, to say the least. In addition to my experience with Ecuadorean doctors and their preferred method of treating illness here, I learned that Ecuadorean tissues are incredible things. I went through easily four little packets of tissues in a day, but don´t let this reflect on their quality (but rather on the amazing rate at which my nose was running), because they are, in fact, far superior to the ones in the US. Whereas the little packs of tissues that you can buy and fit in your pocket in the US, the ones I got here, I discovered upon pulling one out of its package, are like actual handkerchiefs! Super thick and HUGE and soft...not like the little sheets of rough toilet paper-like travel tissues in the US....What can I say, when your nose has been a faucet for three days straight, you take pleasure in such things as this. :)

I have also discovered, through my bout with illness, that whereas before being sick my Spanish had been improving to the point where I was largely understandable most of the time and could likewise understand other people fairly well, once my head was fogged my congestion, lack of sleep, and cold medication, I was completely incapable of making any sense (in any language). For example, when I stumbled upstairs on Monday morning and collapsed on the couch after mumbling to my mother, "Necesito...medico...por favor..." my mother asked me where my cell phone was so she could get the numbers of my academic directors from it. I gave a perfectly reasonable answer, "In my room...uuuuggghhh..." My mother responded, "¿Que?" so I repeated what I had just said, to which she asked again, "¿Que?" Only then did I realize I had been speaking English, without realizing, and while I had been looking at her like she was crazy for not understanding me, she was looking at me like I was crazy because, quite rightly, she couldn´t. I managed to make it through the rest of the week pretending like I understand what my mother was saying to me, though most of the time the words she was saying were not coming close to penetrating my congestion-fogged brain. And most of the time, when I attempted to respond, it was in some form of Spanglish...Spanglish: the language of the infirm.

ANYWAY, enough of illness: despite being sick, I did not allow that to prevent me from missing our class field trip to Saquisili yesterday, which was awesome. Saquisili is a little town with a HUGE outdoor market where you can buy...almost anything. The assignment was this: each student was assigned an ingredient of some sort and we had to buy that ingredient at the market and then make a typical Ecuadorean food with it and bring it to class to share with everyone today. I was assigned harina de trigo (flour), which was fairly easy to find. I bought two pounds for $0.70 and then walked around the rest of the market with some friends to help them find their ingredients and just explore.

Part of the assignment was that were supposed to try to barter and lower the price, but I didn´t since I felt like trying to get a lower price than $0.70 for two pounds of flour would be kind of a, well, kind of an jerky thing to do. It was the same with my friend--she bought ten tomatoes for a dollar and didn´t attempt to barter, since lower than $0.10 per tomato seemed unneccesary. Once our foods were purchased, we walked around the rest of the market. There were fruits we did not recognize, every vegetable you could imagine, different types of grain, rice, and ANIMALS! You want a chicken to cook for dinner tonight? You can buy two for $5 and of the freshest kind, too (as in, still clucking!). Rabbit? Fish? Sheep? Llama? Guinea pig (and nope, these ones WERE NOT being sold as pets!)? You can get them all, nice and fresh and still breathing (well, except the fish) at the market in Saquisili!

Now, the bargaining did come into play when get got to the artesans´market. Here, there were lots of really cool crafts, clothes, artwork, the price of which all depended on how hard you bargained. I got some artwork, originally $18 but bargained down to $13, an alpaca scarf (from $15 for one to two scarves for $15), and a little doll dressed as the indigenous women who work at the market for $2 (I did not bargain too hard about that one). All in all, a very fun, very busy, very exhausting day!

I was exhausted on the bus ride home, but did stay awake long enough to get my first glimpse of the volcano Cotopaxi from my window. It was very majestic and it was obvious, even though it was surrounded by mountains and hills all around, that this was Cotopaxi, because it rose up far above the others and the clouds hid the top. It was also very cool, because though it was raining where we were in the valley driving home, we could see where snow was falling on the highest mountain peaks around us.

This morning, I got up SUPER early to make my dish with my flour for class. I had gone over to a friend´s house last week and made empanadas, so, since I was familiar with them and it is a fairly simple recipe, that is what I made (though with my host mom´s help!). It was really funny, though, because, after we had finished folding the queso into the empanadas and my mother was frying them, she kept saying, "Oh, these are going to be so good...so much better than Blancy´s..." Blancy was the mother of my friend that we had made empanadas with the week before. Blancy and my mother are relations (not exactly sure how, though) and apparently, there is a bit of a rivalry when it comes to cooking. I just stood next to her, catching the empanadas in a basket as they finished frying, and nodded my head.

Our feast at school was very fun and a welcome break from the grueling hours of Spanish class that we normally have every day. Everyone made pretty amazing food (all except, perhaps, for one of the guys, whose ingredient was some sort of bean and which he cooked to an impenetrable, tooth-shattering hardness). After school, I made a quick trip to the ferreteria (hardware store) to buy some rubber boots for our excursion into the rainforest this weekend and then went over to some friends´houses for lunch. I had never really been to their houses before and all I can say is, WOW! I thought I had it good--their houses are nicer than many I have seen in the US, including my own! Internet, TVs in every bedroom, polished wood and marble everywhere! And my friends´rooms--WOW. Just, WOW. However, even though I would be lying if I said I did not feel any jealousy, I think it is for the best that I don´t have a TV in my room or Internet access in my house here. I will be the first to admit that I was addicted to my technology back home: my iPod, my laptop, my TV, all of it. But here, without those things, I have been forced to do, for the first time, something I have not done in a while: read for fun. Instead of surfing on my computer for hours every night, I go to my room and read (though it is really going to suck once I finish my book, since I have no others and English books or bookstores of any kind, really, are in short supply here). In the end, it is for the best, I think, that things are the way they are...though I will definitely be happy to have my iPod back when I get back to the States!

Well, tomorrow is the Cloud Forest! I will take tons of pictures and let you all know how to goes after I return next Tuesday! Take care and I love and miss you all!

-Alex

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Just one little shot...

So, the first week of classes is over. I can tell my Spanish is improving a great deal, though there were some frustrating moments during class this week (mainly because, for a while, I felt like I needed to be in a more advanced class than I was placed into, but it´s gotten better now). Friday I went shopping with my sister, Silvana, at the mall and then actually spent the rest of my Friday night just hanging out, talking to my host brother and mother and watching a telenovela. It was really fun, though, because I realized over the course of the night that it was actually becoming much easier to understand and speak in Spanish. Nice to know I am making some progress.

Saturday was, in a word, nuts. I met about 8 other people from my program and took a bus to Ilahlo (spelling?), this giant mountain visible from my house in the valley. It is beautiful and has a giant cross on the top. One of the girl´s host dads came with us...and that´s where it kinda went downhill. Because instead of taking the slightly easier trail up Ilahlo, which has a lot of switchbacks, he decided to lead us up the slightly less well-known, INSANE trail up the mountain. This one LITERALLY went straight up the ENTIRE time and, not only that, but, due to the recent rain, was at many points swamped with mud! Needless to say, I really broke in my new hiking shoes, which are now completely coated in dried mud from this trip.

It pains me to admit that, about halfway up the mountain, I literally could NOT continue. Besides the fact that I was red-faced, drenched in sweat, and completely out of breath, I finally had to sit down because my head had begun to spin a bit. My friend, Nicky, had stopped as well because her knee had begun to bother her. Two host brothers that had accompanied their sisters on the trip were the last in our group and stopped once they caught up with Nicky and I. We decided that, despite feeling weak and lame for doing so, we absolutely could not continue, and the two Ecuadorean brothers, being the true machistas that they are, offered to escort us down the mountain (really, I think they were OVERJOYED to have an excuse to stop).

So I did not manage to see the top of the mountain this time, but had we taken the regular, SANE trail, I know we all could have made it. Later that night, slightly recovered from my hour and a half long stairmaster adventure up the mountain, I went out with my host sisters and their friends to a bar in Quito called the Western. After a couple drinks there, we went to a Karaoke bar, where I discovered that there a terrible karaoke singers in all languages, apparently. However, we did listen to two rather astounding renditions of Guns and Roses songs by some Ecuadorean guy who proved to be absolutely incredible!

OK, so the next day, it REALLY went downhill. I woke up with a sore throat, but attributed it to the smoke from the bar the night before. Well, NO. By that night, I could barely talk and I woke up early the next morning with the rather panicked feeling of not being able to really breath. So my host mother whisked me off to the doctor on Monday morning, where I was diagnosed with laryngitis and received antibiotics, an anti-in flammatory, and a GIANT shot...in my ass. My academic director, Lenore, later told me that in Latin America, they don´t think you can really get better unless you get a shot in the ass for everything.

I feel slightly better today, but definitely taking it easy. I knew that sooner or later, I´d have a terrible day...or a few...and I have. But things will get better...just as soon as I am no longer taking these terrible antibiotics (soooo NAUSEOUS as a result!) and my ass is no longer sore from that shot. :)

Hasta luego,
ç
Alex

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Que Chevere!

Hola todos!



Wow! It has been crazy the past few days! But let´s begin where I last left off. So on Valentine´s Day night, I ended up agreeing to go out for "just one drink" with a few friends at a bar in Quito, planning to return early to get a good night´s sleep before meeting my host family the following afternoon...that didn´t exactly happen. One drink and an early night turned into me staying out and dancing at my first discoteca until the wee hours! I had every intention of turning in early, but as my friends and I were leaving the bar (where I had my very first Irish coffee--that one´s for Poppop) we happened to run into some other girls from the program, who were out with two Ecuadorean guys that they had met at a Q&A panel of Ecuadorean students we had had earlier that day. So my original group split in half, with me and a couple other going with these girls and their Ecuadorean friends to dance.



The first dance club we went to was way out of our league to put it mindly--the couples on the dance floor were doing salsa like I had never seen before. It was incredible! So we just kind of stayed and stared for a while before our Ecuadorean friends showed us to another dance club, this one much more friendly to our gringita (translation: bad) dancing. We stayed there for a while, dancing and having a wonderful time. And it is at this point that I have to mention where the machista culture here does come in handy.



One of our academic directors, Lenore, had warned us that the widely held stereotype here is that gringas are easy and promiscuous. However, the stereotypical machista male, while they are often the ones who are giving us gringas the unwanted attention, can also turn around and be our greatest asset, because a good machista guy would never allow a woman in distress to be harrassed without coming to her rescue. Case in point: there were numerous times throughout the evening where guys might come up to try to dance with us, offer us a drink (which you will be happy to know, thanks to our orientation by our academic advisors and just good old common sense, we gave an emphatic, "Hell no and get away from me!" to! However, any time a guy seemed to get a bit too insistent or would not leave us alone, our two new Ecuadorean friends were quick to step up, get in the guy´s face, and tell him to back off. Lenore had told us we would never be safer than when we were with an Ecuadorean guy we could trust and she was definitely right.



ANYHOW, so at midnight, one of the girls with us pointed out that it was now officially my birthday. And to celebrate, our Ecuadorean friends insisted on buying me my very own $3.00 box of wine (insert whatever disgusted noise you wish here--"blah!" "gag," "ugh," etc.). But hey, I will NEVER in my life forget my 21rst birthday, being serendaded on the street in Quito by two drunk Ecuadoreans and a bunch of gringitas, all while holding my very own box of wine.



So, after a while, some of us had grown tired, while other girls in our group were, shall we say, living up to every negative stereotype of gringas here. So those of us with at least a moderate degree of intelligence decided to head back to the hotel, while the ones who were not so sure they wanted to spend the night back at the hotel but rather with our new Ecuadorean friends stayed out.



The next day, officially my birthday, was largely spent waiting around for the time for us to meet our host families. I dropped my an Internet cafe, had lunch with some girls at a cute (but very tourist-y) cafe, and bought a dozen roses for my host family for a $1.00 (!), as it is tradition to present your host family with flowers. At around 2:30, we gathered in the meeting room in our hotel where my academic directors presented me with a birthday cake and everyone sang happy birthday to me. It was chocolate-cherry, with chocolate candy hearts and rolls on top and a candle of the number 1 (for the first day of the rest of my life, as Lenore said). It was a really good cake, but unfortunately, I think I was so excited to meet my host family, I had sort of lost my appetite, but managed to eat at least a little so as not to offend Lenore and Faba.



FINALLY, we all loaded our things onto the bus and headed to the valley of Los Chillos to meet our families. The bus ride seemed to take forever, but finally we rounded and corner and saw a huge crowd of people standing in front of a church, all with balloons and posters and things. I was towards the back of the bus, so by the time I got out, people were hugging and kissing and chattering away in Spanish all around me with their newfound daughters and sons. Finally, somewhere in the crowd, I heard, "Feliz cumpleaños, Alejandra!" I turned around and a girl with short, dark hair, holding bunches of balloons in her hands, swept me up in a giant hug. She introduced herself as my host sister, Silvana, and handed me my balloons, on which they had drawn smiley faces and my name. Next I got a huge hug from my mom, Magdalena, and my other sister, Nathaly. I handed them the roses and they helped me shove all my things in the back of their car. And we were off!



Their house, as with most houses here, was surrounded on all sides by a huge, concrete wall. We pulled up and they pushed a button (like those to open your garage) to open the huge double doors as we came in. A yellow lab (la Bocha, as I found out she is called) greeted us, wagging her tail frantically. Their house is MUCH larger than I expected. They showed me inside and I was in awe of everything around me. Huge, high ceilings, dark brown tile floors, paintings all over the walls...very Spanish. They showed me through each room of the house, then led me around to the back of the house to the patio (which is by far my favorite part of the whole place). The patio has no real roof, except for the vines that grow up and over it to create a ceiling of leaves and intertwining plant limbs. There is swing and hammock and a place for barbecues, and there are plants and flowers EVERYWHERE (my host mother LOVES gardening and gets up at 6:00am every day to walk and tend her garden). The patio looks out over a HUGE yard with a soccer field and tons of trees, almost all with things you can eat growing on them--oranges, lemons, HUGE avocadoes, apples.



My room is back here, just off the patio. It is completely separated, more or less, from the rest of the house, as it is only accessible from the door off the patio. At one time, it may have been the servant´s quarters, but it is much larger and nicer than anything I was expecting! I even have my own bathroom, which is crazy! It is really strange, though, going back to my room at night to go to bed and being so alone--no cell phone, laptop, music, iPod, nothing. But I kind of like it. Just cause it feels strange does not make it bad, for sure.



That first night was all a blur--I met my host brother, Javier, just before we were all whisked off to the mall (and by mall, I mean this enormous, brand new mall that would rival a lot of malls back home, for sure) for icecream to celebrate my birthday. However, as soon as I got mine, I was suddenly not hungry and did not know why, but I think it was just all the excitement. But I still made myself eat a little for fear of offending them.



We went back home after that and I ran down into my room to change out of my skirt and into pants, as it had gotten cold. But when I returned up to the main part of the house, I was greeted by a ton of new faces and there was one of my classmates, Kari, sitting nervously on the couch. Apparently, her homestay family is related to mine so we are now cousins! That first night, we were interrogated in Spanish on EVERYTHING, from religion to politics to when we were going to get married and how many babies we wanted. And the whole thing ended with them insisting Kari and I get up and practice our salsa dancing.



Once everyone left, I was EXHAUSTED and went straight to bed. The next day was fairly laid back--I accompanied my mother and sister on an expedition to the market in the colonial part of Quito (GORGEOUS architecture!) to see if we could find a new refrigerator, since apparently ours was broken. On our way home, we stopped at the recreational club my family and Kari´s family belong to--the recreational and sports club for the lawyers in the province. It was nice and peaceful, with tennis, soccer, basketball, and volleyball courts and a pool. Kari´s host dad taught her and I how to play "volley" here--similar to the US, but the net is way higher and you can sort of catch the ball briefly before hitting it back.



After playing at the club for a while, we all piled into Kari´s host dad´s GIANT van and headed to Quito, where apparently their son is a cadet at the military academy and we were going to pick him up for the weekend. When we got there, Kari´s dad apparently knows "el Capitan" there, so the captain gave us a tour of the entire compound and let us take pictures (which I found out later, apparently, is NOT allowed under normal circumstances). The captain was really nice and had apparently spent some time at West Point to learn English, among other things, and he tried to practice it with us, mainly I think because he was not sure we could understand him in Spanish (which we could, more or less). He was VERY nice, though, and when we visited the stables and the horses, asked us seriously if we would like to ride the horses. Even though it was a very nice offer, we had to politely decline.



When we finally got home, I was exhausted and spent another night going to bed fairly early and sleeping like a rock. Sunday was fairly laidback--I went to my host brother´s futbol (aka. soccer) game and then spent the afternoon hanging out with my host brother at home and watching bootleg copies of the movies Chicago and Meet the Fockers (in English, with Spanish subtitles) with him. I insisted he pick his favorite for us to watch, so he picked out Charlie Chaplin´s "the Circus" ( it is both he and his mother´s favorite). I had never seen it before, but it was very fun to watch with them.



Yesterday was my first day of classes, which was fairly relaxed. Five hours of Spanish class each day will be tough, but my Spanish will improve in no time, for sure! The greatest excitement came when I took the bus home. I have to take two different buses to get to school and home and after the first bus on the way home, I got a little lost trying to find my other bus. I asked a lady for help and she was very nice and pointed out my bus for me. Once I got on (aka. ran and leapt on right as it was pulling away from the curb!), the bus was VERY crowded and it was tearing down the street, very quickly nearing my stop but I did not have my money out. So there I am, this gringa sliding all over the place and running into people, trying to get my money out and signal the driver that I need to get off. It was insane. And when I finally walked through the door to find my whole host family having lunch, all I could get out when they asked me how the day was, "El autobus...¡Que loco!" followed by me bursting into laughter at the thought of how I had probably looked to everyone on the bus.



After almuerzo and a little trip into Quito, my host brother and I played Clue with our mom, which was fun. I brought Mancala and am going to try to teach Javier how to play that, since he seems to like games and things.



On another note, the food here had been AWESOME. And not just the food, but the schedule, too. Every morning, Magdalena gives us fresh pan (bread), a hard-boiled egg or milk or fresh cheese, and tea. Lunch is the biggest meal and is usually soup, rice with chicken or beef or ensalada (we had a pickled beet and onion ensalada one day, which was awesome!), and fresh juice (pineapple, tree tomato, mora, orange, etc.). Dinner is very light, usually just some pan and tea.



And lastly, to explain the title of this post: I discovered within five minutes of being in the car with my host family on Friday that the equivalent of saying something is cool or awesome here in Ecuador is "Chevere!" or "Que chevere!" I have not had the courage to actually say it myself, just because it feels so weird to say it because I am so painfully aware of not being a native-speaker and just how strange it sounds coming out of a gringa´s mouth. But I will say it...eventually. :)



It occurred to me the other night, while I was reading in the quiet and solitude of my room, how truly exhausting, frustrating, irritating, and maddening trying to learn another language is. I have never been in this position before, being the foreigner, the person other people stare at and laugh at when you say something that totally does not make sense. And it is even more frustrating because, a lot of time, I KNOW it does not make sense and I know what I want to say and can´t. But it ALSO occurred to me, in the quiet of my room, that there is no doubt in my mind that this, while one of the hardest things I have ever done, is totally and unquestionably, worth it.

Ciao!

-Alex

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Oh, and by the way...

I forgot to mention: guess what a P.E. class in Ecuador entails? Running up a freaking mountain! Yeah, I forgot about it when I wrote earlier, but on our way to Nanegalito today, we were driving along and suddenly, all along the side of the rode, were kids in matching green track uniforms from a local high school running up the mountainside. And they were spread out for miles, from the bottom to the top...I am pretty sure if that had been my P.E. experience in high school, I would have been incredibly in shape...or passed out in a ditch on the roadside somewhere. :)

Back in Quito...

Hola todos!

I just got back to Quito after an incredibly exciting day exploring around the Ecuadorean countryside. Today was sort of the culmination of our orientation this week, kind of a final test of everything we had gone over: the Drop-Off. For this activity, we were divided into groups of three or four and each group was assigned a different village. We had to leave early this morning and find out how to get to our village and, once there, find out about the village and its inhabitants, have lunch, and then find out way back to Quito. It was enlightening, to say the least.

My group was assigned the village of Nanegalito. We left the Hotel Alegre early this morning and hiked up to the main road to wait for a bus to take us to the Midal del Mundo. From there, we had to catch another bus to Nanegalito. However, as we soon discovered, the buses in Ecuador are a tricky thing. There are signs for the bus stops here, but that does not necessarily mean that it is where the bus stops. People sort of line up all over the block near the curb and when the bus comes, it does not exactly stop. It kind of slows down and you have to run, as we discovered, to catch it. And getting off is even more harrowing, since the bus does not stop then either and if you want to get off, you have to go up to the front of the bus and sort of hang out the door and throw yourself out.

So, when our bus came roaring down the street, we started running and waving to catch it and they slowed down. But then Alec, one of the people in my group, sort of stopped half in and half out while he tried to ask the guy that takes your money at the front of the bus if this was indeed the right bus. The guy and the driver, being rather annoyed at us stupid gringos for slowing down the whole operation, nodded emphatically and yanked Alec aboard, followed by the rest of us.

Once at the Midal del Mundo, we leapt off and waited on a corner where other people seemed to be waiting. Finally, not a bus but rather a little van pulled up and the driver yelled that he was going to Nanegalito. There were already a lot of people in there and we were skeptical that we would all fit, but the driver insisted that yes, we could all fit, and proceeded to help all four of us to cram into the seat in the very back of the van. Once in, we took off down the winding road toward Nanegalito.

The ride took a little more than an hour, but it was never boring and I actually was not even very aware of being crammed up against the window with a metal pole sticking in my back. The view was, in a word, spectacular. San Antonio, while beautiful, was more desert-like and not especially green. But as we drove through the mountains, everything outside quickly appeared brilliantly green. I cannot do justice to the sight of those mountains, covered in thick, twisting, intertwining vegetation. EVERYTHING was green, every space, except the clouds spreading their fingers over the mountaintops here and there.

When we finally reached Nanegalito and emerged from our cramped quarters, the air was obviously different--warm and thick and humid whereas in San Antonio it was dry. It was very cloudy and overcast, but the brightly colored buildings and the brilliant green countryside kept it from being at all gloomy. As soon as the van pulled away and we had a moment to look around, it was obvious that this little town did not get too many gringos. It is so funny here--people stare at you obviously, not trying to hide their obvious curiosity whatsoever. I have never felt so out of place in my life, but, as one of the girls in my group pointed out, "I would look like an outsider and I would look out of place no matter what I tried to do or what I tried to wear, so why worry about it...it is what it is." Nevertheless, I feel furthest from home when I am walking around and people are staring at me because I so obviously do not fit in. And I do not necessarily mean that in a bad way or that it upsets me (it actually does not)--it just leaves me with no doubt that I am definitely in a foreign country and that here, for the first time in my life, I am the foreigner.

We walked around Nanegalito for a while and discovered through talking with a very nice lady that Nanegalito is famous for its orchids. And as further proof of that fact, when we walked up this huge hill we came upon this compound where a school was being constructed and, according to the sign, was a gift from Japan of all places. But when we thought about it, it seemed to make sense that Japan would invest in the "orchid capital of the world." In fact, we were looking at the gardens in the main square and at the roads and I think that the only reason the roads in town were paved and the only reason they had such beautiful gardens in their main city square was because of past "gifts from Japan."

Part of our assignment was also to buy an object that we had not seen before or that seemed interesting, so we ended up buying this giant seed pod from a lady that was selling them by the road, as well as some other really funky looking yellow fruits. After we had finished our observations and other assignments, we went to find a restaurant for lunch. This was truly our first real experience (and gamble, really) with Ecuadorean food in a restaurant. Until then, all our food was prepared at the Hotel Alegre and we were assured of its safety so there was no doubt or fear in eating it. Here, we were faced with the challenge of picking a restaurant that hopefully would not make us sick. We ended up picking what was probably the closest to being a tourist-y restaurant, but we did not care so long as it was safe.

As we discovered, in a lot of restaurants here, there is no menu really. There is a set breakfast, lunch, and dinner that they serve everyone. So all we did was go in, sit down, and before we knew it, giant bowls of steaming soup were in front of us with glasses of fresh juice. The soup would have normally been enough for me for lunch, but here, lunch is the main meal of the day, which I am still adjusting to. So we had this soup, with tons of cilantro, yuca, corn, and meat and once we were finished with that, we were each given a heaping plate of rice, radish, lettuce, beef with onions, cucumbers, and fried banana. I was still a little hesitant about the vegetables, which were not cooked, but I think it was probably fine, since it was a more tourist-friendly restaurant and when we asked the waitress if the juice was made with "agua purificada," she nodded as though she got this question all the time from the gringos eating there. I could not even coming close to eating everything, but it was delicious. And, get this: it cost all of $1.50! It is definitely going to be a rude awakening coming back to the US where you can´t get a two course meal in a nice restaurant for so cheap...or get most things for under a dollar. I will tell you, though, I really wish I had brought way less large bills and a hell of a lot more ones. Even fives here are sometimes hard to break because people do not have enough change. I do not know what I am going to do with all of my larger bills! But I will figure something out.

After lunch, we caught the bus back to Quito and I am now waiting for our next class session--a Q and A panel with Ecuadorean students--to begin. And tomorrow, I go with my host family to the Los Chillos valley. I found out about my host family yesterday--the mother wrote me a letter on Strawberry Shortcake paper. She is a single mother (divorced, though her husband apparently visits occasionally). She has three kids, though only two live with her. The two that live with her are a son who is 19 and into dancing and sports and a girl who is 20 and into spending time with her friends. I am very excited and curious to meet them, and also kind of excited to just to be in one place, more or less, for a few weeks and not be living out of a bag. :)

I will mention one last thing that I kept thinking about this past week, especially in San Antonio: the number of stray dogs here is incredible. Everywhere we went in San Antonio and in Nanegalito, there were stray dogs lying on the sidewalk dozing or running out in between cars in the road or begging for food from street vendors. It does not bother me too much to walk by them--I just have to remind myself that it is an entirely different culture and view of the way animals are treated (as in, they are treated like animals and not like people the way they are in the US). But it was really hard yesterday because we were all out walking around in the afternoon and, while most street dogs just ignore you, this one followed us all the way from the Midal del Mundo to our hotel and was far more personable and friendly than any other one I had encountered. And it was not like he was begging for food--he just sort of adopted us as we were walking along and followed us all the way home. And when we slipped through the gate into the compound at the hotel, it broke my heart to close the gate in his face after he tried to follow us in. And for a while after we had gone inside, he just sat there, peering at us through the gate. Thank goodness he was gone this morning. Like I said, I know there is nothing I can do about it, but it still breaks my heart to think about that poor dog.

I hope to upload pictures sometime this weekend (MAYBE) if I can find a good Internet cafe in Los Chillos with a fast connection to do it. I will email the site for the pictures to you all. Until then, ciao!

-Alex

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

El Midal del Mundo

Hola chicos!

I have to make this one short, but even though I have only been here since Sunday, all of us on the program agree it has felt like a week or longer! Early Monday morning, we woke up and took a bus to the little town of San Antonio near Quito, where we are spending all of this week at the beautiful Hotel Alegre doing orientation. In between orientation sessions, though, we have been enjoying incredibly gorgeous weather, especially considering this is supposed to be rainy season. Monday we had sun all day, but, despite being on the Equator, it was wonderful--no humidity, a gentle breeze. Even though it is warm, you can somehow be just as comfortable in long pants as your are in shorts.

After our orientation in the morning and an awesome lunch at the hotel, we were all divided into groups of three or four and assigned a location somewhere in San Antonio. We then had to go out, ask random people how to find our location, and once there, ask someone who worked there about the shop, what they sell, who their customers are, etc. My group was assigned the Asilo de Ancianos. Translation: old folks´home. We were all super nervous when we first stepped foot out on the street and wandered in the direction of the main part of town. The first people we saw were two ladies walking along the sidewalk, so, somewhat hesitantly, we went up and asked them, in our probably somewhat hard to understand Spanish, where the Asilo was. Immediately, they nodded--"Ah, si, si!"--and proceeded to lead us up the street. Along the way, they asked us about where we were staying, what we were doing, etc., which we tried to answer as best we could. Finally, we came upon a cast iron fence with a big sign that said "Hogar de Ancianos." We thanked the women profusely and proceeded to ring the doorbell. A little woman came out of the door of the house, walked through the courtyard, and peered at us curiously through the iron bars of the gate.

We tried to explain why we were there and asked if we could ask her a few questions. I do not think we were very clear or understandable, but after a few awkward minutes, she shrugged and let us in. She led us inside and into the sitting room, where a very elderly man with a teethless smile sat, looking at us curiously, and a young man and a boy were watching TV. We sat on the couch and asked the woman our questions--how long she had worked there (25 years), how many people lived there (16), etc. It only took us five minutes to run out of questions so, after thanking her, we were escorted back out on the street.

Looking back on it, it is obvious just from those brief interactions that, generally, what people say about Ecuadoreans is true--that they are truly friendly, nice people. I cannot help but think that, had the roles been reversed and four strange Hispanic people had appeared at someone´s door in the US and had not spoken very good English, I am skeptical that the door would not have been slammed in their faces.

After everyone had returned, we all talked about where we had been and what we had seen and then we had the pleasure of a salsa lesson. An incredibly vivacious, friendly, funny woman named Orianna and a very nice, funny man named Diego were our teachers and taught us the basic steps to salsa. While I cannot claim to be an expert, I think that now I could at least get by in a salsa club if necessary.

After dinner, I was absolutely EXHAUSTED and fell asleep within five seconds of hitting the pillow.

Today was another gorgeous, sunny day with a gentle breeze. We spent most of it, unfortunately, doing orientation indoors, but it was informative and interesting nonetheless--the different gender roles here, the role of machismo (which is obvious anytime any of us gringas walks down the street, we´ve discovered), cons and ways people will try to steal your stuff. Once our orientation was over, however, we all walked through town and up this huge hill to the Midal del Mundo at its peak. It was gorgeous--a huge stone monument with 0 degrees latitude and longitude carved in it and all around, the mountains rose up through thick, white clouds that cascaded over them.

The rest of the week promises to be very busy and I am looking forward to meeting my homestay family on Friday. Until then, orientation continues.

On a side note, though we have been in a bubble somewhat in terms of cuisine since all our food has been through the Hotel Alegre thus far, Ecuadorean food has proven to be INCREDIBLE. Lots of fish, chicken, rice, salsa, flan, icecream (but the best icecream I have ever tasted!), vegetables...my favorite so far has to have been the tomatoes stuffed with tuna and veggies that we had at lunch today. :)

Everyone take care and I love you all.

-Alex

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Arrival in Quito!

Well, I am finally in Ecuador! And how glorious it is! I flew to Miami last night, which was an experience. The Miami International Airport is huge and insanely busy, with people from all different countries and speaking all different languages all around. I managed to get my bags from baggage claim and haul them to the Airport Hotel (though I must admit, I was cursing myself the entire time for packing so much). At the hotel check-in, I happened to meet two girls that were also on my program--Sarah from New York and Jessica from Oregon. We all agreed to meet back in the lobby after dropping our bags in our rooms and go off in search of some dinner. A really nice bell hop (who, as I discovered, was from Costa Rica) helped me with my stuff and I got at least a little practice speaking Spanish to him on my way up to my room. Now, I must point out here that, contrary to what a certain former-boss of mine told me, my hotel room was in fact normal size and had a bed (and was not a Japanese-style pod hotel as was suggested!).

Unfortunately, by the time Jessica, Sarah, and I went back downstairs, most restaurants in the airport were closed so we were forced to go up to the hotel restaurant which, while nice, was way more expensive than what we had been looking for. But beggars can´t be choosers, so no worries.

We all woke up painfully early this morning (at 3:30AM!!!) and went down to check in to our flight to Quito, which is where we all finally got to meet and get a good look at the people we would be spending the next few months with. I had not know what to expect when we got on the flight to Ecuador, but it turned out to be the nicest airplane I have ever been on (though my experience is limited, admittedly). We were in economy class, but the seats were fairly big and we each had our own little TV and remote to pick whatever we wanted to watch, which was very cool. Though, to be honest, I fell asleep about fifteen minutes into whatever movie it was I had selected.

After arriving in Quito, we all gathered our bags and met Fabian, one of our program directors, at the entrance to the airport. Once assembled, he led us outside and into the amazing city of Quito. Quito is truly a breathtaking city (actually, it is quite literally breathtaking, considering that at 9000 feet it can be quite hard to catch your breath!). The city is in the mountains and narrow, but long and spread out, as it is nestled between the mountain peaks with a huge, impressive-looking range of volcanoes on one side. And we were fortunate enough to walk out to a bright, sunny sky, which is rare this time of year, being rainy season. I am not at all embarrassed to say that I was not at all shy about looking like a tourist--while our bags were being loaded into the bus that would take us to our hotel, I broke out my camera and started taking pictures of everything!

After a winding bus ride through the city, our faces glued to the windows of the bus, we arrived on a narrow street where our hotel, the Alston Inn, is located. Lenore, our other program director, greeted us there. We all hauled our bags into the hotel and were assigned rooms. Once our bags were dumped in our rooms, we met Lenore and Fabian upstairs in a little meeting room where they introduced themselves and told us about what to expect for the coming weeks.

We are spending the night at the Alston Inn tonight and tomorrow, bright and early, we will be leaving to go to see the actual Ecuator and see some other tourist-y sites. We return to our hotel in Quito on Thursday and Friday, we go to the Los Chillos valley, which is about 40 minutes from Quito, to meet and go home with our homestay families. Then, for the next four weeks, we will live with them in the Los Chillos valley while we attend our Intensive Language Class from 8:00 Am to 1:00PM every day (!). With five hours of Spanish every day, I have no doubt my Spanish will improve pretty quickly! Once that session is up, we move in with our homestay families in Quito for the next four weeks, where we will begin to Culture and Development Seminar portion and also where, since our Spanish will hopefully be better by then, we will have a bit more freedom to explore.

After we had introductions and a bit of orientation, we had lunch delivered--fresh-made, absolutely delicious tamales! And we were STARVING, which made them even better.

I will try to update this blog at least once a week (and, as is evidenced by how surprisingly easy it was for me to find an Internet cafe my first day here, I should hopefully be able to do so). Take care and I love and miss you all!

-Alex